FERRY NECK & DORCHESTER COUNTY, February 6-10, 2012.  Thousands of swans, geese & ducks.  Liz & Harry Armistead.  
  
FEBRUARY 6, MONDAY.  151 Turkey Vultures on the way down from Philadelphia.  Good Red-tailed Hawk turnout, too.  A Red Fox near Hope.  Arrive at Rigby’s Folly 2:45 P.M., Fair, SW 5-10, 50-45°F., tide high, c. ½ foot above normal.  
  
Seen from our dock, mostly in Irish Creek: Canvasback 430, Ruddy Duck 595, Lesser Scaup 8, Tundra Swan 13, American Wigeon 2, Mallard 2, Red-breasted Merganser 1ø, Common Goldeneye 7 & Bufflehead 81 plus 17 Ring-billed Gulls and 40 American Crows.  A good waterfowl showing.  At the head of the cove an immature Red-shouldered Hawk is at rest in an oak. 
  
FEBRUARY 7, TUESDAY.  A day of 22,000± waterfowl.  Clear, 40-55°F., winds NW5-10+ m.p.h., becoming calm at day’s end.  Warmish.  46°F. at 6:30 P.M.  A gem weatherwise. 
  
In the morning, Liz and I go to ‘Loblolly’ on the NW side of Irish Creek, where the gracious, friendly caretaker enables us to obtain close looks at the big waterfowl flock.  My estimate of the can and ruddy numbers today are, to tell the truth, what I plug in for yesterday’s.  It’s fun to listen to the very vocal Canvasbacks’ gentle mewing contact calls.   
  
In a nearby field an adult Red-tailed Hawk is tearing chunks out of an unidentified carcass while 4 Turkey Vultures watch at a respectable distance … some kind of pecking order on display.  ‘Loblolly’ is c. ¾ mile from Rigby’s Folly by water, 6.35 miles by the roads, a typical Talbot County situation due to its tortuous shorelines.  Back at the house an impressive ♂ Hairy Woodpecker at close range is at work on a large, fallen Red Maple log next to the woodpile.  I try to commit to memory the pattern and nature of its excavation holes.    
  
At noon from our dock: 1 immature & 1 adult Bald Eagle, a Sharp-shinned & a Red-tailed Hawk, and 7 Turkey Vultures. 
  
After lunch it’s off to Dorchester to visit 7 spots briefly:   
  
1.  Choptank River W of the Malkus Bridge.  There’s a huge flock of Snow Geese maybe ½ a mile away at 1:08 P.M. but I can’t do a decent estimate w/o stopping illegally.  Perhaps 5000, maybe more.  They’re so densely-packed and uniform they put one mind in mind of an extensive tabular iceberg.  Later in the day I’ll see them again, from Oakley Street at 2:45 P.M., and once more from the bridge at 5:59 P.M. as an impressive full moon rises, seemingly, out of the upper Choptank River drainage system, the sunlight fades, and winds have become dead calm.  Beautiful.  
  
  
This past fall the most FAQ I got was: “Isn’t it getting late for Ospreys.” (No, it wasn’t)  This winter it has been: “Where are the Snow Geese?” (They’re here … finally) 
  
2.  Egypt Road.  The fields are empty as they’ve been most of the winter.  American Kestrel 2, an adult Red-shouldered Hawk, one of the most beautiful birds, is perched on a low sapling near the Malkus Farm, Horned Lark 1, and an adult Bald Eagle is on its nest E of the junction of Old Field and Egypt roads.  The speed trap mechanism on the N end near the school is not in place (but may return?).   
  
3.  Blackwater N.W.R. 1:45-2:45 P.M.  A quick transit of Wildlife Drive.  The 7 American White Pelicans are perhaps 2 miles away out on the Blackwater River as is another huge flock of Snow Geese and 315 Common Mergansers.  Within the impoundments are 55 Northern Shovelers and a mere 24 Tundra Swans, 8 Northerpn Pintails, 4 Great Blue Herons.  10 Bald Eagles.  1 Painted Turtle, 1 unID’d sulphur.  Don’t see the Forster’s Terns which seemed to be on the verge of overwintering earlier, in January.  2 distant marsh fires off to the SE; it’s the time of year when marsh burning is all the rage, for better, or, as I suspect, for worse.  Maybe 5000 each of Canada and Snow geese.   
  
4.  Maple Dam Road.  Nothing of consequence. 
  
5.  Oakley Street, Cambridge.  3:15-3:30 P.M.  Still not a great spectacle of Canvasbacks but there are 290 plus 285 Lesser Scaup, 12 American Wigeon (the males whistling away), and 40 Mallards. .  I toss out a big bucketsworth of deer corn.  The cans are so intent on this they are silent.  As often as not one sees photographers here instead of birders, the case today.  2 distant Bald Eagles flush part of the immense Snow Goose flock.  1 Double-crested Cormorant; years ago they were unheard of in winter in Dorchester County.  28 Turkey Vultures in sight across the Choptank in Talbot County.     
  
6.  Hurlock Wastewater Treatment Plant.  Loaded with fowl.  I am glad not to have scared any of them away by the time I leave: 1655 Tundra Swans, 135 Ring-necked Ducks, 740 Canada, 16 Snow & 1 Blue goose, 4 Gadwalls, 19 American Wigeon, 2 American Black Ducks, 14 Mallards, 14 Northern Shovelers, a pair of Green-winged Teal, 3 ♂ Buffleheads, and 69 Ruddy Ducks plus 5 American Coots, 55 Ring-billed Gulls, 2 bluebirds, and 80 starlings.  Ruddy Ducks and shovelers seem to be the only waterfowl actively feeding although the ringbills are swimming and dipping their bills in the water in the manner of Bonaparte’s Gulls.   
  
