My wife Jean and I spent much of Saturday morning in our home in extreme
southwestern Loudoun County watching feeder birds. The usual cadre of
cardinals, mourning doves, juncos and goldfinches and white throats were
joined by smaller numbers of song sparrows, house finches, a lone
starling, three blue jays, a pr of wb nuthatches, two downies, two
red-bellieds and a flicker. Three purple finches, two males and a
female, visited occasionally. A single fox sparrow was also usually
present. Not a pine siskin or rb nuthatch seen or heard thus far this
winter. Chickadee and titmouse numbers seem down 50-75% over past
years.
By 2:30 PM, the temperature hit 20, and we layered up in winter wear
and headed out for a walk in our neighborhood; along Rt 790, Newlin
Mills Rd. It's rural; woodlands mixed with pasture and hayfields, stream
bottoms and expansive views of the Blue Ridge ( west of Rt 611 about 1.5
miles north of Rt 50 some three miles west of Middleburg, VA.)
Only a few of the normal number of both vultures were in the air. There
is often a 30-50 mixed vulture roost within 200 yards of the house but
it is relatively quiet this winter. Cardinals and titmice were
noticeable singers. Highlights were an almost adult plumaged red-headed
woodpecker that had just found a large acorn and was reducing it to
manageably sized pieces. There are very healthy numbers of this species
out this way-- my normal 6 mile walking running loop takes me through at
least 5 groups of 5-8 or so-- BUT what was fun about this bird was the
combination of sun angle, plumage and its posture. It appeared like a
huge ruby-throated hummingbird perched vertically on a fence post. Its
crown appeared very dark brown with only a slight hint of the velvety
dark red of the adult. Its throat and upper breast had reached adult
reddishness however and caught the low sun angle and glowed as if it had
suddenly been bestowed with a gorget.
At the junction of an ailanthus/hackberry and common privet hedgerow
near the entrance to White Oak Farm, pishing quickly produced a group of
cardinals, a few song sparrows, 8-10 white throats and at least three
adult white-crowned sparrows and two immatures. That is 4 years in a row
that white-crowneds have graced this privet patch. Continuing north on
Newlin Mill Rd towards its junction with Quaker Lane, the spring-fed
pasture ditch directly in front of Beaver Dam Farm hosted 20-30 Canada
geese feeding on the plant materials that were snow and ice-free along
the ditch margin. At the top of the ditch, a single kildeer and single
Wilson's snipe fed actively and didn't pay attention to us as passers
by.
We kept going-- over Beaverdam Creek and then stopped and turned around
when we reached a point where our walking would have chased an adult
turkey vulture off a fresh opossum carcass. We figured the big bird
needed the meal late this afternoon more than we needed another few
hundred yards of exercise.
On February 1, around noon, sun again brilliant/blinding off the glare
ice covering snow below, the barred owl(s) that have made our white pine
hedgerow feeding stations one of their favorite hang-outs flushed and
immediately picked up irate crows and blue jays. From the stream bottom
below the house, we heard the owl give a brief hoo-ah. Two ravens
croaked from the area of the vulture roost.
The highlight yesterday was encountering a loud, unknown continuing
series of sounds coming from the woods upstream of the house. Rasping,
methodical..the sounds were somewhere between a scolding note of a gray
squirrel and a breeding chorus of wood frogs with laryngitis. When we
finally tracked down the source, we found dozens of goldfinches high in
a large Pawlonia tree, engaged in forcing open last season's fruiting
pods and eating whatever may have been palatable within-- seeds and
perhaps an occasional insect or spider deep in winter sleep. I had never
seen this tree's fruits used by birds before but the goldfinches knew
exactly what to do.
Craig Tufts
You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email
to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
