Greetings,
Coming home late from my office last night, my wife Kathryn and I stopped
along a few spots in the Sumerduck area of Fauquier County, and at a couple of
spots in the Chester Phelps WMA, starting at about 8:30PM to listen for
Whip-poor-wills (WPWI). My first in Fauquier this year was 20 April at Phelps.
The road into the resident manager's house at Phelps (which someone at VDGIF
should name Whip-poor-will Road) had at least a dozen singing, only one seen
flying. Tough to count them here, as when you move down the road your never
certain if you're hearing new birds or the same birds. Twelve is probably a
low
count. Two chats were grunting and groaning here. Along Route 632 (Roger's
Ford Road), right at the intersection with 651 there were a couple WPWI. From
the Sighting-In Range parking area I could hear another five or six without
stepping down the trail. Doing so would probably yield another dozen or more.
From this lot until the end of 632 we were able to hear WPWI along it at
every location, probably adding another six to ten, and a few more grunting
chats.
We picked up a couple more at stops along 651, and then a couple on 632 on
the east side of 651 (Union Church Road I think). All told we tallied about
30-40 singing WPWI.
Southern Fauquier is certainly a good spot for this species, but I've never
head one anywhere north of Route 28. Certainly there are some spots out there,
and I'd love to hear about any reports elsewhere in the county. On the east
side of US 17 there are likely a bunch of them over there in Fauquier. The
Marine Base at Quantico certainly has a healthy arsenal of them, and the
habitat
doesn't change too much from Quantico to Phelps. Someone might be able to
rack up maybe a hundred of these things if they had nothing better to do some
night.
Cheers,
Todd
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Todd Michael Day
Jeffersonton, Virginia, USA
Culpeper County
BlkVulture@xxxxxxx
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