Where the Heck Are all the Birds?

Down here in the Toddville Tidewaters, birdfeeders are funny places. With over 250 different species of birds in the area, and being right under the Atlantic Flyway, the major route for many migratory birds, you’d think a birdfeeder would be the happening place, at least in the bird world. After surfing the Internet and looking at the many colorful birds supposedly all around me, I invested over fifty bucks to feed our feathered friends.

As a kid growing up on the Eastern Shore, I always had a bird feeder. The usual visitors frequented my feeder: cardinals, blue jays, chickadees, nuthatches, downy and pileated woodpeckers and an occasional flicker. I did attract plenty of tufted titmouses (or would that be titmice?). They aren’t colorful birds, but are handsome in their own right. They sort of remind me of a drab-colored, but smaller, cockatiel.

Oh, and my feeder attracted the obligatory, and obnoxious, squirrels, too.

But I could never attract the really pretty birds I saw in the books: evening grosbeaks, purple finches, bluebirds, indigo buntings, and just about any of the warblers. Down here, I figured I’m right under their migratory route and should attract some of these birds, at least a cedar waxwing. Cedar waxwings look like cardinals, but they aren’t red. They are very striking birds with subtle hues of tan and yellow with a strategically placed red stripe.

And down here, I would even be happy with the obnoxious squirrel. The rare, and endangered Delmarva fox squirrel calls this area home. Once ranging from Pennsylvania through Virginia, it is now restricted to only a few areas in Maryland with Dorchester County boasting the largest population. Sure, to a lot of people, it may look like a smaller, fatter gray squirrel with a much bigger tail, but it is endangered so I have to see one before it disappears forever.

I bought a 3-in-1 feeder. Wild birdseed went in the middle, suet on one side, and sunflower seed cakes on the other. I wanted a gourmet feast to please any bird’s pallet. I set it up in the front yard where I could see it no matter where I sat in the house and patiently waited for the birds to come the next day.

Nothing.

The day after that: nothing.

For a full seven days, not one bird visited my feeder.

I decided that the feeder’s location wasn’t enticing enough for the birds. It stood smack in the middle of the yard with no trees or bushes anywhere near and it was probably too close to the house. I moved it away from the house near the woods’ edge where the cut lawn met the tall weeds I never got around to cutting. Now, I figured, the birds had protection from the weeds and trees and would feel safe to come feast. I eagerly anticipated my visitors the next morning.

Nothing.

The day after that: nothing.

For a full seven days, not one bird visited my feeder.

Then on the eighth day, I glanced out and saw a downy woodpecker eagerly poking away at the suet. On the ground were a couple of birds, but I couldn’t make out what they were because the weeds obscured my view – and the feeder sits too far away from the house. My eyes aren’t like they were when I was a kid.

I ran to the car to get my binoculars, the pair I had since I was a kid. I tried to bring everything in focus, but the best I could do was get a cloudy, slightly blurry image. (My binoculars have been shot for years and I’ve never replaced them. I should, but I can’t afford a new pair right now. The house takes everything, so I have to make do with what I got.)

I tried to use my plain eyes, again. As I took the binoculars away, another bird flew down on the feeder, scaring the woodpecker away. I could tell it was a handsome bird, but my naked eyes focused in on it about as well as my binoculars. (In the past couple of years, my excellent 20/15 vision has deteriorated to 20/20 and I’m sure a bit worse, now. I should get new eyes, but they can’t do that, yet. It sucks getting older.)

I raised the binoculars back up hoping to at least make out what this handsome bird was. I brought it into focus the best I could and there was no mistaking it. Finally, I saw my first cedar waxwing, something I always wanted to see since I was a kid.

I excitedly handed the binoculars to Keith. This was a treat that had to be shared. By the time he got the binoculars to his eyes and centered on the feeder, the cedar waxwing had flown off.

Christmas is coming. I’m hoping for a new pair of binoculars and a return visit from the cedar waxwing. Keith just has to see it.

And I have to figure out how I can afford a good camera….

© 2006
Mark Darien
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Toddville Tidewaters' Welcome - Part IV

Note: If you haven’t read Toddville Tidewaters Welcome parts I, II, & III, you may want to read those first to make sense of what this final installment means.

After cracking open my beer, I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. As I lit my cigarette, my neighbor across the street pulled up. As he got out of his truck, he yelled over, “So how do you like living here now?”

“It’s an adventure, but fun!” I walked to the middle of the road and struck up a conversation with him. It was my first meeting with our one and only neighbor.

