Fowl Play on the Eastern Shore

Camera in hand, my husband, Lauren, galloped through marsh grass, pursuing a wild turkey in the Horsehead Wetlands on Chesapeake Bay. I squinted through binoculars at robins, goldfinches and grackles gathered around a bird feeder.

Some soothing sounds--peeping, chirping, cooing--surrounded us as a pair of Canada geese paraded near, followed by a gaggle of goslings. Beyond the yarrow and the thistle, the nourishing waters of the Chesapeake lapped onto sandbars where Alaskan trumpeter swans were nesting. We were looking for Maryland’s state bird, the Baltimore oriole, on this May outing. Neophyte birders, we were familiar with Southern California flocks, but we yearned to see birds of the East Coast as well.

Our plan was to spend a week exploring Maryland’s Eastern Shore, across the Bay Bridge from Annapolis. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in North America, with more than 5,000 miles of shoreline.

The region is known for fishing and shipbuilding, producing skipjacks for oyster dredging, working boats and schooners. But we were here to see the migratory waterfowl that nest and feed in the bay’s thousands of miles of marshes.

We started our trip in Chestertown, on the northern end of the Delmarva Peninsula (named for the three states that share it, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia) and worked our way south to the Atlantic Ocean, driving past farms, tidal marshes and small Colonial towns where the pace of life is as slow as the flat two-lane country roads we were traveling.

We drove into Chestertown, a pre-Revolutionary town of about 4,000, in the late afternoon, just in time for an early-bird dinner at the Blue Heron Cafe, one of the town’s two upscale restaurants. I selected sumptuous grilled Atlantic sal-mon; Lauren had yellowfin tuna.

The next morning we took a walk through Chestertown’s Historic District. Chartered in 1706, Chestertown has a collection of restored Colonial homes that rivals that of Annapolis, the state capital and home of the U.S. Naval Academy. We strolled by pre-Revolutionary, Victorian and Queen Anne-style homes in a neighborhood overlooking the Chester River. As we walked, splotches of red fluttered in the trees and caught my eye--cardinals, not the orioles I was looking for.

We drove 25 miles south to Wye Mills, another town rich in Colonial history and home of the Wye gristmill, which has been operating for more than 300 years. At the mill, built in 1682, flour is still ground with stone wheels.

Dave, the miller, showed us how the waterwheel turned the belt that moved the gears that pushed the rods, forcing grain up an elevator, between stones and down the chutes. At Orrell’s in Wye Mills, I tried a local specialty, a Maryland beaten biscuit. It was the size of a golf ball, hard and chewy. Baker Peggy Orrell said she uses a recipe that is more than 200 years old. Because the Colonists had few leavening agents--neither baking powder nor soda--they beat the batter to force air into it.

“In Colonial times they were beaten with a mallet or the back of an ax. Heck, you could beat them with a baseball bat! But these days I use metal rollers,” Peggy said.

In the early afternoon, we resumed our drive along a two-lane road south toward Easton.

Like neighboring Oxford and St. Michaels, Easton is a typical Eastern Shore town reflecting the traditional occupations of the region: fishing, farming and waterfowl hunting. To preserve the town’s historic character, the streetlights are replicas of kerosene lamps.

Ragtime music coming from an open door on Goldsborough Street lured us inside Rabbit Hill Music Supply. Cluttering the store were new and used mandolins, guitars, autoharps and banjos, and a drum that looked as if it might have been used in the Revolutionary War. Amid records, tapes and compact discs, patrons relaxed on beauty salon chairs with hair dryers still attached.

We got back in our car to search for an old Quaker meetinghouse in Easton, an interest of mine because of the Quakers’ pre-Civil War role in assisting runaway slaves on their journey to freedom in the North. The Third Haven Friends Meeting House, built in 1682, is one of the oldest religious buildings still in use in the country. The gravestones in the cemetery beside the meetinghouse were modest, many unreadable because of age. Inside the building the air was musty and cold. Spare wood benches faced one another. Meditating in the stark silence, I could imagine people pondering their positions on political and moral issues of the past 300 years.

