Yesterday I sent this from another station and the format was horrible.
Lost all the paragraphing, etc. Here's hoping this is more readable.
Ocean City, MD. Chincoteague and Wachapreague, VA. Jared Sparks and I
spent the weekend of December 13-14, 2003, at these places.
Ocean City inlet. Sat., Dec. 13. c. 11:45 A.M. -1:30 P.M. Clear,
mid-30s, NW 10-15. Tide almost full then ebbing while we were there. Of
most interest: 1 female Common Eider and a female Merlin, the latter flew
in across the inlet and perched on a post providing nice scope studies.
Kevin Graff was here and said early in the morning he had seen both eider
species on the s. side of the s. jetty, which is where there were still
many ducks, now badly backlit and hard to ID in the haze of the afternoon.
Kevin and some Ohio birders there saw a few gannets we missed. Jared and I
also saw: a migrating Sharp-shinned Hawk, 3 Double-crested Cormorants, 9
oystercatchers roosting on the high rocks of the s. jetty, 6 Forster's
Terns, 55 Surf & 2 White-winged scoters.
Chincoteague N.W.R., mostly from the road between Swan Cove Pool and Tom's
Cove. c. 2:45-4:45 P.M. Low tide and getting lower, wind N 5-10, c. 34
degrees F.
2 Ross's Geese, both well-seen at medium distance in flight for several
minutes each as the birds circled with Snow Geese and eventually landed in
Swan Cove Pool. In both cases - diminutive birds compared to the Snows
with proportionately shorter necks and stubby, triangular bills, all these
features easily and repeatedly seen: 1 an immature blue phase, the other an
adult white bird. I am aware that blue phase birds are even more likely to
be hybrids than the white ones but to the extent we could see, everything
fit for Ross's.
Also at Chincoteague: 2,000 Snow plus 29 Blue Geese, 175 Tundra Swans, 1
ad. and 1 imm. Bald Eagle (flushed the waterfowl several times), 225
Green-winged Teal, 300 pintails, 75 shovelers, 65 Lesser Scaup, 1
kingfisher, 20 Great & 1 Snowy Egret, 11 Greater Yellowlegs, 75 Gadwalls, 1
Horned Grebe, 5 harriers, 125 Buffleheads, 4 Forster's Tern, 1 ad.
Bonaparte's Gull (trading back and forth right next to the road at very
close range), 15 Boat-tailed Grackles. Next to the outlet pipe at low
water 10 Tricolored Herons and 15 Red-breasted Mergansers at very short
range and so close to each other they almost intermingled, feeding on small
fishes, a minor spectacle, strange bedfellows. 5 Sika Deer appeared at
dusk on the marsh edges.
On the road in from Rt. 13 there were perhaps 3,000 blackbirds in a flock
in one field, many of them cowbirds plus 2 Willets and 3 Tricolored Herons
along the causeway.
The wan winter light here with the low, somewhat incandescent sun visible
through the complex, changeable gray cloud formations made for a beautiful
scene accented by the thousands of waterfowl feeding, circling, or making
sorties from one body of water to another as Tundra Swans uttered their
marvelous calls. It was a Peter Scott sky.
"And winter's dregs made desolate the weakening eye of day." Thomas Hardy,
'The Darkling Thrush'.
Wachapreague Christmas count, Sun., Dec. 14. 8 A.M. - 4 P.M. A gale with
sustained easterly or northeasterly winds 30-35 mph, heavy, continuous
rain, temps. in the 40s, beginning c. 3 A.M. and continuing until c. 1 P.M.
Demoralizing, close to impossible conditions for birding, except from the
car and various peoples' living rooms and balconies. Tides reached 2 feet
above normal at c. 11 A.M. nearly topping the Spartina alterniflora. Jared
and I almost gave up, came close to just returning to Philadelphia after
breakfast. From 2-4 P.M. the rain and wind ceased and it became foggy with
visibility c. 100 yards. The amount of standing water in the fields was
exceptional. Some stretches of roads under rain water for 100 yards or
more. Temperatures reached into the 50s after the winds and rains stopped,
prompting a Chorus Frog to call at 3:33 P.M.
Jared and I covered the Locustville area. 55 species, including a lovely
male Common Yellowthroat plus a Pine Siskin at the Reigers' feeders. The
best birding was in one of George Reiger's fields where we saw 6 Western
Palm Warblers, 40 Killdeer, 1 Greater Yellowlegs, 3 Western Sandpipers, 110
Dunlin, 8 Short-billed Dowitchers, and 2 Common Snipe, all actively
feeding. This was a harvested soy bean feeding with abundant pools of
standing water. This Christmas count tallied 93 species. The soggy fields
were full of gulls (almost all Ring-billeds), blackbirds, crows, and a few
shorebirds and ducks.
We stayed at the Reigers, whose house gives a marvelous view down tidal
Finney Creek towards Burtons Bay and Parramore Island. From the comfort of
their balcony Hooded Mergansers, numerous Buffleheads, Green-winged Teal, a
Long-tailed Duck, and other fowl were visible. George has written the
introduction of a new book that features the wildlife art of Lynn Bogue
Hunt, whose paintings I enjoyed as a boy. Though not as great an artist as
Walter Alois Weber, Maj. Allan Brooks, or Louis Agassiz Fuertes - others
whose paintings I enjoyed frequently then - Hunt's art was nevertheless
considerable, and far superior to the crude renderings of Bruce Horsfall.
Michael Male and Judy Fieth were to take us to Cedar Island today in their
Carolina Skiff with its big, silver Honda 4-stroke but given the weather
this was impossible. Disappointing not to spend the day on this fine
barrier island with its rich variety of sea, bay and saltmarsh birds, where
I snack on Salicornia almost every December. Michael and Judy's videos on
warblers, sparrows, and wading birds feature superlative photography,
excellent sound, and just the right amount of narration, which is
entertaining and informed. I highly recommend them. Their "Watching
Sparrows" is now available on DVD as well as VCR. www.birdfilms.com
At dusk as we drove through Accomac a Gray Squirrel scrambled over the road
on a phone line. The drive back to Philadelphia at the end of the day was
a bit trying since the windshield wipers failed close to the
Maryland-Delaware line with well over 100 miles to go in the rain.
Here in Philadelphia a Chipping Sparrow has been frequenting our feeders
beginning with the snow storm of Friday, December 5, the only one I have
ever seen at the feeders here in the fall.
Best to all.-Harry Armistead, 523 E. Durham St., Philadelphia, PA
19119-1225. 215-248-4120. Please, any off-list replies to:
harryarmistead at hotmail dot com
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