Mr. Dawson turned out to be an elderly man, but I couldn’t tell you how old. I’ve since learned that life on the Eastern Shore must be hard on the natives like Mr. Dawson. Everyone looks a good fifteen years or so older than they really are. Must be from a lifetime of working in the sun as a fisherman or crabber.

We did talk for about a half an hour as a light rain continued to fall in the strong breezes. As we talked, we heard a tree fall behind Mr. Dawson’s house. I reckon the breezes were stronger than I thought, but compared to earlier in the day, I don’t feel right saying it was windy.

From him, I learned that the wind speed from this storm was clocked at 99 mph only a couple of miles from where we stood. And like a typical down-home, Eastern Shoreman, he complained about all the intruders – city folk moving to the countryside.

“I was born and raised down here,” he said, “and even I had trouble knowing where the roads were. All these people move down here and mow all the grass right up to the road to make their yard look nice. Without the grass poking through, how are you supposed to see the road?”

I mostly listened figuring I could learn a lot about the area from him.

The conversation turned to hurricane Isabel a couple of years ago. Where we were standing, Mr. Dawson explained, the water was a good four feet high. He pointed to my house and said the waters were up to the bottom of my windows.

“Looks like we lucked out on this one,” I said.

He agreed.

“Well, I’m getting cold and I’m soaked. I better get on inside.”

I went in and changed clothes. I told Keith all that Mr. Dawson had to say. We reassured each other that most likely, we wouldn’t have much to worry about. Isabel was a record-breaking storm. Even downtown Baltimore got flooded out on that one. The odds of getting another Isabel type storm would be slim, we reasoned, and, besides, we obviously caught the brunt of Ernesto and the floodwaters were way down the road away from our house.

We didn’t have anything to worry about.

I opened another beer and began to unpack. About a half hour after talking to Mr. Dawson, I called Thistle to go outside with me so I could smoke another cigarette. (Ok, no lectures here. Yes, I know – I need to quit smoking.)

I opened the side door and stepped off the step into water above my ankles. Instinctively, I pulled my foot back. “Shit, Keith! We’re in trouble.”

Keith ran to the door. Water completely surrounded our house and was half way up the tires of Keith’s car. I went to the front of the house. The water was up to the top of the porch, and the road where I had been talking to Mr. Dawson a half hour earlier now looked like a river.

The tidewaters found us and came knocking on our door to welcome us.

I checked all around the house to see if any water was coming in. One spot, behind our couch, was damp as if someone spilled a glass of water. Otherwise, there was no water coming in.

I stepped out on our porch and watched the water. I couldn’t tell if it was still rising or not. I needed to know because if it rose only a few more inches, we would have a serious water problem in the house.

Fortunately, Keith likes wine and we had plenty of corks available. I tacked a piece of string to a cork, floated it in the water, and tacked the string taught to the doorjamb.

“There,” I said as I showed Keith my marvel of engineering, “if the water is rising, the string will get loose. If it is falling, the cork will start to slant on end.”

“What good is that? It won’t stop the water from coming in the house. And what about my car?”

He had a point, but it was too late to sandbag the house or move the car. I just needed to know what the water was doing.

Twenty minutes later, I checked the cork. I breathed a sigh of relief. It started slanting downwards – the water level was falling.

We went to bed knowing that for now, we weathered the storm just fine. When we awoke the next morning, the water had disappeared. The tide did run high for the next couple of days, but none of it came close to flooding our house or flooding the roads as badly as the initial storm surge.

For the first time, I had serious doubts about how wise it was to buy this house at such a great deal.


© 2006
Mark Darien
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Toddville Tidewaters' Welcome - Part III

If you have read the first two parts of the Toddville welcome, you’re probably wondering where the third stooge has been hiding throughout this whole play. Two guys can’t move a one-bedroom apartment in a U-Haul and pick-up all in one trip; they finish their move as a tropical storm moves in despite having a whole week prior to the forecasted storm to move; they buy a house where the roads leading to it sit inches above the water and then they wonder if they are going to flood; and then coming home after a major storm, they can’t see the road is flooded and blindly plow right into it.

Summarizing the story like that, I reckon I would wonder where the third stooge in this play is at, too. But there’s something about tidal wetlands that, unless you live there, the picture in your mind of a flooded road is radically different than what actually happens.

At the point we hit the water, the backcountry road, even thought it is the main road, winds its way through the marshlands. There are no streetlights, no stop signs, and only on the real dangerous curves (the near 90°-turns) are there any road signs indicating which way the road goes. Ten of those fifteen miles of road are county-maintained. Once you leave the state-maintained roads, even those warning signs disappear. What’s left to guide you is the yellow center line, which is almost always a double yellow solid since there aren’t many stretches in the road where it’s safe to pass.

