Ocean City & Ferry Neck, Dec. 23-29, 2023 + CBC memories & musings on the cold.
Harry Armistead
FERRY NECK & OCEAN CITY, MD, DECEMBER 23-29, 2022. Christmas Bird Count (CBC) memories. An ode to the cold.
DECEMBER 23, FRIDAY. ROUTE 301 milepost 218 c. 250 snow geese. ROUTE 301 X 481 2 ad., 2 imm. tundra swans, no doubt a family group. ROUTE 481 south of Ruthsburg 36 tundra swans and an ad. bald eagle.
In John Swaine’s field 2,600 Canada geese and 370 ring-billed gulls.
Arrive 3 P.M., a high high tide, at 3:28 almost to the the top of the dock, 26 degrees F., west or so, 30 m.p.h, clear. red-shouldered hawk 1, Cooper’s hawk 1. There’s been recently c. 2 “ of rain. At the feed, although I barely have time to look: titmouse, chickadee, 1 mourning dove, red-bellied woodpecker, red-breasted nuthatch, cardinal and white-throated sparrow.
DECEMBER 24, SATURDAY. low of 11, 11-20, clear, NW 15, but 23 degrees at 7:08 P.M. Guests all arrive in early afternoon: Mary, David & Lucas plus George, Kristin, Kayla and Hayden. One effect of this unusual (for here) low is that the compressor on the front porch screen door doesn’t work, the thing slams, but after a few hours starts working again. Half the cove is frozen, but half of that has thawed by 3 P.M.
See a fox squirrel at driveway X Woods 2, 3 gray squirrels. 27 buffleheads at Bellevue at 4 P.M. George, Kristin, Kayla & Hayden see 18 wild turkeys from Bellevue Road. Mary sees 1 deer.
CHRISTMAS, DECEMBER 25, SUNDAY. 21-31, clear, W 15. SAV all over the small trees and Panicum out at Lucy Point, thanks to a 2-3’ above normal high tide, from the recent high winds and the very high tide. Kristin & George see 100 ruddy ducks at the mouth of Irish Creek. 220 Canada geese and 75 buffleheads seen from the dock.
common loon 1, tundra swan 39, bald eagle 1great blue heron 1, gray squirrel 3, a sharp-shinned hawk (close view of perched bird driveway X Field 4), slate-colored junco 16 (driveway, Woods 2, X Field 4) plus 5 at the feed. 3 does in Woods 2 (big ones). Kristin reports a kingfisher that Iater I see. Canada geese feed on Ruppia maritima in the cove
BELLEVUE at 11:30: 85 ruddy ducks, common loon 1, white-breasted nuthatch 2.
DECEMBER 26, MONDAY. 26-31, clear becoming mostly overcast, NW 5 then calm, tide out past the end of the dock. The guests all leave c. 9:30 except for George. Two fox squirrels on the south edge of the hedgerow separating Fields 4 and 3, very pale, at a distance you might think you are seeing 2 windblown newspaper sections, easy to pick out even with the unaided eye, 10’ & 15’ up, foraging in deciduous trees.
Three fox sparrows on the driveway near the Waterthrush Pond. An adult female merlin at 4:09. In the cove an ad. bald eagle, 4 killdeer, 2 great blue herons, 57 ring-billed and one great black-backed gull foraging. George sees a kingfisher with a fish on the osprey platform. 4 gray squirrels.
c. 500 Canada geese both in the Campers’ field and the Clay’s Hope field.
DECEMBER 27, TUESDAY. 30 degrees, NW 5, clear, very low tide. A combo flock of redheads and lesser scaup, only 12 birds total, ruddy duck 55, ring-billed gull 28, only 6 Canada geese in the cove, just 6 buffleheads.
ROUTE 50 east of Cambridge: a bald eagle, a red-tailed hawk, and a red-shouldered hawk, the latter perched on a wire, no doubt the same bird we see at the same place the afternoon of Dec. 28.
