[va-bird] Dyke Marsh Field Trip, Frfx Co, 1/21/07

VA BIRDers,

 

Winter's mild touch came upon Dyke Marsh this morning where 6 birders met
for the weekly Sunday Field Trip (starts at 8am and free to all) - a chill
wind from the north caused us to break out the gloves for the duration.  We
started off in the picnic area to a grand Bald Eagle show with about 10
immatures and 8 adults noted, most over the nearly frozen river-side
mudflats - and from that point on hardly 5 minutes would go by without
spotting a representative. Very Nice!  This is one of the larger counts of
Bald Eagles at Dyke and certainly the largest during the month of January.
Could the cold weather have driven them to Dyke?  Or have these been held up
from their northward travels by the cold front?  Or has the local population
grown so that immature birds are just more common in these times?  Whatever
the case, 2 adults were seen on/near the nest near the Wilson Bridge,
Maryland side.

 

We walked the river's edge to the marina and found very few passerines - the
wind must have swept them into the interior of the preserve.  Red-breasted
Mergansers were easily found on the Potomac.  A large group of Canada Geese
could be seen far to our north against the shoreline near the Stone Bridge.
A few scattered Bufflehead were more in the middle of the river.  A pair of
Pied-billed Grebes was inside the marina bay area.  Here we saw our second
Belted Kingfisher; all today appeared to be males.

 

Our walk down Haul Road produced many sparrows - Song and Swamp Sparrows
were evident in larger than usual numbers along the trail suggesting the
recent cold had sent them - we tallied 65 Song and 14 Swamp Sparrows for the
day.  Only a few Red-winged Blackbirds were noted and just a single Winter
Wren was observed.  We did chance upon a perched adult Cooper's Hawk which
presented scope views. Later, when it moved, the Blue Jays put up their
alarm calls.  Near the dogleg, a large group of Song Sparrows eventually
produced a fleeting glance at an American Tree Sparrow - unfortunately not
long enough for Ed Eder to unholster his camera!  But the Gray Catbird came
out and stayed visible for several minutes both on our first pass and then
on our second pass as we retraced our steps to the car.  And a Brown Creeper
was spotted here by the keen eyes of Sandy Farkas.  The remainder of the
trail produced more sparrows, both Golden-and Ruby-crowned Kinglets and more
views of waterfowl on the river including American Black Duck (close in to
the marsh), Common Mergansers, a single Hooded Merganser and many Lesser
Scaup.  We noted a half dozen Great Blue Herons huddled on the island off
the end of the boardwalk and an adult Red-shouldered Hawk flew out from the
island and over our heads at trail's end.

 

After the trip, Sherman Suter and I visited the Hunting Creek mudflats at
the Stone Bridge but did not turn up anything unusual, although we tallied a
new species for the day with 7 Killdeer foraging over a section of unfrozen
mud.  We netted 48 species at Dyke today.

 

Kurt Gaskill

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