Back in downtown Easton, we sampled crab cakes at the Tidewater Inn, once the haunt of waterfowl hunters. Then we found a hotel on the main highway and, exhausted, fell into bed.

The following morning we planned to drive through Oxford and Bellevue on our way to St. Michaels. The road was lined with wildflowers, and we soon crossed a bridge into Oxford, a small port town at the end of Maryland Route 333.

From Oxford we took a shortcut to Bellevue--across an inlet on America’s oldest privately run ferry, established in 1683.

As we arrived at St. Michaels at noon, the bells of the 1672 Christ’s Church serenaded us. St. Michaels is a touristy harbor town on the Miles River, attractive because of its history and its downtown lined with art galleries, shops and inns.

At the St. Michaels Maritime Museum we saw displays on the history of Native Americans and European settlers, waterfowl hunting and the ships produced in the region. Hustling up the tower of the Hooper Island Strait Lighthouse, adjacent to the museum and rising 63 feet above the bay, was a test of our agility. From the top we could see the harbor and the Miles River, a graceful arm of the Chesapeake.

After the museum visit, we cruised the river aboard the Patriot, a tour boat operated by Capt. Dan Lynch. Opulent houses stood on the shore among poplar beech and maples. A cormorant sunned itself on a channel marker, and mute swans bobbed in the current. We ended the day in typical Eastern Shore fashion, feasting on Maryland crab chowder at Zinc Restaurant in Oxford.

The next morning we headed for the wetlands of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, hoping to see bald eagles. We drove the paths, circling the marsh and the forest. We abandoned the car when we saw a nest in a stand of loblolly pines. Three majestic bald eagles, two mature and one juvenile, sprang from a nest, looped above the Blackwater River and disappeared into the trees.

Terns and osprey circled above the water, hunting for fish. Giant egrets foraged among cattails and bulrushes. A heron pushed off, stretching its long neck, beating its wings to the far shore.

We disagreed about where to go next. I wanted to go to Cambridge to see more historic houses, but Lauren argued for a drive south to Ocean City, which is on a barrier island that fronts the Atlantic Ocean. He promised I’d see an oriole there, so we drove south.

Along Highway 50 the landscape became a deeper shade of green, dissected by wetlands and meandering creeks.

I’m a sucker for hotels on the water, and we loved the Dunes Manor Hotel for its dignity and its location at the quieter north end of Ocean City, facing dunes and a sandy beach. To its south is a honky-tonk boardwalk, a wide, five-mile-long promenade.

We got an early start the next morning on a quest to see Assateague National Seashore, known for its dunes and wild horses. A park brochure promised that we would see wild horses on the beach, in the wetlands or along Bayberry Drive. We peered out the car windows, searching for them.

Eventually we arrived at the dunes, where we walked the half-mile trail. Sculpted by wind, the sand is an ever-changing artwork. On the ground were tracks from the nocturnal wanderings of snakes, deer and horses. The roots of marsh grasses, heather and bayberry clutched the sand.

Still on the lookout for wild horses, we tramped through the trees. Needles from loblolly pines carpeted the forest floor, and a variety of oaks, including the beautiful Southern red oak, thrived in the shade. From the wooden observation platform, we could see fingers of water reaching out to the sea and an abundance of water birds, but alas, neither horses nor orioles.

Reluctantly we returned to our car, making our way back across the bridge--and there, standing in the marsh at the side of the highway, were wild horses. Brown, white and gray ponies romped through the water. I felt a lump in my throat as I watched.

On the last morning of the trip, I suggested we look at wildfowl decoys in Salisbury.

“A decoy museum? You don’t even like hunting,” Lauren protested.

