VA BIRDers,
A beautiful and incredibly quiet day at Dyke Marsh for the regular Sunday
morning Field Trip, sponsored by the Friends of Dyke Marsh and free to all. We
began in the picnic area being seranaded by a Warbling Vireo. But our luck did
not hold out as our walk down Haul Road was devoid of any migrants. Finally,
along the dogleg, we met up with Bonnie Ponwith who had started down the trail
about an hour before us. Bonnie pointed out a small group of migrants at the
overlook of the little gut which included Brown Thrasher, Common Yellowthroats,
House Wren, a few Gray Catbirds, E. Phoebe, and 2 Baltimore Orioles. While
watching the small ensemble, she described a Philadelphia Vireo encounter near
the dogleg a dozen minutes earlier.
As we walked back towards the mainland, repeated kek-kek-kek's got our
attention - King Rail! The area was thickly vegetated (south side of the trail
where the marsh begins) and our imitation of the rail's call yielded no
results. A great discovery in any case as the last King Rail recorded at Dyke
was over a dozen years ago.
Kurt Gaskill
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.