Southern Maryland Chesapeake Bay - Nature Log Early March 2011

Spring is definitely in the air - all the birds doing their mating dances, and migrating Geese on the wing...

- Buffleheads are very active now (first time we've seen them down in St. Jerome's Creek) - little black and white diving ducks, chasing each other around

- The crows are chasing the owls around

- Rockfish are huge and fat right now, 6 pounder we purchased fo $27 was about the best fish we've ever eaten

- A few large flying bugs were spotted, warming up in the cold morning sun

- Squirrels are very active

- Mating Ospreys reappeared, getting active with scoping out their nests

- Not much visible under the water in the shallows, except some small clams washing up

- Time to cover the porch furniture anticipating an explosion of pine tree pollen, yellow dust covering everything in April

Southern Maryland Chesapeake Bay - Nature Log Early August 2010

An updated log of the Chesapeake Bay area wildlife for early August, 2010 - in St. Mary's County, MD, St. Jerome's Creek area....

• Massive schools of shiny anchovy-like fish crackling as they group-jump out of the water - greyish with yellow-tipped fins
  
• Bold juvenile crabs pulling snails off the shoreline reeds at high tide
  
• Ospreys and their grown children busy repairing their nests after summer storms, and harassing the fat Blue Herons and large white egrets/herons
  
• Crabs are running hard - pulling up a couple dozen in just a few hours in 2 crab pots, all male and rusty; lots of trot-liners
  
• "Pencil fish" are schooling now, grown to at least 3-4 inches; saw an 8-incher
  
• Lots of very colorful butterflies now, drinking late-summer weed nectar
  
• The small swallow-like birds are very active at dusk, competing with the bats for all the nice insects
  
• Jellyfish are bountiful (tons of very small ones), riding the currents around the small schooling fish
  

Updated 8/14/2010:

• 2 ft. juvenile black snake curled up in an overhanging tree branch, waiting to drop on something/someone
  
• small crabs mowing down the algae along the bottom of the dock (didn't know crabs liked algae!)
  
• caught a foot-long flounder/fluke, and a fat 14-inch rockfish, a 10-inch oyster toadfish - all in the crab pot; the crabs started chewing them right away, so they became bait
  

Southern Maryland Chesapeake Bay - Nature Log July 2010

Have meant to do this for a while - catalog nature as it appears around our house and the bay through the year...

Early July 2010

• Little yellow and green caterpillars eating our Dill
  
• 1-2 yr. old Ospreys sparring in the skies above the nesting Adults with their babies
  
• 8-10 inch diameter Bay turtles eyeballing us
  
• Crabs getting bigger, now all sizes, from rusty 2-inchers to fat 8-inchers
  
• Lots of 2-inch diameter jellyfish, tentacles grown out to almost 2 feet, and stinging!
  
• Trumpet Vines flowering (orange, trumpet-shaped vines)
  
• Shore guppies growing, up to 2-inches now
  
• Fiddler crabs about mid-grown, getting fat
  
• A few Japanese Beetles
  
• 3 black sea snake sightings
  
• Flipping fish more active in the mornings, now, still waiting for our "circus fish", who like to jump over floating sticks
  
• Mosquitos, as usual, big and fat, along with the broadwing large black flies
  
• Little bunnies growing up, active in the mornings/evening eating the lawn
  
• Large Blue Herons are enjoying the big guppies, now