Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2002 11:39:37 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Henry Armistead <74077.3176@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Cedar Island & Ferry Neck Dec. 14-15 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Cedar Island, Accomack County, Virginia, Sat., Dec. 14, 2002. This area constitutes a party area of the Wachapreague Christmas Bird Count. 7 A.M. - 5 P.M. Strong winds of 20-35 m.p.h. 40-50 degrees F. Fair but with constantly changing, spectacularly beautiful cloudscapes, including several trailing descending clouds of light precipitation (virga) that for the most part did not reach the ground. Low water all day with official low tide c. 11 A.M. Such conditions made for very poor marsh birding (esp. sparrows, wrens, rails). Ned Brinkley, Michael Male, Jared Sparks and I worked for much of the day as 4 separate sub-parties, Michael and Ned finding most of the most interesting birds, on the north end of Cedar and the south end of Metom(p)kin (the spelling varies) Islands or on the extensive mudflats north of the mouth of Folly Creek. Jared and I walking south on Cedar. I continued on all the way to the new inlet through Cedar, made by a northeaster c. 5 Novembers ago, about 4.5 mi. s. of the n. end of the island. For safety (boating) reasons we were unable to cover the entire island so Jared and I had to double back to the north end, for the most part covering the marsh on the way down (quite easy walking) and the beach going north. I walked 9 miles in hip waders, a fine test of the ageing process that I just barely passed. 3 imm. Brown Pelicans (only the 2nd count record), 3 American Bitterns (flushed by Jared; curiously only the 2nd count record), 6 Bald Eagles (never used to see any there), 22 Northern Harriers, 2 Merlins, 1 Peregrine Falcon, 270 Black-bellied & 10 Semipalmated Plovers, 54 Willets, 12 Marbled Godwits, 4 Red Knots, 1 Least Sandpiper (crippling views by all of us), 1,860 Dunlin, 1 ad. Lesser Black-backed Gull, 1 Black Skimmer (2nd count record, I think), 66 Horned Larks, 1 Tree Swallow, 8 Brown-headed Nuthatches (at Folly Creek), 1 American pipit, all of 2 Myrtle Warblers, 14 Ipswich Sparrows, 1 ea. of Saltmarsh and Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrows (we missed Seaside) and 1 Snow Bunting. 78 species. Raccoon tracks everywhere in the saltmarsh. I found a big whale vertebra, perhaps 15 pounds, that I didn't have the heart to carry all the way back to Michael's Carolina Skiff (probably illegal to own it anyway). Each year I celebrate returning here by eating a little Salicornia, salty, pithy and succulent, but especially delicious this year, almost luxuriant on some of the flat, relatively high, sandy saltpans. 'And what if to westward behind me The wall of the woods stands high. The world lies East. How ample: The marsh and the sea and the sky."-Sidney Lanier. The formerly substantial Red Cedar forest on Cedar Island is almost all washed away now. There is an old record of Red-cockaded Woodpecker for here, almost unbelievable, but I think it was in the 1930's and that Ludlow Griscom was involved (if memory serves - my copy of Murray's Virginia book is misplaced). Ned and Jared both had scopes, allowing the best "sea watch" component of this count ever. Jared and I stayed in George Reiger's charming guest house, arriving close to midnight on Friday. George, assuming the count was to be December 21, had committed to hunting Mallards, permitting him only partial count participation. Somehow, I think Frank Chapman would have approved. George told us a long, complicated joke on a contest between Alfred Lord Tennyson and Ogden Nash, the winner to become the Poet Laureate of Heaven. I wish I could remember all of it but the rules were that the poem had to be in rhyming couplets and the last word had to be Timbuktu. Ogden Nash won. Michael finished the final touches of his and Judy Fieth's new sparrow video on Friday (Judy had to FedEx related materials in Salisbury today). I cannot recommend too highly their previous warbler and heron family videos, works of art, knockouts. Cedar Island's partial development into beach cottages, some of them substantial, is endangered with several of the northern ones standing forlornly in the surf (what a shame - ha, ha, ha). For some just the treated pilings remain, these taking on a strangely beautiful corroded greenish copper tone in the low-angled afternoon light. In one of the few remaining beach cottages on the north end Jared and I rested our weary legs, sitting in the swing on the elevated porch. After a quarter of an hour thus, we realized a huge Bald Eagle had alit, unnoticed by us at first, on a sod tump only 200 feet away. When she took off, plowing laboriously across the vast saltmarsh, she left a stream of black duck flocks and other flushed fowl in her wake. Sunday, Dec. 15. Back across the line to the St. Michaels count in Talbot County, MD. Our place ("Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near Bellevue) lies within the Deep Neck-Ferry Neck sector, which Jared and I covered. Another beautiful day, this one much less windy and much sunnier. 42-52 degrees F. winds NW-SW 15-5 m.p.h. At times it was almost calm and sultry, especially when we were scopeing from Holland Point circa 2 P.M. Our party totals are sometimes followed by the (unofficial) total for the entire count in parentheses. 12 Common Loons (several eating Hogchokers), 11 (43) Horned Grebes, 2 (264) Tundra Swans (pathetic numbers compared to the thousands present in the 50's and 60's), 130 (462) Mute Swans, 1 (1) Richardson's Goose and 2,475 (36,491) other Canada Geese, 2 Gadwalls, 2 American Wigeon (another victim of the great SAV die-off), 0 (17) Canvasbacks, 215 (522) Common Goldeneye, 410 (1,103) Buffleheads, 4 adult (20 adults, 2 immatures; strange, so few immies) Bald Eagles, 18 (117, one party had 99!!!) Wild Turkeys, 0 (1) bobwhite, 473 (883) Herring Gulls, 1 (15) sapsucker, 0 (32) Brown-headed Nuthatches, 45 (318) bluebirds (some of the 1970's CBC's here had fewer than 10 bluebirds), 60 (687) waxwings, 4 (6) Pine Warblers, 0 (7) towhees, 9 (10) Chipping Sparrows (in the context of our party area, the most unusual sighting today), 90 (776) juncos, 2 (10,002) Common Grackles (only 1 other party, with 10,000, saw grackles!), 65 (643) House Finches. 63 (c. 95) species. Sparrow numbers were low. Jared and I also saw 23 Gray Squirrels, 1 cottontail, and 16 deer (does). "My annual cycle of peregrinations takes me to small towns during the Christmas holidays. Here holiday street decorations, it seems to me, are at their loveliest. Sparsely deployed, with understated beauty and simplicity, are the wreaths, candy canes, and shepherds' crooks atop lamp posts in hamlets which are tranquil and nearly deserted as I roll through the main street on peaceful December nights on my way to the next Christmas Bird Count, or on my way home. As with the Fourth of July, Christmas is at its best in a small town or village. The electric candles and stars of Manteo in North Carolina, Accomac in Virginia, St. Michaels in Maryland, and Middletown in Delaware are subtle light displays I look forward to seeing each year, as spiritual and inspiring in their way as the stained glass of Chartres and Rheims." from my "The Song of the Not-so-open Road". Best to all and Merry Christmas counts.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA 19119-1225. 215-248-4120. 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