Date: 4/4/25 10:30 am From: Harry Armistead <harryarmistead...> Subject: [MDBirding] Ferry Neck, March 23-31, 2025.
MARCH 23 - 31. daffodils and forsythia.
MARCH 23, 2025, SUNDAY. Yes, a good start for this sojourn. On the way south 280 ring-billed gulls resting in a tight grouping just south of routes 301 X 481. A half-grown woodchuck about 1 mile south of there on the south shoulder of Route 481.
Arrive at Rigby’s Folly 4:45 P.M. when it is overcast, calm, and 55 degrees F. Five spotted turtles on their favorite basking log in Woods 4. Even when it’s overcast they can bask. The sun’s good rays come right through the clouds:
I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit Heaven.
The glorious sun’s life-giving rays,
The whiteness of the moon at Even.
-attributed to St. Patrick.
A few juncos on the driveway next to Field 4. Two pairs of wood ducks in the wet extension of The Pond in Field 7. A distant osprey. Feeders have not been deployed since February 25, but within a few minutes of setting them out chickadees, cardinals, and white-throated sparrows (2 each) come in, plus 1 chipping sparrow.
A pair of Canada geese has already appropriated our osprey platform, for the 4th straight year. Dry enough to drive across Field 1 to Lucy Point, where it’s easy to see any waterfowl on the glassy water surface: 780 surf scoters, 4 common loons, and 30 buffleheads, but nothing else. 7 deer (does) in Field 2. 1st brown-headed cowbird of the year; wait ’til I tell the kids.
MARCH 24, MONDAY. overcast, light rain, 50s, calm. Enough rain to turn the fields into a swamp. Rain stops mid-afternoon, even a little sun, partial clearing late in the west. New at the feed: tufted titmouse, brown-headed nuthatch, blue jays, a few grackles, 1 American crow. One chipping sparrow. Pair of mallards in Field 7.
Raccoons dislodged the 2 tube feeders last night, but they’re still attached at the top of the “crooks.” In the wee small hours the spectral, bright lights appear (I am a fitful sleeper) high and south of the driveway bend. Neighbors think they are their own motion-detector lights set off by deer. 4 gray squirrels.
BELLEVUE, 6 P.M., 4 gray squirrels, 40 buffleheads, 70 scaup, 4 common loons, 1 eastern bluebird. Frog Hollow: 2 pairs of wood ducks, an adult bald eagle on the ground, a red phase eastern screech-owl in the 1st wood duck box due south from the one where we used to see presumably the same owl (on the west side of Frog Hollow).
MARCH 25, TUESDAY. clear becoming partly overcast at the end with a dark purplish cloudbank slowly advancing from the NW, low 50s - low 60s,
calm then 5-10-15 from the SW. Our Bradford pears are not out completely yet. A politically incorrect tree, but when totally in bloom it is pretty.
7 spotted turtles. I knew that’s what they were because I spotted them. 2 spring azures, 1 cabbage white, finally some butterflies. A good drying out, some, day. 2 deer (does) in the Big Field. 4 gray squirrels at the feed.
pair of wood ducks at Frog Hollow. 1 adult bald eagle. 7 black vultures. 12 Canada geese. 1 chipping sparrow. 1 pileated woodpecker, RIGHT IN the yard, calling. 2 brown-headed nuthatches, nice to actually hear one calling while I was on the back porch. 75 common grackles heading south to roost late in the day. 1 red-tailed hawk, an adult. No ospreys.
MARCH 26, WEDNESDAY. 41-52, clear, rather cold, NW 15-25, the Choptank River mouth a mass of seething whitecaps. Up to 56 common grackles simultaneously at the feeders. That’s not good if you are a tiny, defenseless (and I would add utterly adorable) brown-headed nuthatch. Seven spotted turtles. 2 deer (does) in Field 1.
Across from Town N Country, Route 33, 31 wild turkeys, 1 of them a displaying tom, struttin’ n stridin’, stylen’ n profilin’. The ultimate in pomposity. With 30 some hens he’s got a good thing going.
Two great blue herons. At Easton a bald eagle. Two eastern meadowlarks and 70 juvenile European starlings in Field 1. Six mourning doves at John Swaine’s. A female northern flicker probing the ground, successfully, out past the tire swing. A lot of northern cardinal song. Pair of eastern bluebirds at the lawn nest box; an apparently completed nest there yesterday. At dusk an American robin sings.
MARCH 27, THURSDAY. clear, NW 15 changing to SW 10, 39-53, chilly. 3 pairs of wood ducks at Frog Hollow, another pair on the south side of the Big Field. 1 great American bald-headed eagle, an adult. 1 mourning cloak. 5 spotted turtles.
1 brown thrasher. 1 myrtle warbler. 1 doe in the Big Field. Has dried up quite a bit. Can drive across the Big Field to Lucy Point again. A turkey vulture drinks from the low area on the “road” across that field, as they are wont to do. 1 downy woodpecker. A lot of household, and other, chores today. No birds in any of the fields.
MARCH 28, FRIDAY. mostly overcast, SW 10, 46-71, but quite sunny in mid-day. From the dock, 39 buffleheads, 1 horned grebe (winter plumage), 1 common loon (breeding plumage). From the back porch, distant, 45 surf scoters (later 155 from Lucy Point). Only 3 spotted turtles.
One egg in the Eastern Bluebird next box, the earliest egg date for Rigby’s Folly, but in the past there has been poor coverage for the nesting of this species here. A white-breasted nuthatch at the feed, the only one I’ve seen this fall-winter-spring, although they can be common migrants and winter residents sometimes. A long overdue FOY tree swallow on top of the Field 4 pole.
Anne, Derek, Alexis & Lucas arrive. Mary & David after them, and late.
MARCH 29, SATURDAY. mostly overcast, 61-73, some sun, though, SW 5-10, warmish. surf scoter 235, laughing gull (finally) 6, white-breasted & brown-headed nuthatches (both singletons), horned grebe 1, common loon 2, great blue heron 1. 1 each of pileated, downy and red-bellied woodpeckers. Seemingly ideal weather yet no influx of early spring migrants.
Mary & Anne find a spotted turtle on the drive by Field 4. I see 9 basking in Woods 4.
Bellevue, 5 P.M., a spotted turtle, 5 gray squirrels, 2 mallards, 6 surf scoters, 35 buffleheads, 3 deer (does), 2 laughing gulls, 1 bald eagle. Screech-owl back in its “new” box at Frog Hollow.
I put the family to work after whiffle ball and other recreations. Trim the magnolia grandiflora where it impinges on the house, trim the short trees and switch grass (Panicum virgatum) at Lucy Point in order to increase the view and pick up the trash there, get & put away tools, pick up sticks on the lawn. 160 red-winged blackbirds field 4.
They are unable to extract a buoy lodged in the rocks at Lucy Point; its attached chain is embedded in the rocks. It is cylindrical, c. 4’ long, green. has the number 3. Such buoys mark the edge of a channel, have odd numbers, should be passed with them on the port side. I think this is one that marked the entrance to Irish Creek, since the buoy that was there has disappeared. I’ll alert the Coast Guard.
MARCH 30, SUNDAY. spring arrivals, 1 snowy egret, 1 Forster’s tern. 3 deer (does) the Big Field. Early on the Ayres DID SO extract the buoy lodged in the Lucy Point rocks: a so-called Jim Buoy, 45” length, 11” diameter, green, numbered a faded 3.
Bellevue, not much, a few surf scoters and buffleheads. A finished nest in the Field 4 nest box but no bluebird eggs yet. Nothing in the Lucy Point nest box. Water clarity, as yesterday, real good.
eastern meadowlark 1, osprey 1(but still no resident birds), 10 spotted turtles, 2 tree swallows, 1 great blue heron, 1 red-tailed hawk, 1 laughing gull, 2 killdeer, 1 pileated woodpecker, the white-breasted nuthatch again and several brown-headed nuthatches.
butterflies: hackberry emperor (I’m used to seeing these in mid-summer), 4 spring azures, 2 cabbage whites
mostly sunny, SW 10-15, 61-73. 3 gray squirrels. Sunday night: time for Dragnet and Gunsmoke on WAMU. Afterwards a nice Fowler’s toad chorus on the south side of the Big Field. Not ever much sun there so it stays nice and wet for the toads.
MARCH 31, MONDAY. Fair or mostly overcast, 62-66, SW 10. 2 bald eagles in a chase right over the house. A pair of wood ducks in flight over the driveway bend, headed towards The Pond. 2 does in Field 4. Leave by 9:35. Liz sees an imm. bald eagle over Route 301.
“Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day,
and tell the world that everything’s O/K.
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back.
’Til things brighter, I’m the man in black.” Johnny Cash.
SCIENCE
19 Sep 2019
Vol 366, Issue 6461
pp. 120-124
“Decline of North American avifauna” a decline of 29% since 1970, by Kenneth Rosenberg et al. exhaustively documented.
“Failing nests for Chesapeake Ospreys,” Living Bird (Cornell U.), Spring 2025, pp. 62-67, by Carrie Arnold. No resident ospreys in our cove this year. This article bends over backwards to suggest that the over-harvesting of menhaden may not be the cause of nesting failures. In the past few years all except 1 of the ospreys I’ve seen carrying fish had fish about the size of sunnies. But I think the blame can be laid on Omega Protein of Reedville, VA. That’s what I think.
A recent report heralded the good news that American oystercatchers have enjoyed a great increase on the Atlantic Coast. I’ve misplaced the citation. However, this report also states that with 26 or 28 other shorebirds one half of them have lost more than half of their populations.
The worldwide decline of insects and amphibians has been documented in many publications.
In Science, March 6, 2025, p. 1036-1037, an article by Brian Inouye et al. reports a 22% decline of N. American butterflies from 2000 to 2020. I am certainly seeing fewer at Rigby’s Folly than I used to and also of blue damselflies. “In the last 30 years, eastern monarchs have decreased by more than 80 percent, and the population west of the Rockies has decreased by more than 95 percent.” - National Wildlife, Spring 2025, p. 6.
It’s just anecdotal in my case, but I am certainly finding fewer birds when I go up and down our driveway than I used to.
Other than that how was the play Mrs. LIncoln?
On the other hand the great comeback by eastern bluebirds, brown pelicans, and bald eagles is very heartening. Tremendous increase of snow geese. So is the increase in our region of reports of American white pelicans, brown boobies, lesser black-backed gulls, common ravens, trumpeter swans, black-necked stilts, and white ibis.
BEST TO ALL. - Harry Armistead, Bellevue and Philadelphia.
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