All – After reading Allen Larner’s email about finding Longspurs outside of
Stuart’s Draft, I headed up there this morning. The Horned Lark/Longspur flock
was in the fields that Allen described. Along Hall School Rd, there is a
vineyard. The larks were in the field across the road from the vineyard.
Initially, I found them well down the gravel driveway in the fields on the
other side of the creek (row of trees and shrubs). I scanned a large flock of
larks, 100+, and didn’t see the Longspur. I’ve never seen that many Horned
Larks in a flock. I left and checked along the rest of Hall Sch. Rd and then
came back to the fields. This time the larks were in the front fields and
after some time, I located one Larkspur. I’ve up-loaded some photos to my
Flickr site. The photos aren’t the best; I couldn’t get very close to the
larks and Longspur. The Longspur photos are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vmibiology/
In addition, I spent last week at Kiawah Island (outside of Charleston, SC)
birding and photographing. Lots of interesting birds there. If you are
interested, go to this link – my collections page and open the Kiawah Island
collection. Some of the photos aren’t special, merely documentation. For
example the Osprey, Yellow-rumped Warbler (there were thousands of them). On
the other hand the photos of the Sedge Wren, Marsh Wren, terns, Tri-colored
Heron, and others are good.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vmibiology/collections/
Happy New Year to Y’all and remember, tomorrow you have zero species for the
year.
Dick Rowe
VMI Biology
