[va-bird] Ft. Belvior 3-23-03

Ben Jesup and I birded Ft. Belvior (Fairfax County) on Saturday from about 
6:15 - 9:30 am.  We started at the handicapped parking lot, went through the 
woods to the closed road (Poe Rd, I think), then did the big field, then back 
into the woods along the creek to the mouth of the bay and then back to the 
car.  After that, we spent a few minutes scoping the very high tide at the 
archery range.

Some of the highlights were:

Phoebe - at least 8, probably more
Pine Warbler 10
Chipping Sparrow 2
Snipe 8
Greater Yellowlegs 3
Horned Grebe 2
Tundra Swan 2
Bonaparte's Gull 1
Green Winged Teal 4
Bufflehead 4
Common Mergs 10
Hooded Merg - 2
Ring Necked Duck - 1 in flight, doing big circles above the bay  (I don't 
think I've ever seen one in flight before (or at least not this well), but 
the white on the bill was very visible..........it looked like a flash bulb 
going off!  Even though the bird was pretty far away the whole time (scope 
required, and even then it was pretty small) the white on the bill was 
plainly visible.)

Tree Swallow - 1 (only 1!) on a wire
Brown Thrasher - 1 (I didn't see this bird, but Ben did)

Common Loon - 1 (probable) - the bird was flying over and by the time we saw 
it, it was past us.  All we could see were feet hanging out beyond the body 
and white on the back half of the belly (it was flying directly away from us, 
and we couldn't make out color in the wings).  On a normal year, I'd call it 
a loon without hesitation, but with all the grebe-craziness that's been going 
on lately, I'm not so sure.  The damn thing could have been a Western or 
Clark's Grebe!  Kidding.  It was probably a Common Loon, but I wouldn't bet 
my binoculars on it!

Some surprising misses were:

Kingfisher
Yellow Rumped Warbler
Kinglets

All it all it was a great early spring day.  Never a dull moment.

Also, in case anyone was wondering, it didn't seem to take any longer or be 
more difficult to enter the base now that the war is on, but I've got a Navy 
ID, so that may have something to do with it.

Bart Hutchinson
Alexandria, VA





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