The swans are very vocal; even as I leave small flocks continue to come in.  There’s a lot of slime and mud with some emergent vegetation in it in the NE part of the NW cell that should attract shorebirds in the spring.  Considerable clouds of midges or gnats or whatever they are.  When there’s a local winter record of Northern Rough-winged Swallow I’d bet it would be from here; this January there were numbers in Philadelphia in the vicinity of the sewage plant there, one of whose buildings is named, unceremoniously, the Scum Concentration Building.  George and Nathaniel Kahn found dozens in this area this January.   
  
7.  Snug Harbor Road near Suicide Bridge in NW Dorchester County at 5:30 P.M. there is a huge roost of Ring-billed Gulls forming out in the middle of the Choptank River.  I can’t see all of it without trespassing but what I can see amounts to at least 1,700.  In this area the Quince is blooming already. 
  
On the way back to Rigby’s Folly, in the dark, near Royal Oak: a Red Fox, a Raccoon, and 2 deer (does) plus a biggish moth.  In my absence Liz sees 7 deer and 2 Gray Squirrels plus she hears a Pileated Woodpecker. 
  
FEBRUARY 8, WEDNESDAY.  Overcast, raw, penetratsio, 37-44°F., E5 or calm, very low tide.  Much of the day we spend doing chores in Easton.   
  
An adult ♀ Merlin is perched on the pole in Field 2 (with an imm. Bald Eagle flying behind it as seen through my binoculars), the same pole on which Mel Baughman and I saw one the day Hurricane Isabel pulled away.  Liz and I have several good looks at it from different angles as we go out the driveway.  Other than a Merlin seen on the St. Michaels Christmas Bird Count at Frog Hollow on Dec. 17, 1995, this is the only property record for winter.  Its large size (compared to a ♂), dark gray-brown back, and quite pale but conspicuously-streaked underparts are what make me believe it is an ad. ♀.   
  
It seems to me they’re scarce anywhere in Maryland in winter.  Yes?  By contrast, numbers of them overwinter in some of the big cities of the Canadian prairie provinces.  Years ago Ed Marshall and I saw one perched on a short post when it was 8°F. near Longport, NJ.  Ed had spilled hot coffee on his hand; we stopped so he could pack some snow on it. 
  
Sea watch out at Lucy Point, 2-2:45 P.M.  The Big Field is dry enough so I can drive over it w/o using 4-wheel drive.  Overcast, light rain, calm, 43°F. 9 waterfowl species – 178 Common Goldeneyes (a good count; most of the males engage in courtship behavior and are close enough so it is easy to see that none are Barrow’s Goldeneye; it is unusual, anymore, to see so many goldeneyes, and to see so many of them close in), 35 Long-tailed Ducks, 280 Surf Scoters, 275 Buffleheads, 15 Tundra Swans, 40 Lesser Scaup, 1 ♂ Red-breasted Merganser, 12 Mallards, and 600 Canada Geese plus an adult Great Black-backed Gull & 3 Horned Grebes (first of the year).  See only one workboat.     
  
Late in the day at least 575 Canada Geese come in, c. 3:45 P.M., and graze on the green grasses in the Big Field, staying until after dark.  They gradually work their way NW, shamble, through the field, exhibiting what Bernd Heinrich calls their “gentle swagger,” every so often raising their heads in a stationary, sentinel position, and also engaging in half-hearted lunges at each other.  I can’t see the entire flock from the front porch, and am reluctant to try to get a better vantage point because I don’t want to flush them, so there are probably considerably more than my estimate.  These plus some CGs at Blackwater are the only waterfowl I see in fields this entire visit. 
  
FEBRUARY 9, THURSDAY.  Clear, NW 15-10-5 to SW5, 37-47°F, cool verging on cold.  1600 Canada Geese at the mouth of Irish Creek, where I sit on the bank at Lucy Point, dozing off in the sun occasionally.  5 Black Vultures.  A Brown Creeper.  An adult Bald Eagle.  Although we sometimes see an adult eagle near the Frog Hollow nest, active in 2011, I have yet to notice one IN the nest so far this year.   
  
Do some brush work, clear the overhang and fallen branches from the Irish Creek and Choptank trails as well as along the driveway out to the bend.  Four Gray Squirrels at the deer corn in the yard, each of them fussy.  Sometimes there’s a long incubation period – I first heard part of it in the film ‘Amadeus’ - but this year it really takes hold; I suppose I’ve listened to Mozart’s ‘Great Mass in C minor’ 20 times.  It reminds me of our trip to Churchill, Manitoba, c. 27 years ago.  The Far North has a certain spiritual aspect; this music brings that to mind.      
  
For the first time since 1956 I attend a Talbot Bird Club meeting.  No special reason.  Over the years, especially during my working life, I was very seldom here on a Thursday evening.  This time Dave Brinker gives a stimulating presentation on Maryland Brown Pelicans and Black Skimmers, full of analysis, excellent graphics and charts, and good information.  In 1965 Chan Robbins gave a talk on Maryland’s warblers. 
  
FEBRUARY 10, FRIDAY.  An adult Bald Eagle in the distance soaring over Deep Neck.  Atlantic Chimney Company comes to work on the east chimney.  They find 2 dead squirrels and a starling in the chimney, all the way down towards its base but not in the fireplace.  John Brady, of Atlantic, is at work on an Osprey platform to be erected NW of the dock.  The fields are barren on the way home – no geese or eagles – but we tally 51 Turkey Vultures.  
  
Best to all. – Harry Armistead. 		 	   		   
 
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