I was at the NY monument at Manassas Battlefield Sunday morning at 7:10am.
By 7:30 I figured the day was a bust as I had seen maybe 6 birds total. At
7:40 there honestly had to be 10 birds in every tree by the parking lot. 98%
were
warblers and most of them were Yellow-Rumped Warblers. It was impossible to
ID more than 30% of the birds. Highlites this day were: Yellow-rumped
warblers60+, Cape May warblers18, Blackburnian warblers8, (these three species
were all
heavy in the poison ivy in the trees- eating the berries) Blackpoll warbler2
traveling with Bay-breasted warblers6, Black-throated green warbler2, Black
throated blue warbler1, Chestnut sided warbler3, Orange-crowned warbler1,
Magnolia warbler6, Pine warbler4, 3 Yellow-bellied sapsuckers(one adult and 2
juveniles), Ruby crowned kinglet6, Blue headed Vireo1, Flycatcher sp1. Eastern
phoebe3, and a Merlin flew close by harassed by 3 blue jays and danged if it
didn't
swerve around a scrub oak sapling and nail one of the jays. Feathers really
do fly on contact. It swung around and landed on it and then saw me(less than
20ft away) and flew off. The jay was still there this morning. By 9:30, it was
quiet. Which leads to the fact that I came back this morning(Monday) and
arrived at 7:20. By 7:40 I hadn't seen a bird and the sun was hitting on the
trees.
I assumed a wave of birds had passed through yesterday. By 7:45 there were
more birds than yesterday. I think the ivy berries are a factor and they could
stay until they are gone or the weather changes. I roughly counted 125+
yellow-rumped warblers. I know I didn't get them all by any means. Different
birds
were Golden crowned kinglets3, Winter Wren1. A gentleman there on his way to
West Va. spotted a a female Blue Grosbeak which was hard to identify. We also
counted 14 Roufus-sided towhees at one sighting. I had to leave at 9:00. I
HOPE
BIRDERS IN THE AREA CAN GET THERE AND SEE THIS SPECTABLE-IT IS A TREMENDOUS
WAVE OF BIRDS. I swung by the Law Enforcement area and found the pond. A quick
walk to the pond raised up 3 Vesper sparrows, which surprised me, a Swamp
sparrow, and 3 yellow Palm Warblers all wagging their tails. I only had about
15
minutes there as I had to pick up my daughter at GMU and take her on a road
trip for a class. We went to Skyline drive to the trail that has the waterfalls
and hiked down to the 1st one. The only birds were 2 Ravens, 3 Hermit thrushes
and 2 Juncos. I've been seeing alot of winter birds earlier than usual this
year, it seems like. We also saw a dead old growth Hemlock that the hurricane
felled. It had been saw cut about 2' from the ground and had 290 rings. That
makes it about 1713 for a germination date. Not bad! Dave White Zion
Crossroads
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