Now, the roads are wet because it is still raining outside. As the tide comes in, there is no rush of water spilling across the roads in muddy turbulence. The water simply rises, rather quickly, filling the drainage ditches alongside of the road, overflowing them, and spilling across the road to fill the marsh on the other side. The water is crystal clear because it is the Bay water, not muddy runoff from a hillside or raging stream. The yellow lines never disappear from sight.

That is why we didn’t see the water coming until we hit it.

We inched our way through the water, straddling the yellow line like a jet coming in for landing. All the warning stories ran through our head: “Don’t drive through water if you don’t know how deep it is”, “It only takes inches of running water to float your vehicle away”, and “If the water is rising, get out while you can.”

Turning around was simply out of the question. There is only one way to our house and this was it. We plugged forward. As long as I could see the yellow lines, I figured my truck would make it. And the water certainly wasn’t moving swiftly. The tide was simply coming in.

Less than a minute through the water and we were back on un-flooded pavement. I picked up my speed from a crawl to maybe around 20 mph. We figured other parts of the road must be flooded and we were intent on seeing the water before hitting it.

Whoosh! Less than a mile down the road, we hit water again, and, no, we didn’t see it. Emboldened by the first stretch of water, we inched our way through while straddling the yellow line for guidance.

We crept along, but this time, the water wasn’t disappearing. All the warnings flashed through our heads, again. We began to seriously doubt that we would make it home. We debated about turning around and waiting the flood out in Cambridge.

There was only one problem with that thought. The backcountry road is two-lanes wide with no shoulder to speak of. The pavement ends and a few inches of grassy mud separate the road from the drainage ditch with the marsh and drainage ditch boundaries being blurred. Making a turnaround in broad daylight on a dry road challenges one’s driving skills. I didn’t want to learn through experience that making a turnaround at nighttime on a flooded road is dang near impossible.

We continued forward – Keith holding his breath and every muscle in my body as tight as a funeral drum. What a relief when we hit un-flooded pavement, again. But it wasn’t a time to relax. We had about another ten or so miles to go.

We went a ways down the road when Keith said, “Slow down, looks like water up ahead.”

Sure enough, we hit the water, again, but without the whoosh! this time. We inched our way through the water like we were old pros at this. Keith even bragged that he could differentiate between the wet, un-flooded pavement and flooded pavement. Despite being able to see the yellow lines, the flooded pavement was a shade darker than the un-flooded parts.

I sure as Hell couldn’t tell the difference, not that it mattered this time.

We crawled through the water. Minutes ticked by and we were still in the water. The first mile clicked by and we were still in the water. Finally, dry pavement! It lasted three feet before we were in the water again.

That was the cycle for the next eight or so miles. Our truck became an amphibious vehicle that occasionally hit an un-flooded patch of pavement here and there. Our normal thirty-minute drive stretched to an hour, then an hour and a half. All the while, the tide continued to rise. The yellow line, while still visible, grew fainter. The water was getting deeper.

We passed Carolyn’s Stone House, our landmark meaning we were close to home. Driving through eight miles or so of floodwaters, I definitely needed a beer. My attention was so focused on following the yellow line and praying I wouldn’t lose sight of it, I missed the bar.

“Carolyn’s is closed,” Keith deadpanned.

“Too bad. I need a beer.”

“We’re almost home. You think our house is ok?”

“I guess we won’t know ‘til we get there.”

The yellow line grew fainter and fainter. As we neared the crab house, the lines disappeared. I could estimate where the road was, but one slight mistake and we’d end up in either the marshland or the marina. I stopped, not sure if I should chance continuing, but not really knowing what my alternatives were, either.

Up ahead, I saw another truck coming towards us.

“If he can make it through to there, I should be able to make it through this because we know it won’t get any deeper,” I reasoned.

“Are you sure?”

“Makes sense to me. Either that or the water is getting really deep down there and they’re leaving before they get trapped.”

“Oh God. I hope Thistle’s ok.”

“Worse comes to worse, she always has the second floor to run to. She’ll be safe there.”

We cautiously continued forward. No yellow line, but we weren’t in the marsh or the marina, either, so I figured we were still on the road. As we passed the crab house, the yellow line came back into view.

We both breathed a collective sigh of relief.

We had about two miles more to go to get to the road where we lived. We had long since stopped hitting dry patches of pavement, but at least the yellow line remained visible all the way to our road.

