[va-bird] The Patagonia Picnic Table comes to Rockingham County

In Arizona there is a public picnic table long celebrated by birders, in  the 
little town of Patagonia.  If I remember the story rightly, more  than a few 
decades ago some birders sat down by it to eat their lunch,  looked up in the 
tree that shaded them, and saw a stray bird from Mexico--a  Rose-throated 
Becard, I believe.  (At least that was the bird I  saw in 1973 nesting in that 
tree when I stopped there.)  As other  birders heard about this, they stopped 
too, and before long the list of rare  birds seen there had multiplied as other 
juicy Mexican strays were  discovered.  And so what was known as the "Patagonia 
Picnic Table  Effect" entered the birder's lexicon:  if enough birders are 
drawn to  the location of a rarity, they will sooner or later see other 
rarities 
 there.
 
Yesterday's reports of Rockingham County's first record for a Glossy Ibis  
drew several observers to the pond on Lynnwood Road near Port Republic early  
this morning, and they reported seeing not only this bird, but also a  Sora.  
Clair Mellinger's Birds of Rockingham County, Virginia  mentions six records, 
all in May or October, up to its time of publication in  1998.  I believe I 
remember one or two reports of Soras at the wetland on  Nazarene Church Road in 
the western part of the county since then, but Sora is  always an excellent 
find 
here.
 
By the time I got to the pond around 9 a.m. there were still four or five  
birders present, and not only was there one Sora visible, there were two--both  
out in the open enough to get good looks at them through scopes and  
binoculars.  One of them had a much brighter yellow bill than the other,  whose 
bill 
was a dull nondescript color.
 
I had the unusual experience of seeing all at the same time, in my scope's  
field of view, (1) a female Pectoral Sandpiper perhaps 80 feet away probing in  
the mud; (2) behind it the Glossy Ibis preening, facing me, while  standing 
on one leg; (3) behind it was a female Red-winged Blackbird  foraging, and (4) 
behind that was a Sora, about 120 feet distant.   Just a minute or two later 
there was an almost-adult American Robin  behind even that, and a few minutes 
after that, a Green Heron  was carefully fishing and catching minnows out of 
the shallow water, and  all this without moving the scope!  Except for the 
latter, all these birds  were hunting over or probing in the mud for worms.  
After 
making its  toilette the Ibis flew across the pond and probed the mud deeply, 
pulling out  worm after worm.  A Solitary Sandpiper only forty feet from us  
was also wrestling worm after worm out of the mud.  There was obviously  plenty 
of food on the picnic table...
 
I received an email from Pat Holloway of Port Republic, who said she was  the 
one who first alerted Kay Gibson to the bird's presence.  She had been  
seeing the Great Egret for some days there (this morning it had gone, as had  
yesterday's Least Sandpiper and Horned Larks), and had taken some photos of the 
 
Ibis which she promised to send me.  Others have taken photos including  Wayne 
Shiflett, the president of our Rockingham Bird Club, and Greg Moyers, so I  
expect to have photos to supplement the report I will send to Sue Heath for  
VARCOM. I noticed as I was examining the Ibis this morning that it had an  
irregular patch of white feathers on the front of its neck, maybe  
underfeathering 
that was showing (where its long bill could not reach  to preen).  Its iris was 
dark, and the thin white edge around the  upper bill base did not go down to 
the gape, nor was there any red skin  showing there; this excludes a possible 
White-faced Glossy Ibis.
 
We need some way to describe this pond/picnic table better than "the  pond on 
Lynnwood Road."  Earlier we had named the pond on Faught's Road  "Leonard's 
Pond" after one of our senior birders in these parts, Leonard  Teuber.  We 
proposed calling this one "Kay's Pond" after Kay Gibson.   Being an humble 
person, 
she did not like that idea very much, so an alternative  was proposed:  "K's 
Pond," since the name of the person who is growing a  corn crop on this land 
begins with the letter K also.  Clair Mellinger used  "K's Pond" in an email 
already, so that legitimates it, and K's pond it will be  known as among our 
group.  That's how to do an end run around a humble  birder.
 
John Irvine
Harrisonburg, VA

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