Fellow Birders,
John Bazuin asked me to forward the following to the list serve for him.
Bill Williams
Center for Conservation Biology
I wanted to add one more
observation site to the Ernesto reports. I spent the day on Friday
(Sep. 1) at the eastern end of Lake Anna, in two places - the Dike #3
area and a marina near the south end of the main dam off of Louisa Co.
Rt. 701 that is now named Lake Anna Beach Marina. Despite some
water-surface fog problems (caused by cold rain on warm water, I think),
I can be certain that no oceanic or strictly coastal birds showed up in
that area before very late on Sep. 1 (if at all). I was in the eastern
Lake Anna area continuously from 0908 to 1840 hours. A few Ring-billed
Gulls were present (but likely were already at the lake before the
storm) and one adult Herring Gull arrived from the east in the late
morning (the only larid I saw apparently arrive at the lake during the
storm). The most interesting record all day was that around 1400 hours
(I first noticed them at ca. 1405) Black Terns started building up in
numbers, foraging at the mouth of Rock Creek (the easternmost creek on
the south side of the lake). The count eventually reached at least 25.
I was initially seeing them from the marina, and was having trouble with
them because of the water-surface fog. So...I went to Dike #3, but
putting the window down immediately caused a fire hose of water in my
face and made observation impossible. So...I settled on sitting in the
parking area near the dike and waiting, hoping they'd forage into view
in a direction other than directly upwind! As it turned out, some of
them did later forage down to Dike #3 (sometimes to within 25 yards of
the car!) and turned out to be adult Black Terns in nonbreeding plumage.
Thus, Ernesto must have intercepted a significant overland migration of
Black Terns. Other birds seen during the day that might be worth
mentioning are a Common Tern (foraged along Dike #3), 3 Ospreys (tried
to forage during the storm, but did not seem to be having any success),
and a Semipalmated Plover. I had hoped to stay in a nearby motel that
night but could find nothing anywhere nearby, so I went home and did not
return to Lake Anna on Sep. 2 (as I'd intended to). I still don't
exactly know Ernesto's track but since cloud motion was out of the NE
all day until maybe mid-afternoon (I've got all of this recorded), when
the cloud motion had backed to being out of the north, I can be certain
that Ernesto passed east of Lake Anna and probably even east of
Richmond. Thus, the records on va-bird all seem to have been made in or
east of the path of the storm's center, and not west of it. It would
certainly have been more fun to have spent the day looking at tropical
terns, storm-petrels, tropicbirds, and penguins, but I thought the
negative data from Lake Anna might be useful to anyone who is trying to
understand the tropical system-blown bird phenomenon.
Also worth noting over the weekend is a Mourning Warbler at
Huntley Meadows Park on Sunday (Sep. 3). It was in an insectivorous
bird association in the woods about 100 yards south of the visitor
center that included chickades, titmice, other warblers, a gnatcatcher,
etc. What was even more interesting about the Mourning Warbler is that
it had bright eye arcs, not thin, broken eyerings. MacGillivray's?
Doubt it. I'm still going with a call of Mourning Warbler.