OCEAN CITY, MD, the inlet, 2:45 - 4:15 or so, with George, Doug Gill, Jay Sheppard. What I see, mostly: red-throated loon 3, common loon 3, cormorant 9, northern gannet (2 adults seen at great distance by George), surf scoter 2, black scoter 12 (seen by George), bufflehead 30, oystercatcher 4 (3 imm. at close range feeding on shellfish [mussels?]), purple sandpiper 2, sanderling 8, ruddy turnstone 4, rock pigeon 135, bald eagle 1, Forster’s tern 6, lesser black-backed gull 1 imm. No bell-ringers, disappointing.
Later George and I join Doug, Jay and Joe Jehl at Waterman’s Restaurant (a.k.a. Waterman’s Seafood Company). I have cream of crab soup and seafood alfredo and am not surprised when my blood sugar is 225 the next morning. Gotta die of something. Liz and I have leftover alfredo the night of Dec. 29.
Listening to pros Joe, Jay & Doug and their banter at dinner it didn’t take long for me to realize I am in over my head. They are impressive. However, eventually I am able to chip in a couple of anecdotes with information they may not know. For example, when the talk turns to quail, I relate how Will Russell and I once at Rigby’s Folly saw northern bobwhite 30 feet up in black locusts feeding on the locust pods (seeds) when snow lay heavy and deep on the land. In that area the St. Michaels C.B.C. sometimes had the national high for quail. These days that C.B.C. is lucky to get ANY.
DECEMBER 28, WEDNESDAY. Ocean City Christmas Bird Count, CASTAWAYS CAMPGROUND & Eagles Nest Campground some miles south of the town. 6:30 - 11:45 A.M., 25-49. winds calm or S < 5, clear, low tide. visibility excellent. 51 species. A beauty. Lynn Davidson is in charge of this sector. We reconnoiter with her and the others at 11:30, Hal Wierenga, Wayne Klockner, George, and several others. Some of my highlights:
Forster’s tern 239 (a lot there already but during the course of the morning there is a steady influx coming in from the north). brant 560. black-bellied plover 260. red-necked grebe 1.
Some other species: Bonaparte’s gull 1, red-tailed hawk 1, myrtle warbler 8, northern harrier 1, ring-billed gull 10, belted kingfisher 1, red-breasted merganser 8, herring gull 90 (often chasing dunlin and the plovers), great black-backed gull 4, greater yellowlegs 3, double-crested cormorant 2, brown pelican 1 (a sickly but flight-capable immature), Canada goose (hundreds to the south; my total illegible), bald eagle 5, horned grebe 2, common loon 5 (unresponsive to my imitations), hooded merganser 8, great blue heron 3, surf scoter 6, willet 12, dunlin 95 (have seen > 1,000 here on occasion), bufflehead 70, American black duck 8, American crow 6.
curious: no flyover snow geese. no wigeon, have seen good numbers in the past. no distant gannets.
See just one motor boat. 9 planes land, turning so they come in from the east. Some old salt ice high up on the berm line of Assateague Island. It is a treat to spend 5.5 hours here scoping and scanning from just one spot. George works adjacent land areas, esp. the airport, waking some 6 miles, finding big numbers of chickadees and RB & BH nuthatches, and an orange-crowned warbler plus a purple finch. George and I combine for 82 species.
Later this day Wayne and his 2 companions (seasonal Assateague N.S. summer employees [whose names escape me] keeping track of piping plovers last summer) find a lazuli bunting.
After lunch we go back past the adjacent SPCA and find 2 yellow-bellied sapsuckers and a golden-crowned kinglet, then hit Ocean East, Friendship Road, 1:45-2:20, where George walks a weedy field, and sees c. 70 Savannah sparrows, numerous swamp and song sparrows, a northern harrier, and 7 bald eagles, fish crows, a Wilson’s snipe, and a palm warbler while I doze in the car.
From Route 50 east of Cambridge a field with at least 400 tundra swans at 3:30 P.M., close to Vienna, the only swans we see all day or yesterday.
Towards the end of the day at Rigby’s Folly a gray squirrel with white hind legs and feet. Haven’t seen a squirrel like this here in a couple of years.
DECEMBER 29, THURSDAY. Rigby’s Folly: George finds a winter wren, sees 20 bluebirds in newly harvested Field 1, and observes a bald eagle. 4 gray squirrels, 40 robins (mostly in Field 1). Leave for PA at 9:20. We see a bald eagle over Denny’s. 40 degrees, calm, clear. No big white birds in the Route 481 fields.
