At it’s current state Bodkin Island is an increasingly small group of island fragments in Eastern Bay - just offshore of Kent Island in Queen Annes County, Maryland. In the late 1700’s when the island was first surveyed and occupied by European settlers, Bodkin was a peninsula that was attached to Turkey Point at the southern end of Cox Neck. In the 1850’s the property consisted of more than 50 acres with barns, outbuildings and a permanent dwelling. Erosion eventually ate away at the narrow isthmus of land, separating Bodkin Point from the mainland. By 1864, Bodkin was officially recognized as an island on charts. By 1899 the island had eroded down to 32 acres. Joseph Usilton one of the early caretakers of the property recalled fields of wheat surrounded by a lush forest of hardwoods and pines. A large flock of herons and egrets built nests in the tall trees during the spring nesting season.
The abundance of waterfowl on the island attracted a group of hunters to purchase the island in 1939. The Seven Island Hunting Club built a lodge on the highest point of land and a bulkhead around the perimeter of the island to protect the shoreline. The island and the lodge were later sold to another group of waterfowl hunters - the Bodkin Island Hunting Club. In 1953 the US Fish and Wildlife Service surveyed the island and recorded seventy six black duck nests. At that time, the island had eroded down to five acres. More than 30 years later, in 1984 USFWS conducted another survey for on the nesting black duck population. The islands diminishing landmass mirrored the numbers of birds that were able to nest on the landmass - only three black duck nests were recorded on the island that year.
In 1983 the island had switched ownership again. Richard Earle, a Washington D.C. attorney, bought the .94 acre island for a summer retreat. Earle immediately put more than $100,000 into the property in an attempt to save his new acquisition. A bulkhead (portions are standing around the island as of May 2023) was built around the perimeter of the island and sand was brought out to fill in low spaces around the island. During the 1983-1984 winter, storms blew out parts of the bulkhead and washed out the fill sand. The following year vandals set Earle’s lodge on fire and destroyed the island’s only structure and the few remaining trees. In 1995 Earle sold the land to Maryland Department of Natural Resources for $140,000 - recouping the cost of his initial investment into the property. Maryland DNR had plans of using the island as a site to dispose of spoil from dredging projects at Kent Narrows. Eventually the state decided that the project would be too costly and buy 1997 abandoned the island and all hopes to use it.
Without the bulkhead that Earle built in 1983 the island would have been completely lost to erosion. Double crested cormorants and different species of gulls were able to utilize the remaining clumps of dirt until the spring of 2022. As of the spring of 2023 the cormorants and all other nesting birds had abandoned Bodkin Island as the landmass became too small to comfortable build nests on.
The aerial photographs below, taken in May 2022 (left) and May 2023 (right) show the effects of one-year of erosion on the remains of Bodkin. Experts predict that the land that once made up the island will be completely gone by the winter of 2023-2024.
Jay Fleming photographing the last two pieces of land that make up Bodkin Island in May 2023. Photograph by Kim Kelly.
Bodkin Island in May of 2022. During the following winter, this piece broke into to two smaller islets.
The remains of the bulkhead around Bodkin Island built in 1983 by Richard Earle.
Watermen out of Grasonville, Maryland using a hydraulic escalator dredge to dig for razor clams around the shoreline of Bodkin Island in April 2011.
Double crested cormorants nesting on Bodkin Island in April 2010.
Cormorant nests made with natural nesting material, trash and discarded fishing/crabbing gear.
Great blue herons nesting on a duck blind three miles to the west of Bodkin Island in Shipping Creek. Species of birds that once utilized Bodkin as nesting habit had to look elsewhere as the landmass diminished.
Erosion on the unprotected southern shoreline of Parsons Island. Parsons is a 50+ acre island that lies approximately 5 miles to the east of Bodkin Island in Eastern Bay. Just like Bodkin, Parsons was originally a peninsula that was attached to the mainland of Kent Island.