I birded in King William county from about 2
until sundown from Beulahville to Chericoke to
The Pocket to a private farm bordering The
Pocket.
The waterfowl numbers were down compared to Dec
31 on the Christmas Count though there were still
considerable numbers of pintails amd mallards in
a marsh adjacent to The Pocket that cannot be
seen from The Pocket. There were a couple
thousand unidentified ducks flying over after
sundown just before dark. The highlight was the
mink that I almost ran over with my car along
Route 30 near Mangohick after dark. I have only
seen a couple mink in my life. The only unusual
waterfowl was an immature blue morph snow goose
at Chericoke with 320 Canada Geese. The warm
weather brought out mosquitoes (but only two bit
me), a mourning cloak butterfly, a few singing
spring peepers, an upland chorus frog, and
red-bellied turtles (and possibly other large
river turtles).
Since time was short I didn't bird as intensely
for landbirds as I usually do, but here are the
totals.
pied-billed grebe ZERO!
dc cormorant 1
great blue heron 26
Tundra Swan 44
Canada Goose 3350
Snow Goose 1
Green-winged Teal 20
Shoveler 2
Black Duck 58
Mallard 160 (and certainly a significant
proportion of the unidentified ducks flying
overhead)
Pintail 1100
Gadwall 12
Ring-necked Duck 66
Bufflehead 39
Ruddy DUck 10
Coot 120
Bald Eagle 3 pair, 2 immature
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1
Kestrel 3
Red-tailed Hawk 3
Red-shouldered Hawk 3
Wild Turkey 17
Killdeer 28
Greater Yellowlegs 10
Lesser Yellowlegs 12
Snipe 2
Ring-billed Gull 50
Herring Gull 1
Mourning Dove 75
Kingfisher 2
RB Woodpecker 5
YB Sapsucker 1
Hairy 3
Downy 5
Pileated 4
FLicker 7
Phoebe 1
Am Crow 25
Chickadee 6
Titmouse 6
WB Nuthatch 3
Carolina Wren 10
Winter Wren 3
GC Kinglet 3
RC Kinglet 4
bluebird 20
hermit thrush 4
robin 30
mockingbird 5
pipit 1
waxwing, only 1
yellow-rumped warbler, only 1
cardinal 25
towhee 1
field sparow 5
song sparrow 10
white-throated sparrow 45
junco 20
blackbird sp (mostly grackles) 600
goldfinch 4
OK, Back to grading, though I'd like to go see
Craig's western grebe.
All the best
fred
Frederick D. Atwood fredatwood@xxxxxxxxx
Flint Hill School, 10409 Academic Dr, Oakton, VA 22124
703-242-1675
http://www.agpix.com/fredatwood
http://www.flinthill.org
http://tea.armadaproject.org/tea_atwoodfrontpage.html
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