FOX SQUIRREL NEWS: Bruce Olszewski sees fox squirrels at least 4 times here in December. He secures excellent video of an almost pure white one, that he sees again at the end of the day Dec. 28.
IN CELEBRATION OF COLD. This cold heaven: seven seasons in Greenland by Gretel Ehrlich (poet, writer, explorer). Pantheon Books, 2001. 377 pages. Ehrlich LIKES to go to Greenland in the winter. !!
I don’t necessarily celebrate the cold, but extreme weather IS stimulating. The winter of 1976-1977 was the coldest I’ve experienced on the Eastern Shore. The entire Chesapeake Bay froze solid. All the way across. Shipping was completely shut down. There were pressure ridges off of our shoreline 10 feet high. Ice boat races at St. Michaels.
I walked out on the ice to a half mile from shore and not only was there ice but on top of it was a thin film of snow that made things very slippery. Very. Watermen used chain saws to make holes in the ice so they could tong oysters. Several pickup trucks broke through the ice and sunk. Under these conditions birds such as white-throated sparrows can be approached very closely (a bad idea) as they are more interested in getting food than safety. That was a very good winter for more red-tailed hawks than usual, benefitting from dead animals and birds in extremis.
This was before we had a good cooling-heating system and the 2 kerosene stoves only raised the temperature to the low 60s, and that in just a few rooms. The bowl of the cats’ water in the kitchen froze. Having to go outside for nature’s call was pretty dreadful. One extremely cold (perhaps it was 1976-1977) snowy winter from Route 301 somewhere I saw a brown thrasher eating a dead deer.
One of the things I like best about the Washington Post is that its weather section each day tells you the world’s lowest and highest temperatures.
CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT (CBC) MEMORIES. My 1st CBC was in 1955 (might have been 1954). To the best of my reckoning (might be faulty) I’ve now been on 327 CBCs. In covering one sector of a CBC you spend an entire day in just one, rather small area. Get to know it well.
I consider the CBC as one part social, one part recreational or exercise, and a 3rd part science. At the conclusion there is a convivial compilation dinner, with welcome warm food after a day outside in the cold. Here’s some random, to say the least, memories.
3 times I stayed up all night, at Crisfield, St. Michaels, and Southern Dorchester County, calling up 40 screech-owls once on the St. Michaels CBC, a 24-hour effort. All nighters at any time of year are usually pretty grim, especially in the winter when it is cold and one can look forward to about 5 hours less of daylight than in May. I’ve done just over 100 all-nighters in May (40 in Delaware, the rest in Dorchester County, MD). With my current loss of stamina plus very poor balance I don’t expect to do any more all-nighters. The apparent loss of black rails has something to do with this, too.
Once our boatman was very late due to an exceptionally low tide and we prepared to spend an entire night on Myrtle Island but were finally picked up after darkness set in.
As a teen in my parents’ car I ruined all the shock absorbers by driving roughshod over ice all day.
I compiled the Cape Charles CBC, begun by my old friend Will Russell, for 48 straight years.
For several years, when our sector included Ocean City, the inlet, and West Ocean City, we found over 110 species, in one day.
There have been CBCs in northern Alaska where NO birds were seen.
One year at Ocean City when it was very cold and we were due to go out on a boat at sea, I devoured 3 orders of pancakes.
Radio events. At Ocean City once we watched a merlin streak by at the exact time that there was a space probe splash down somewhere. Once Jared and I on the Wachapreague CBC had the radio on when for the 1st time the capture of Saddam was announced.
Two times, on the St. Micheals and Southern Dorchester County CBCs, shots were fired into the mud within a few feet of me, to get my attention. They got it.
At the Cape Charles compilation former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger, a birder, came in and by chance sat next to me.
RTP on CBCs: “ … to me and to my friends it is our way of celebrating the holidays, an ornithological ritual that has come to represent Yuletide more than Santa Claus or the Christmas tree.” - Roger Tory Peterson, Birds over America (Dodd, Mead & Co., 1948, p. 47, from the chapter “Census at Christmas”). A little overstated, perhaps, but the right sentiment is certainly there.
Best to all. - Harry Armistead, Bellevue & Philadelphia.