FERRY NECK & DORCHESTER COUNTY, January 13-16, 2010. Liz & Harry Armistead.
Wednesday January 13. COMING INTO THE COUNTRY. On the way down we try w/o success for the Northern Shrike in the area of Roundtop and Kibler roads in Queen Annes County. We have excellent directions thanks to Les Roslund and Danny Poet but my usual bad luck with stakeouts ensures failure anyway. See 4 roadkill Red Foxes on the way down. I am in a foul mood over having missed the shrike so our usual trip count of Turkey Vultures is compromised, but I think we see c. 60 plus a dozen Red-tailed Hawks.
At Rigby’s Folly a perfect sunset seen from Lucy Point. We’re only present from 2:30 until dark. Calm or SW 5, 38-40, clear. On the dead calm waters, or nearby, 2100 Canada & 1 Cackling goose, 48 Tundra Swans, 1 black duck, 400 Buffleheads, 30 Mallards, 225 Canvasbacks, 2 goldeneyes, 290 Surf Scoters, 770 Herring Gulls (one of the highest “yard” counts here), 425 starlings around the yard, 1 Bald Eagle, and 3 Black Vultures. These birds take some of sting out of having “dipped” on the shrike.
Thursday, January 14. Most of the day in Dorchester County, too much driving and too little time at each place.
Cambridge, Oakley Street area. A little patch of water open, otherwise the Choptank River is mostly frozen. The waterfowl are standoffish and don’t come rushing in to get our offering of corn. I purchase 150 more pounds of corn (three 50-lb. sacks). Canvasback 55, American Wigeon 55 (the males whistling away), American Black Duck 2, Mallard 145, Ring-billed Gull 275, Tundra Swan 14, Redhead 1 male, Canada Goose 350, Fish Crow 1 plus 2 Gray Squirrels. 11 A.M., clear, calm, 35 degrees F.
Egypt Road, 11:45 A.M.: 245 Tundra Swans in a field, 2 kestrels, 1 Red-tailed Hawk, 1 kingfisher, 3 Bald Eagles.
Blackwater N.W.R. Almost all water frozen. Noon – 1 P.M.; 4:15-5:15 P.M. Lots of eagles on the ice. We see 51 Bald Eagles. Two fellows had just seen 15 together on the ice next to Shorter’s Wharf Road, so that would total 66 from our rather incomplete surveys of the central refuge area. Cedar Waxwing 18, White-crowned Sparrow 2 imm. at the Visitor Center feeders, House Sparrow 6, Snow Goose 900, Blue Goose 45 (these last 2 forms land in the fields next to Route 335 at dusk), Canada Goose 3000, Northern Pintail 13, Pied-billed Grebe 1 (in the Little Blackwater River next to the reconstituted causeway at Pool 1), Tundra Swan 200, Northern Harrier 4, Red-tailed Hawk 2, Killdeer 3, Mallard 600, Great Blue Heron 5. Tidal water area frozen and very low from all the recent NW winds. Impoundments, ditches, high. Fair, low 40s, calm.
Hooper’s Island & Swan Harbor: Tundra Swan 1020 (310 on the east side of Barren Island, 710 in the north end of Tar Bay as seen from the Birchmeiers’ dock). From that nifty dock out on the bars of north Tar Bay are 9 Sanderlings and 55 Dunlin. 2:15-3:45, partly sunny, calm, 40s. Some snow left in the fields. A good but too slow lunch at Old Salty’s with rockfish filets from fish caught offshore from the restaurant today. Today’s visit is worthwhile just to hear the swans and Long-tailed Ducks calling, the male Surf Scoter’s wings whistling when they flush.
Surf Scoter 310 (more abundant and much closer to shore than usual, seen mostly from Narrows Ferry Bridge, s. end), Common Goldeneye 12, Long-tailed Duck 55, Canvasback 225 & Redhead 6 (look right down on them, which they don’t like, from the top of the big bridge, where one is not supposed to stop [but where “one” often does]), Hooded Merganser 6 (Great Marsh Creek), Common Loon 1, Bufflehead 400, junco 1, Carolina Wren 1, cowbird 40 (Hoopersville), kingfisher 1, Killdeer 1, Northern Harrier 2, Rock Pigeon 15 (around the bridge at Fishing Creek - the creek, not the town).
No white pelicans or Horned Grebes today.
Friday, January 15. After driving 128 miles yesterday, and 145 the day before, it is nice not to drive anywhere today.
Rigby’s Folly, Fair, calm, 33-50 degrees F. Tide rising. We do a “Big Sit/Sea Watch” at Lucy Point, 11:30-2:30. Under such dead calm, glassy-surfaced-water conditions with a mostly sunny afternoon it is a great pleasure to just sit out at the point and scope and glass the vast expanse of the waters there out at the mouth of the ‘Tank. We find 32 species including 2,242 waterfowl of 11 species. a most peaceful and relaxing three hours spent sitting in the sun.
