"Rigby's Folly", Armistead property on Ferry Neck, Talbot County, MD, near
Bellevue.  February 12-13, 2005.  Liz and Harry Armistead.


Saturday, February 12.  32 - 48 - 45 degrees F. at dusk (rising to 47 at
7:30 P.M.!).  Winds 20 m.p.h. from SW becoming calm to near so at midday,
then 5 m.p.h. NW after sunset.  Clear to overcast to clear.  Visibility
excellent.  Tide sequence high to low to high.  Remnants of snow and ice in
shaded areas.  43 species.

WATERFOWL: GOOD VARIETY & NUMBERS.  17 species including 13 ducks, 10 of
them divers.  The complete list:  135 Mute and 40 Tundra swans.  3,000
Canada and 1 Blue (adult) goose.  12 Mallards, 2 black ducks, and 8
American Wigeon (7 males, 1 female, hanging out with the cans and scaup). 
40 Redheads (3rd highest property count, the first being 57 on February 9,
2003, second 45 on February 16, 1975; the 4th & 5th highest counts were in
February also).  570 Canvasbacks (predominantly males).  1 Greater and 55
Lesser Scaup.  95 Common Goldeneye.  325 Buffleheads.  2 Long-tailed Ducks.
 760 Surf Scoters.  4 Ruddy Ducks.  26 Red-breasted Mergansers.

WATERFOWL COMMENTARY.  Some of the mergansers and goldeneye were courting. 
Most of the scoters were estimated by extensive scoping of the glassy
Choptank River mouth.  When male Lesser Scaup get set to dive they somehow
compress the feathers on their crowns, perhaps to make them more
hydrodynamic, and can then look a lot like the more round-headed Greater
Scaup.  In sunlight the heads of male lessers often show as green just as
greaters do.  

When Long-tailed Ducks are seen here now they are WAY offshore and in
modest numbers compared to the many hundreds, sometimes thousands, that
used to be here.  Apparently concurrent with their decline here has been
the great increase in Surf Scoters.  So instead of the garrulous, magical
clangor and clamor of Oldsquaws one now hears the whistling wings of male
Surf Scoters when they flush, also a marvelous sound, rising in pitch until
they get well underway, at which point their wings fall silent.  Both
species can be heard at distances of well over a mile under the right
conditions.  

Today I spent a lot of time puzzling over a diver that I eventually
diagnosed as a first winter Common Goldeneye male.  The white breast area
and large head makes it look a little like an immature male eider.  There
is a subtle trace of the white head spot adult males have.  Most of the
head and upperparts are dark brownish.  The white speculum was sometimes
visible.  The bill seemed long, somewhat merganserish.  Perhaps this form
is commoner than I think it is but I do not remember seeing one before.  It
is illustrated in the Sibley guide (p. 100; "markings not well defined";
indeed).

Many of the cans and scaup were sucessfully catching food at the head of
the cove but I could not see what it was.  Most of the cans and Redheads
were resting and preening.  It is always a pleasure to HEAR the somewhat
harsh yet soft, almost musical little exclamations of Canvasbacks.  The
male mergansers are in immaculate breeding plumage, elegant with their
long, reddish bills and conspicuous head crests.  They are worthy of their
colloquial name, sawbill.  

Also today:  4 Horned Grebes.  1 adult male Northern Harrier in apparent
migration.  1 Wilson's Snipe (1st winter record, 10th record overall).  An
immature female Yellow-bellied Sapsucker at Tranquility.  8 bluebirds in
the Big Field, seem especially brilliantly blue today.  Plus 13 deer seen
from Lucy Point but on Deep Neck, all does, including 1 partial albino,
with white flanks and sides, an animal I've seen previously there.       


Sunday, February 13.  Clear, to high haze but mostly fair, to high overcast
with the feel of coming rain.  36 - 52 - 46 degrees F. at 5:30 P.M.  Winds
calm to 5 to 10 m.p.h. from the NW.  38 species.  Visibility excellent,
able to see the clay bluffs and individual houses on the Western Shore 14+
miles distant.  A c. 270 degree sun dog at 3 P.M.  

