VA Birders,
Bill Cross, Pat Blyer, and I spent the morning at Fort C.F. Smith Park in
Arlington County today, Wednesday, April 23. We saw our first Broad-winged
Hawk before we left the parking lot, and we counted 26 Broad-wings on our
walk. Many came over quite low, providing excellent views; they may have
spent the night nearby. We also tallied 13 Chimney Swifts, our first of the
year in Arlington. On April 23 last year we counted 22 Broad-wings in the
park.
We also spent some time checking our new Bird Stream project in the park,
which was sponsored by our Northern Virginia Bird Club and built under the
Arlington Small Parks Program. The "stream" is finally up and running this
week, and we saw a goldfinch check it out while we were there. Landscaping
for the project with native plants is also planned, and we are hoping that at
least some of the plants will be in by this weekend, when the grand opening
of the park is planned, complete with a ribbon cutting at 1:00 pm on Sunday.
(Hours for the opening festivities are 10:00 am-2:00 pm on Saturday, and
12:00 noon-4:00 pm Sunday.)
For those who may be interested, Fort Smith was one of the Civil War
forts that surrounded Washington. It overlooks the Potomac River in North
Arlington and has attracted an amazing variety of birds for a location inside
the Capital Beltway. We had 2 Eastern Meadowlarks visit the park last
Friday, and Vesper and Savannah Sparrows have also been observed there
recently. With the addition of the Bird Stream, we are hoping to add more
warblers to the park's bird list this spring.
Fort Smith Park is included in the new VA Birding and Wildlife Trail,
Coastal Area, Guide.
Val Kitchens
Arlington, VA
You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email
to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