We turned onto our road and it was like entering a black tunnel. There are no yellow lines on our road, no signs, no reflectors, and no streetlights. As far as we could see, the road was a smooth black. Fortunately, no one cut the grass alongside of the road, so the blades poked through the blackness like tiny little buoys. As long as I stayed in the center of the black and kept the blades of grass equidistance on either side of me, I must be in the middle of the road.

Barely going faster than a turtle on a leisurely stroll, I moved through the water. The blades of grass made nice little buoys, but I knew there was one sharp turn in the road, and that cut over a drainage ditch. There would be no grass to mark the road.

As I approached the turn, the grass disappeared, but reappeared on the other side. I was able to judge where the center of the road most likely was and crept through the turn. The water got deeper, but I could still see the grass. As long as I could see the grass blades, I reckoned I would be ok.

We came to our marsh at the end of our property. The headlights revealed un-flooded pavement just past our marsh and where our woods began. For the first time in a solid six or seven miles, we hit un-flooded pavement. We passed our woods and, as our house came into sight, there were no floodwaters in sight.

We parked the truck and the first thing I did was go inside and crack open a beer. I needed one. And we both wanted to celebrate the weathering of our first storm and our house wasn’t even close to being in danger.

Coming next post…while we celebrate and unpack, the tidal waters have their own welcoming in mind.



© 2006
Mark Darien
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Please include this copyright notice if you share this article

Toddville Tidewaters' Welcome - Part II

Our big move-in day was Labor Day weekend. We started moving the week prior, and what a hectic week, to say the least. We should’ve taken the U-Haul experience as an omen of what would come. That experience, though, is a post for another day.

One thing I learned through the whole experience: I’ll never quit my day job and become a professional mover. One U-Haul truckload on Sunday plus a pick-up truckload, and another pick-up truckload on Wednesday, and on Thursday, we still had more junk to move. We went back on Thursday to get the rest of our stuff, and guess what? We still couldn’t get everything in the pick-up truck.

You might think we were moving a mini-estate, but, no, we were moving a one-bedroom apartment. It’s not that we had a lot of junk to move. We just didn’t know how to pack it all.

Thursday, we had to be out of the apartment. Our landlord collected our keys while we were moving and told us to make sure we locked up behind us. “No problem,” we thought, “we only have the one more load and collecting our keys now would save us a trip to the office to turn the keys in.”

Sounded good until we realized that what was left wouldn’t fit in our truck. We had to make a second trip. Fortunately, Keith hadn’t turned in his key to the patio door. We knew we had to take the first load home and turn around to retrieve the last of our crap since we still had a key and midnight was our deadline to be out of the apartment.

None of this sounds like a big deal unless you keep one thing in mind: a one-way trip from Baltimore to our new house is about a two-hour, fifteen-minute drive.

We returned to Baltimore for the last of our stuff at around two in the morning. We loaded it up and headed home. By this time, the leading edge of tropical storm Ernesto made its way into the area. The steady, light rain wetted out junk, but most of what we had wouldn’t have gotten damaged even if we drove home in downpours.

We finished unloading our truck as the more steady rains started falling. It was seven in the morning and we were beat. Neither one of us really wanted to go to sleep because we didn’t know what Ernesto would bring. We rested a bit easier, though, knowing the weathermen had forecasted the storm to move more inland and far west of us. We figured we could deal better with any water problems if we got some rest, first.

We woke up around two in the afternoon. The wind howled and the rain fell in sheets. We had no TV since, somehow, our TV didn’t survive the move. It shorted out the moment we plugged it in. All we had was a little portable radio.

From the looks outside, we sensed Ernesto didn’t go as far inland nor west as the weathermen had predicted. From the reports on the radio, we knew Virginia was hit hard and figured the brunt of the storm hit us.

Our front yard was wet, but no flooding. Around six in the evening, the storm seemed to abate some. Since we had no refrigerator or food, we decided to take our chances and try to head out of the marshlands to get something to eat and buy some cleaning supplies.

We got out with no problems. In fact, we were happy and felt for sure we weathered the storm just fine. We stopped at a little Mom and Pop restaurant in Church Creek and enjoyed a hot, home cooked meal. We went on up to Cambridge to get our supplies and headed home. All tolled, we were gone about two hours.

The rain had subsided to a steady light, almost moderate fall. The winds still blew, but nowhere near what they were earlier in the afternoon. As far as we were concerned, the storm was over and it wasn’t a big deal.

When we got to the end of MD 335, where we turn left to head the fourteen miles back to our house, police had set up a roadblock. It being the weekend, I immediately thought of a DUI checkpoint. I wasn’t worried. Keith was drinking his small bottle of wine, but my beer was in the back of the truck, unopened. At most, I figured the cops would tell me it was illegal for Keith to be drinking, but wave me on since I obviously hadn’t a drop to drink.