The Blue Goose and wigeon still present as well as most of the rest of the
waterfowl seen yesterday.  1 Great Blue Heron (also seen yesterday).  2
Sharp-shinned Hawks.  235 Ring-billed Gulls (in the cove).  26 Mourning
Doves.  3 Downy Woodpeckers.  22 Myrtle Warblers.  22 juncos.  14
White-throated Sparrows.  Plus 9 deer and a Gray Squirrel.  No sign of
activity at the 2 local eagle nests hat I am aware of.  Some of the
hawthorns already have sizeable buds but our one Pussy Willow, in decline
for years, has finally died.  

MICROCLIMATES.  Feb. 13, a thin area of skim ice in spite of the salty
water and the tides on circa a quarter of the cove's surface and at its
head .  A veneer, but in the face of the overnight low of 36 degrees F. -
on the front porch.  The ice about as thin and delicate as Norwegian flat
bread.  Inside the Pump House today a big difference between the
temperature on the wall head-high opposite the electric heater and the
floor area c. 2 feet lower than and 2 feet to the right of the heater - 
Outside temp, wall temp, floor temp, time:  36, 68, 40, 8 A.M.;  48, 75,
46, 12:30 P.M.;  51, 73, 46, 3 P.M.  Most of the field and ditch areas of
standing water refroze over night.  The field earth was quite firm from
refreezing also.  On the south-facing lawn by the brush pile a blooming
dandelion.  Inside the house this winter a form of exercise: stooping to
pick up dead black flies, a little fatter than ordinary house flies. 
Others, somewhat torpid, buzz around the windows.  Not a lot of them but
enough to notice.  One sluggish wasp inside the house.  Front porch
(south-facing) 52 degrees, back porch (gets wind off the water) 46 at 1
P.M.  A 4 degree difference, 61-65, among 2nd floor rooms (thermostat set
at 65), 6 degree diffeence, 64-70, on the 1st floor (thermostat set at 68)
at 5 P.M. but comfortable throughout.  The 2 coldest rooms, the living room
(64 degrees) and the master bedroom 61 degrees), have high ceilings, 4 big
windows, and are at the end (west) of the house.  This will ALWAYS be a
quirky house.   

VICTOR VICTORIOUS.  By now I'd think the world has beat a path to the maker
of Victor Mousetraps.  They work.  I like the traditional copper-colored
ones rather than the newer ones with cheesy-colored plastic.  1 mouse
caught last night in the back porch shed, where 2 traps were set last
night.  3 caught in 6 traps set in the garage: 1 mouse by the stairs, 2
inside of the black bureau, where I found an occupied nest earlier this
winter.  This same bureau, inside the house prior to renovation, was a
mouse magnet.  I have yet to figure out how these little furballs GET INTO
the bureau.  In all cases the metal bar snapped right on the mice's necks,
presumably killing them instantly.  No sign of mice inside the house, for
the first winter ever.  Life in the country.  

SUNDAY CHORES.  Remove dead wild grape vines that hang over the lawn from
the big walnut.  Fill and flatten ruts made in the lawn by Michael
Davidson's entourage, who recently launched a canoe from our shoreline to
rescue (?) a couple of retrievers who were chasing geese in Irish Creek
beyond the iceline.  Davidson's lady friend drove over to apologize and to
offer to have Mike landscape the damage.  A few spades of field turf, then
Liz and I standing and stomping on a big plywood section did the job in a
few minutes.  Clean up and dispose of lumber and concrete fragments outside
of the garage.  Yesterday I filled in 2 bucket-sized holes along the
Olszewski trails, potential ankle-twisters.

LOON BEHAVIOR.  I've been following the commentary on MDOSPREY.  Whenever I
see Common Loons on the Choptank River with fish they've caught the fish
almost always seem to be Hogchokers.  It's rare for me to see them with
anything else.  Didn't see any loons this weekend.

Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA
19119-1225.  215-248-4120.  Please, any off-list replies to: