Date: 6/5/25 7:47 am From: Harry Armistead <harryarmistead...> Subject: [MDBirding] Ferry Neck & E. New Market, May 22-27, 2025.
MAY 22, THURSDAY. a half-grown woodchuck scrambles out of the way on the edge of Route 481 near Price. Paradiso’s Mammals of Maryland (1969) shows them entirely absent from the Eastern Shore save from Kent County on north. So since 1969 these “field fatties” have enjoyed a range expansion
MAY 23, FRIDAY. Dorchester County, 3600 Goose Creek Rd., East New Market, private property, 2:30-3:10 P.M., May 23, 2025, Friday, Liz & Harry Armistead: Beautiful property, what a view out over Choptank River! Abundant feeders, water basins, and nest boxes. 66 degrees F., NW 15-20, fair.
bird list: orchard oriole 1 ad. male, house finch 4 (some song), and these all singletons: red-bellied woodpecker, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, and blue jay + brown-headed cowbird 2, tree swallow 2 (1 in nest box), common grackle 6, northern cardinal 2, red-winged blackbird 3, barn swallow 4 (nesting in shed?), European starling 5, eastern bluebird 2 (1 at nest box), chimney swift 3, American robin 2, osprey 2.
Easton: a bald eagle, a Cooper’s Hawk being pursued by grackles. Anne, Derek & Alexis arrive
MAY 24, 2025, SATURDAY. mostly just sit out by the Big Field. Summer tanager giving its call note in Woods 2. BELLEVUE, 6:18 P.M., 2 eastern cottontails, 2 gray squirrels, 6 cow-nosed rays, 2 ospreys, 1 wild turkey. 1 ad. bald eagle. Our guests clear the driveway of overhang. 7 deer in the Plaindealing Farm field.
MAY 25, SUNDAY. clear then overcast at the end, NW 15-20 falling to near calm, 58-70. Anne, Derek and Alexis leave c. noon. a pileated woodpecker calling and well seen in the yard. cattle egret 1. indigo bunting 1. red-eyed vireo 1. bufflehead 1. 7” skink, all brown, no markings. Four cedar waxwings and another flock of two. Three chimney swifts.
Also: mallard 2, CG 2, snowy egret 1, great blue heron 1, at the feeder: BH nuthatch at least 2, sometimes it is several days before they turn up at the feeders. titmouse, chickadee. cardinal, goldfinch, house finch, mourning dove, RW blackbird, cowbirds, grackles, blue jay = 11 species at the feed. see oysters spitting or squirting. muskrat 1. gray squirrel 2. spring azure 3, cabbage white 3. cormorant 3. killdeer. osprey makes a couple of ineffectual dives at the CGs.
The tide is just low enough so that the oysters are partially exposed. Liz sees several “spit”.
From Google: “oysters. Fun fact: Did you know that oysters spit? They suck in water, filter out plankton & detritus to feed on, and then spit the filtered water back out! This is how they are able to filter our water and keep it clean! One oyster is able to filter 20-50 gallons of water PER DAY!” I never expected that they had such high SAT scores.
Probably not inspired by the ‘Titanic’ where we got to see that Kate Winslett was a quick study. Or by the song ‘My way’:
“Yes, there were times I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out,
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way.”
Concerning oysters, one of Jay Fleming’s many marvelous photographs is on the March 2025 cover of Tidewater Times showing Eddie Evans’ workboat the ‘Kaitlan Noelle’ loaded down with 35 or more bushels of oysters he had harvested.
In school my dear friend, the late Van Hubbard, originator of the phrase “transcend your destiny”, disliked Dickens’ Great expectations and this became for him Great Expectorations. In similar manner some of my classmates, by crossing out some of the letters on the books’ covers altered the titles so that God’s Angry Man (about John Brown) became Go, Man, and in similar manner Religion and the Rise of Capitalism became Eli and the Rise of Ali.
PA former Senator Arlen Specter: it doesn’t take too much imagination to know what certain of his opponents did with his name.
Somewhat relatedly we used to say: “better to urp the burp and bear the shame, than to squelch the belch and die of pain.”
MAY 26, MONDAY, Memorial Day. overcast becoming fair, light NNE or light and variable winds switching to southerly c. 6 P.M., high 59 - 70. Of most interest: red-headed woodpecker, bald eagle, brown-headed nuthatch, chipping sparrow (singing), American goldfinch, killdeer, pine warbler, wild turkey, downy woodpecker.
In Field 1 a small buck and 7 does.
I do a “whimbrel watch” 6:15 - 8:30 P.M. when the winds finally become favorable for them to lift off from the Virginia Eastern Shore. No luck but I bet there would be some Tuesday. Other parts of the East do these whimbrel watches.
These are especially successful in Toronto, as described in Birding, June 2025, pages 42-52, with 17 photos, maps, etc., of these big, spectacular shorebirds that fly, often nonstop 4 or 5 days and nights, from the Virginia Eastern Shore to Hudson Bay or points even farther north after increasing their body weight, bulking up, 30% or more by loading up in fiddler crab eggs. Eight or so times I’ve been lucky enough to intercept their late afternoon flights at Rigby’s Folly. Watches are also conducted in the Philadelphia area. These all in the 4th week of May.
MAY 27, TUESDAY. On the driveway X Field 4: 2 deer and a red fox. 2 gray squirrels at the feed. Leave for PA at 8:40, 65 degrees F., light winds.
KATYDID. Here in Philadelphia Liz found a 3”, brilliant green katydid inside an unopened, sealed, watercress package, of clear plastic, March 16, 2025, B & W Quality Growers LLC, Fellesmere, FL 32948 (use by 3.25.25). Package we’d bought March 15 from the local Giant, had been in the frige 24+ hours, sealed. It was sluggish but very much alive.
Best to all. - Harry Armistead, Bellevue & Philadelphia.
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