Only 1 boat seen the entire time, a hunter’s punt returning from the Choptank River mouth. This entire 4-day visit the distant barrage of shotgun reports, although not continuous, is a recurring leitmotif. I don’t know why, but there’s something about that that I like. These blasts are from areas we can’t even see, some probably 7 or 8 miles distant. Here’s our complete list of birds not yet shot:
WATERFOWL: Canada Goose c. 1000, Tundra Swan 60, Mallard 15, American Black Duck 2, Canvasback 50, Lesser Scaup 355, Surf Scoter 130, Long-tailed Duck 8, Bufflehead 515, Common Goldeneye 105, Hooded Merganser 2.
I’ve never seen such a large flock of scaup here in winter. Most of our high counts have been in late March or early April, although in recent years they have been strangely scarce even at that time of year. This year’s Christmas Bird Count, on January 3, found only 65 total scaup: greaters, lessers, and unID’d, to show how fast things can change. My previous best winter count was 115 lessers, also on a January 15, in 2001.
Common Loon 1, Turkey Vulture 9, Bald Eagle 2, Northern Harrier 1 adult male, Sharp-shinned Hawk 1, Ring-billed Gull 6, Herring Gull 35, Downy Woodpecker 1, Northern Flicker 1, Blue Jay 2, American Crow 3, Carolina Chickadee 2, Carolina Wren 2, Eastern Bluebird 2, American Robin 1, Northern Mockingbird 1, European Starling 1, Cedar Waxing 22, Myrtle Warbler 12, Song Sparrow, and Red-winged Blackbird 60.
Some of the waxwings, warblers, and sparrows are tame and at very close range, swooping down and apparently eating the salt ice that has accumulated in thick windrows above the low tide line on the rocky rip rap. All of the waxwings we diagnose are adults. A female Bufflehead and a male goldeneye avail themselves of the minor ice floes, hauling out and drifting up Irish Creek as the ice is wafted in by the incoming tide, like Cleopatra on her barge. They go with the floe.
Later that afternoon an adult Snow Goose is flying around at low altitude with a flock of CG’s over Field 4. All of the fields have lots of soy bean spillage as a result of last week’s late harvest, sure to entice geese later on.
Saturday, January 16:
HEADIN’ HOME. 22 Mallards and 2 black ducks flush from the still-frozen low area at the east end of Field 4. A large d.o.r. Domestic Cat is spotted on the east side of Route 50 near Skipton Creek. This animal is pale, almost buffy, with impressive striping, especially on its tail. On first glance at 55 m.p.h. I think it might be a Bobcat. Its viscera, due I guess to the impact at its death, are detached from the rest of the body, reminding me of a Moose we saw in Ontario that had been hit by a 30-wheel truck. Both the Moose and the truck were hors de combat and the viscera of the Moose had been thrown many feet clear of the body.
We see a d.o.r. Northern Bobwhite, a male, on the east side of Rt. 213 just south the junction of 213 and 544. Another fruitless try for the Northern Shrike. Spend a half hour looking for it and see in that area 9 Common Mergansers, 3 Bald Eagles, 2 Red-tailed Hawks, and a Northern Harrier plus several 100 Snow Geese. Our trip totals are 146 Turkey Vultures, 2 Red-shouldered and 11 Red-tailed Hawks, and 3 American Kestrels.
WILLOW OAK LEAVES are infiltrators. Every year some, somehow, get into the window frames and are found, bypassing the screens, in the slot where the storm windows fit when they are lowered. Often, walking around the first floor, I find a few Willow Oak leaves on the floor, shed by our footwear. On the front porch other oak leaves pile up, blown there by north winds from the other side of the house. The leaves are narrow and 1.5-2 inches long.
This big oak, planted by my parents 60 years ago, has become the patriarch of our yard trees. It stands on the north side of the house. However, its leaves seem almost as adept at infiltrating the window frames on the south side as the north. There are few Willow Oaks in our woods. Too few.
The circumference of this fine yard tree is 9 feet 1.5 inches at breast height. Carl Perry once found a hummingbird’s nest in it. It’s a large tree though much smaller than many, such as the gigantic double Willow Oak that is on the south side of the road between Bucktown and the bridge at Bestpitch. Too bad that that grand old tree died a few years ago.
On January 16 there are at the base of Rigby’s Willow Oak, feeding on corn, 3 Blue Jays, 2 Gray Squirrels, a White-throated Sparrow, a male Red-bellied Woodpecker, and a Carolina Wren. A few feet away a flicker is on the grass.
The arms of the bases of numerous roots enter the ground at the trunk’s base, looking somewhat like the proximal end of octopus tentacles, the ball-and-claw feet of vintage bathtubs and other old furniture, or the tortuous Hellenistic sculpture known as the Laocoön Group.
Squirrels like to enter the recessed areas between the roots, sit there, and work on the corn kernels, eating only the pointed tips of these, where the nourishing “germ” is. With their backs to the large, very hard, and straight trunk they must feel safe. The rather massive trunk with its roots entering the ground gives the impression of immense strength and durability.
LIFE IN THE CITY. On January 11 an impressive Cooper’s Hawk in the oak and a Sharp-shinned Hawk in the Swamp Magnolia the next day, no doubt attracted by our equal opportunity “bird feeders.”
Best to all. – Harry Armistead, Philadelphia.
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