Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 10:17:41 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Kent County & Ferry Neck Feb. 17-18 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Kent County, MD, Sun., Feb. 17, 2002, 2-6 P.M. Fair, 50 degrees, winds NW 25-30. The "Alberta Clipper" came through around sunset, blowing a gale. Mill Pond (formed by Mill Creek) N. of Rt. 290 just E. of Galena. 138 Gadwall, 10 N. Shovelers, 8 Mallards. Ducks all paired off. The Gadwall were actively feeding, tipping up. I think this is the biggest group I've ever seen in MD. Rt. 213 X Sassafras River at Georgetown. 21 Black Vultures, 5 Bald Eagles and 2 Red-tailed Hawks. Turner Creek Park & Sassafras Natural Resources Management Area area N. of Rt. 298 and Kennedyville. 5 Bald Eagles, 14 Black Vultures, 12 Snow, 975 Canada and 1 Hutchins' Goose, 2 Horned Larks, 8 Common Mergansers, 1 male Gadwall. Eastern Neck Island N.W.R. 760 Tundra Swan, 120 Am. Black Ducks, 4 Am. Wigeon, 12 Lesser Scaup, 20 Common Goldeneyes, 85 Buffleheads, 4 Red-breasted Mergansers,1 Bald Eagle, 1 harrier, 60 robins. Interesting in view of the gale force NW winds was a pretty steady flight of birds going north off of the island (yet no sign of them farther S. on the island) incl. 25 Mourning Doves, 30 Myrtle Warblers, 675 Red-winged Blackbirds and 850 Common Grackles. A lady volunteer I ran into said there are 4 active Bald Eagle nests on the island and that the Fox Squirrels are not doing at all well there. Also saw 8 deer (does). Some Winter Jellyfish stranded by the very low tide. Ran into Walter Ellison who had seen a Winter Wren plus a Chipping Sparrow, the latter just N. of the refuge. Spectacular, changeable cloudscapes trailing vaporous precipitation that did not reach the ground (what's the proper name for this?). A lovely place to be at sunset with the Annapolis Bay bridges in the distance plus the industrial skyline of east Baltimore in stark contrast to the bucolic settings here. "Rigby's Folly" on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, near Bellevue. Mon., Feb. 18, 2002, 9:30 A.M. - 5:00 P.M. Clear, 31-48 degrees, wind 25 m.p.h. gradually dropping through the day to 5. Very low tide ... there was no high tide all day because of the NW wind. 41 rather hard-earned species incl. 22 Red-breasted Mergansers, 4 Black Vultures, 2 ad. & 1 imm. Bald Eagle (no sign of birds at the nest - they're very hard to see there, almost cryptic, but there was some fresh "hawk chalk" on the ground underneath it.), a juv. harrier that tangled briefly with a juv. red-tail, a Cooper's Hawk, 3 Red-tailed Hawks, 3 Wild Turkeys, a male and a female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (attending to very fresh drillings that appeared just-made in a maple), 1 Fox Sparrow and 120 Slate-colored Juncos (a new property high, the previous being 105 on Jan. 30, 1998). My personal colloquial name for junco is twitterkins, if you will. Big pig-out in the English Ivy with starlings and bluebirds as participants. I also saw a flock of 30 starlings descend onto the rocks of the intertidal zone and begin feeding (on what?). The world may not be ready for starlings in some parts competing for the same food as Purple Sandpipers. Thirdly I saw the starlings also eating Red Cedar berries today. Some Winter Jellyfish washed up here also. 1 Red Fox, 9 deer (does) and 2 Gray Squirrels. Signs of spring. Gray Squirrels feeding on maple buds (I think, unless they were "doing" sap). A Woodchuck s. of Wilmington, my first of the year, seemingly having lost no weight over the winter ... this one makes Punxsatawney Phil look like Slenderella. There are loads of chuck burrows in that area and most of them had fresh diggings piled out front. Some big buds on some daffodils at Eastern Neck and Rigby. Snow Drops have been up for a while in some spots. A Titmouse singing and a Mourning Dove calling today. Thought for today: the importance of our artificial water areas to waterfowl. In view of the preponderance of bad news in recent decades concerning waterfowl, including great declines of pintails, Green-winged Teal and even Canada Geese, consider the existence of hundreds (thousands?) of Maryland farm ponds, dozens of reservoirs, and even a few friendly wastewater treatment plants, none of which existed historically. It seems to me this has not gotten enough play in the wildlife media. For many of the birds raised in the so-called "Duck Bowl" of the prairie states and provinces with their countless prairie potholes these bodies of water in Maryland are a relatively new bonus for them away from their breeding grounds as resting and feeding areas. Virginia has only 2 (two!) natural lakes, Lake Drummond in the Great Dismal Swamp, and Mountain Lake. Does anyone have an idea of how many natural lakes Maryland has? I don't. At the same time I have looked at countless millponds (such as Mill Pond in paragraph 1 above) and farm ponds and often don't see anything. Still, cumulatively they have got to help. John V. Dennis in several articles has pointed out the importance of ponds in densely settled areas to wintering Delmarva waterfowl such as the West Ocean City Pond and Silver Lake in Rehoboth, Delaware. Some of the agencies responsible for waterfowl management have become increasingly political and less oriented to wildlife biology, interested too much in "keeping the duck stamps flying" instead of keeping the ducks flying. But it makes me feel good to realize there is all that fresh water out there that didn't exist in Wilson's or Audubon's time, although I could do without some of the big dams. Still, it doesn't really compensate for the countless prairie potholes that have been filled and drained in the last century or so. Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119-1225. 215-248-4120. 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