[va-bird] Dickcissel in Cape Charles


A basic-plumaged male Dickcissel has joined the House Sparrow jamboree (about 
40-45) at the feeders in Cape Charles here as of yesterday morning.  This is 
the fourth or fifth for these feeders since 1998, depending on whether the Dec 
03-Jan 04 and Mar 04 individuals were the same bird.  Dickcissels are 
uncommon migrants through this area but can be fairly common in some years, at 
least 
as morning "flyovers" at Kiptopeke.  Let's hope this one also stays around for 
the Christmas Bird Count.  Even more unexpected in the backyard -- and the 
first in seven years of bird feeding here -- were two Tufted Titmice from 
Saturday to this morning.  These birds come as close to the grid of the old 
town as 
the Sustainable Technologies Industrial Park to the south and the old Cape 
Charles Golf Course (now being developed as the eastern end of Marina 
Villages), 
both less than a mile as the titmouse flies, but both are wooded areas with 
plenty of cover.  Pileated Woodpecker has similar needs (and has never been 
seen 
in the town center but often on the edges), and there are many more summering 
species (Chipping Sparrow, Indigo Bunting) that rarely enter town but that 
persist on its fringes; the BayCreek development still has some of these 
species.

Last week, several former residents of this house visited and toured, 
commenting on the previous owners and occupants they had known or known about.  
Though nothing is known of the Delaware investors who bought the property first 
from its builder, Capt. Ned Sterling, but lost it back to him in the 
Depression, 
these former residents did know that Capt. Sterling kept out bird feeding 
stations in the side garden in the late 1920s through 1942, when he passed 
away, 
as did Mr. and Mrs. George Guy (Peaches and Pops, as they were called) through 
the 1940s and 1950s, Mr. Jay Meeks in the 1960s and early 1970s, and the 
Biesenger family in the 1980s and early 1990s.  How remarkable that occupants 
have 
fed birds here at least since 1928!

Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA
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