VA Birders,
After reading Sue Heath's report of 2 Common Moorhens at Dyke Marsh
yesterday, Betty Kilgore and I decided to go and look for these birds this
morning. Since Sue saw the birds at 10:30 am, we decided to go an hour later
(to be there at the same tide). We were not disappointed. We got out to the
area described by Sue (thanks to her good directions) shortly after 11:30 am.
At first we did not see anything but some Mallards. However, just before
noon, as I was taking one last scan across the inlet, I realized that a bird
swimming near the Mallards had a horizontal white stripe on its side. I
quickly got it in the scope (it is definitely worth taking a scope if you
have one) and saw that it was indeed a Common Moorhen. While watching it, we
saw a second bird swimming back behind some sticks, so there were indeed 2
Common Moorhens. BOTH OF THE BIRDS WE SAW WERE JUVENILES. They had brownish
backs, and the rest of their bodies and heads were gray; they had yellowish
bills.
Since there seems to be some confusion about the directions among people
to whom I reported these birds, I will give the directions again. We walked
out the trail to Dyke Marsh to where it turns left onto the Haul Road (which
I think got its name because dirt & gravel were hauled in to make it--someone
can correct me if this is wrong). Then we walked out the Haul Road, crossed
the small wooden bridge, and continued a short distance further to an obvious
path which goes off to the right. We took this path down to the water's edge
and scanned the opposite shore (this is also often the best spot to look for
Least Bitterns in summer). Where we finally found the moorhens was directly
across the water on the other side of the inlet. Looking out there, you will
see a jumble of branches at the water's edge. When we first searched the
area, we only saw Mallards perched up on these branches, but on my final
scan, I saw a moorhen swimming alongside them. Then I glimpsed the second
moorhen swimming behind the branches, mostly hidden by them. Happily, one of
the moorhens got up on a branch with the Mallards and preened, and then it
got down in the water in front of the branches and began feeding actively in
the algae there.
We watched the moorhen for several minutes before going on to the new
boardwalk at the end of the road, which Betty had not seen before. We saw a
pair of Common Yellowthroats and a Magnolia Warbler along the boardwalk, and
from the end, looking south, we saw an Osprey perched in the top of a tree.
We also saw several butterflies, including some Monarchs, on our walk at Dyke
Marsh.
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.
