The ANS "Birds of Prey and Winter Waterfowl" field trip on 1/14/05 drew 14
participants. Led by Joe Coleman and myself, it originated in Leesburg at The
Rust Sanctuary, took in parts of NW Loudoun Co in Virginia and continued into
Frederick and Montgomery counties in Maryland. We scouted the Lucketts area in
VA, Little Seneca Lake and Lily Pons in MD, and on the way home at dusk,
stopped off at Montressor Rd near Lucketts to check for Short-eared Owls. In
spite of a miss on the owls, the day was quite educational and productive.
Target raptors for the day were Harrier, Rough-legged Hawk, & Short-eared Owls.
All 3 species were sadly missed, especially since they were abundant in this
area last winter. As I write this, I note that another group found Merlin and
Harriers at Montressor yesterday, but unfortunatley, we did not. Timing is
everything! :-)
Although in Maryland but not Virginia, a nice highlight of the day was 2 flocks
of Horned Larks that delighted us all (a few folks added them to their life
list - that's always rewarding).
As the trip concentrated on raptors and waterfowl, I'll list only these. All
waterfowl were in Maryland.
Pied-billed Grebe - 6-8
Horned Grebe - 2
Canada Goose - too many
Tundra Swans - 60+
Mallard - of course
Canvasback - 30+
Ring-necked Duck - 40
Lesser Scaup - 1F
Bufflehead - 40+
Common Goldeneye - 12 or so
Common Merganser - 15-20
Ruddy Duck - lots
American Coot - bunches
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1
Cooper's Hawk - 1
Red-shouldered Hawk - 1
Red-tailed Hawk - 26
American Kestrel - 6
Horned Lark - 130+
Total # of species: 46
Weather was fine, birds were great, and folks had fun. How much better can it
get?!
Jon & BJ Little
Winchester
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