[va-bird] 2004 Virginia Spring Arrival Dates

Hola,
In spring of 2003, Ned Brinkley and I loosely tried to track statewide 
arrival dates of migrants.  Certainly this isn't particularly scientific, and 
probably not even very beneficial.  It's fraught with errors, incomplete, and 
perhaps meaningless.  But it didn't take much work, it was fun, and we're going 
to 
do it again.  Ned's out of town right now, unaware that I've made this decision 
for him.  He'll be thrilled.

There are some problematic species; birds that winter here in low numbers, or 
might winter here in low numbers.  Things such as Catbirds, Thrashers, 
Blue-winged Teal, Osprey and Tree Swallows (to name but a few), can, and do 
overwinter.  It's much more difficult to track things like that, though we did 
try 
last year to note stuff that was away from where they typically overwinter.  
It's 
hit or miss.  

A lot of folks don't post their sightings to listservs, but do either 
subscribe to them, or otherwise read them.  Quite a few earliest sightings came 
from 
such people last year.  I'm hoping that those folks will drop a note to me or 
Ned again this year.  

For 2004, the only birds I've flagged as migrants and noted the dates are an 
Osprey found by Kurt Gaskill and party at Lynnhaven Inlet, Virginia Beach 18 
January, and Tree Swallows found by Allen Larner at Eastern Shore of Virginia 
N.W.R. in Northampton 22 February.  Both species seemed to pull out of the 
state totally this year, but that's part of the subjectivity of doing something 
like this.  While talking about subjectivity, since this is for entertainment 
purposes, we're not particularly demanding about details when things are 
earlier 
than expected.  That said, if something is a much earlier than expected, and 
it's a species that is easily mistaken for something else (the most obvious 
example of this is Eastern Wood-Pewee, which is sometimes reported in March, 
and 
is much more likely a phoebe when seen, or a starling when heard), we'll 
probably not include it.  Fortunately, since birds that are vagrants or 
overshoots 
aren't really part of the migration pattern and aren't expected, we don't 
have to be terribly particular about details for such things.  We just don't 
mention them.  

I'll probably post the list every couple weeks or so, and if you've got a 
date to beat what's posted, do let me know.  Even if you'd posted it 
previously, 
I might miss it for any number of reasons.

Things are starting to move.  Already some of our wintering birds are 
leaving, or others of their kind are passing through (making it impossible to 
track 
the first of them).  Within a week or two we should have the first Pectoral 
Sandpipers, Piping Plovers, Purple Martins, and Rough-winged Swallows.  After 
that, things will fall pretty regularly.  

Here's to a good spring, full of birds.  

Cheers,

Todd

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Todd Day
Jeffersonton, VA
Culpeper County
Blkvulture@xxxxxxx
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