I pulled up to the checkpoint. The officer came over with his flashlight shining in my face. “Where you headed?” he asked.

I told him home and he started asking me more questions, including asking to see my driver’s license. “You’re driver’s license says you live in Baltimore,” he said.

“Yes, I know. We literally moved here this morning,” I replied.

“You need to get this changed if you live here.”

“Yes, I know, but it is Labor Day weekend and I doubt I will be getting it done any time soon.”

He handed my license back and waved me on. “Be careful, though. Tides are running high tonight.”

We continued on our way. While it made sense to have a DUI checkpoint on Labor Day weekend, two things didn’t make sense. First, why put a checkpoint way out in the middle of nowhere instead of on a main road? Second, why set up so early, before most people even think of going to a bar?

No, the checkpoint didn’t make sense, but after a mile or so down the road and we hadn’t hit any water, it made more sense than the officer’s warning to be careful of the rising tides. Sure, they do things differently on the Eastern Shore, but the whole DUI checkpoint thing was downright backwards.

We came up to the first set of two, 90-degree turns in the road. On any day, the water on both sides of the road going through the turn is near level with the road surface. As we approached the turn, I told Keith, “If there’s going to be water anywhere, it’ll be here. If it’s not here, then that cop was lying and that really was a checkpoint.”

I inched my way around the turns fully expecting a flood.

Nothing.

As I rounded the last of the two turns, I picked up my speed. “I reckon that was a checkpoint. It doesn’t make sense, but there’s no water here.”

I know sooner made that comment when, “Whoosh!” I hit water. It was deep, too. My truck instantly slowed to a crawl.

Coming next post…the tides keep rising and we’re 15 miles from home



© 2006
Mark Darien
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Please include this copyright notice if you share this article

Toddville Tidewaters' Welcome - Part I

The best way to welcome you to Toddville is to recreate our welcoming. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Oh, and you might want to buckle up.

Keith and I found the house back last June. Eight acres priced so cheap, we expected to see a rundown shack, but we had to check it out because the land looked so enticing. (We’re avid gardeners.)

We took a Sunday drive knowing we’d enjoy the day, but not holding out for a promising house. We had been disappointed more than I can count since autumn over offers we could afford, but sounded too good to be true. We expected to fall in love with the area, but turn it down because we couldn’t afford to fix the house up to a livable condition.

Once we exited the highway to find the house, we drove thirty miles through breath-taking woods and tidal marshes on a winding, country road barely two lanes wide. All the way down, the road literally ran less than a foot above the water. Most places through the marshes, the road was only inches above the water mark.

I grew up on the Eastern Shore, but never did I know Maryland had this rugged remoteness to offer. Keith forgot he was in Maryland. The man who loves the mountains of Pennsylvania stared in awe at the sea of grass and the abundant wildlife.

We got our hopes up for a livable house because we knew this is where we wanted to be – on a lot of land and away from people.

To our surprise, the house wasn’t only livable, but looked to be practically new. On Monday, we scheduled a showing and knew we were going to take this newly remodeled 1920 farmhouse.

All summer, we drove down to explore the area and hoped we would get approved for the financing so we could move in. We were, however, concerned about flooding. With the water practically at road level, we thought for sure the place must flood.

Fortunately, we had a week of heavy rains – over a foot of it. If the house flooded, this would be the storm to do it. Heck, people in the city who never worried about flooding were getting flooded. Surely, the house we wanted to buy had to be under water.

We drove down to check it out, not even expecting to get to it because the roads would be flooded out. As we wound our way through the marshes, the water was higher than we had ever seen it, but wasn’t anywhere near flooding the road out. When we got to the house, there was one little puddle in the front yard and that was it. No flooding anywhere.

We were excited, but still had to ask: “Did the house ever flood?”

The owners were forthright. “On bad storms,” they said, “the tide might spill a little bit into the front yard, but the house will stay dry. It only flooded during Isabel. And since we added several truckloads of dirt to the front yard, you probably won’t even have the tides coming up into the yard much anymore.”

Isabel flooded everybody. People who had lived fifty years in their house and never came close to flooding had Isabel filling their living rooms. So a little water might come into our yard once in awhile. Big deal.

We proceeded with the paperwork and on Labor Day weekend, we moved in.

Coming next post…move in day and tropical storm Ernesto’s welcoming.


© 2006
Mark Darien
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Please include this copyright notice if you share this article