Apologies for the goose poop part of my earlier post! I mixed up another
birding listserv with Va-birds. Duh!
I found interesting the bird behavior immediately after the storm on Sunday.
Already the ground is almost bare here in Fairfax Co. but on Sunday it was a
winter wonderland. After digging out on Sunday morning, I drove out to Sky
Meadows State Park. I trudged through 10 inches of snow and got really cold
feet while doing so. Some areas had lots of birds, mostly in the woods. The
Walnut Grove has lots of downed trees in one area and it was in this area that
I flushed many sparrows - Song, Junco and Field, with a few White-throated,
too. At first I thought maybe the songbirds were seeking warmth or resting
alongside the logs but I think what these ground feeders were doing was
utilizing the tiny bit of bare ground that was on the leeward side of the
fallen trees. It was just about the only area that wasn't snow covered and so
this is where they were foraging. I didn't know they were even there until I
was practically on top of a log and then the birds would flush. Also,
one
standing, live tree at the edge of the grove had maybe 30 square feet of soil
that was not snow covered on one side its base, because of the direction of the
prevailing wind and the slope of the ground there. There were about 15 Juncos
packed into that spot.
Ranger Bruce reported that a Raven visited his bird feeder that morning. He
thought that it was attracted to the little songbirds there and checking out
what they were feeding on. An unusual feeder bird.
Scott Baron
Fairfax, Va.
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