But I had read about the artists for whom the Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art was named. Lem and Steve Ward were country boys from the nearby town of Crisfield. To pay the family bills, they quit elementary school and became barbers. When they weren’t cutting hair, they liked to whittle decoys, which they sold, a dozen for five dollars. Whittling soon became more profitable than barbering as sportsmen across Maryland recognized their expertise.

The Ward brothers are dead now, but their legacy lives in the Ward Museum, which contains their carvings and paintings of birds. In the museum I saw a carved Baltimore oriole. In a showcase of bird feathers, I couldn’t tell the real ones from the carved facsimiles.

“Awesome. My favorite museum!” Lauren exclaimed as we left the grounds.

Our last night on the Eastern Shore called for a meal to remember. We dined alfresco on albacore and oysters Rockefeller at the Brew River Restaurant on the Wicomico River. As the sun was setting, Lauren presented me with an envelope. I opened it expectantly. Cut from the newspaper was a picture of a Baltimore Oriole in a baseball uniform.

I wasn’t disappointed.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Guidebook: The Chesapeake

* Getting there: The airports most convenient to Maryland’s Eastern Shore are Baltimore (BWI) and National (Ronald Reagan), across from downtown Washington, D.C. United and US Airways fly nonstop from LAX to BWI. There’s direct (one stop) service to BWI on Continental, America West, Southwest and Northwest. Restricted round-trip fares start at $198. American Trans Air and Northwest have direct service to National; fares start at $418.

* Where to stay: In Chestertown we stayed at Comfort Suites, 160 Scheeler Road, Chestertown, MD 21620; telephone (800) 517-4000, Internet https://www.comfortsuites.com. Room and breakfast about $130.

The Great Oak Manor, 10568 Cliff Road, Chestertown, MD 21620; tel. (800) 504-3098, tel./fax (410) 778-5943, https://www.greatoak.com. This is a plantation house on the bay, with tennis and golf. Doubles with breakfast start at $124.

In Easton: Holiday Inn Express, 8561 Ocean Gateway on Highway 50, Easton, MD 21601; tel. (877) 327-8661, https://www.basshotels.com/hiexpress. Room and breakfast for two about $110.

The Tidewater Inn, 101 E. Dover St., Easton, MD 21601; tel. (800) 237-8775, https://www.tidewaterinn.com. Doubles from $120.

In Ocean City: Dunes Manor Hotel, 2800 Baltimore Ave., Ocean City, MD 21842; tel. (800) 523-2888 or (410) 289-1100, fax (410) 289-4905, https://www.dunesmanor.com. A high-rise on the beach. Rooms from $40 to $220, depending on season.

The Commander Resort Hotel, 1401 Atlantic Ave., Ocean City, MD 21842; tel. (888) 289-6166 or (410) 289-6166, https://www.commanderhotel.com. It has suites with ocean and boardwalk views. Rates begin at $145.

In Salisbury: Comfort Inn, 2701 N. Salisbury Blvd. (Highway 13), Salisbury, MD 21801; tel. (800) 221-2222 or (410) 543-4666, https://www.comfortinn.com. Room with continental breakfast about $85.

* Where to eat: In Chestertown, try the Blue Heron Cafe, 236 Cannon St., local tel. 778-0188. Entrees about $20.

In Easton: The Washington Street Pub, 20 N. Washington St., tel. 822-9011. Entrees begin at $10.

In Oxford: Le Zinc, 101 Mill St., tel. 226-5776. Seafood entrees begin at $12.

In Ocean City: Kitty Hawk Grill, 46th St. and Coastal Highway, tel. 723-5966. Entrees average $12 to $18.

In Salisbury: Waterman’s Cove, 925 Snow Hill Road, tel. 546-1400. Entrees from $9.95.

* For more information: Maryland Office of Tourism Development, 217 E. Redwood St., Baltimore, MD 21202; tel. (800) 543-1036 or (410) 767-3400, fax (410) 333-6643, https://www.mdisfun.org.

-- Laurel Wasserman