Howdy!
Curious about whether the red-necked grebes were
making it down to the Northern Neck, The Flint
Hill Ornithology class and I checked out several
sites along the Rappahannock River and nearby
ponds.
We stopped at the following sites along the
Rappahannock in this order, working our way
upriver:
a) Essex County: Tappahannock bridge area,
b) Richmond Co: Cat Point Creek bridge, Naylor's
Beach, Mulberry Island(private), Jones Creek boat
ramp, Fones Cliff's boat ramp,
c) Westmoreland Co: Hart's Landing, Leedstown,
Troy Creek Farm(private)
WE also checked out ponds in Singerly, Leedstown,
Fonesville, and Newland.
The most interesting things of the day for us
were the following:
1. NO RED-NECKED GREBES
2. Abundant red-breasted mergansers, the majority
of which were males (1110 males, 40
females!)Students wondered if the males leave for
the north country before the females to establish
territories. I don't know but will try to look
it up. I'd love to hear from anyone who can
explain this amazingly imbalanced sex ratio.
Also interesting was that large numbers were
flying down the river which is pretty much
southerly, which seemed odd to us since we
thought they'd be flying north.
3. Only one pair of ospreys (seemed to have
returned so far (checked 9 usually-occupied
osprey nest sites)
4. All adult bald eagles were solitary, we saw
one sitting on nest.
5. Still good duck variety in ponds, though
numbers were low. My normally very talkative
group hushed up nicely so we could get great
views of wigeons, wood ducks, green-winged teals,
and gadwall at a beaver pond frquented by
hunters.
6. We checked out the Leedstown fields that had
lots of larks and few longspurs on my visits in
Nov and Dec. They were empty today.
7. The clay-colored sparrow that was present at
Troy Creek Farm (Leedstown)in December could not
be found in the same thicket.
8. Several white-crowned sparrows, but only one
was an adult.
9. Lots of singing spring peepers in several
locations; leopard frogs and pickerel frogs
singing in one location YAY!
10. Though we didn't look very hard for them we
saw no horned larks, pipits, phoebes, or tree
swallows and we heard surprisngly few carolina
wrens.
Here are the totals for the day. We spent very
little time in the woods.
226 double crested cormorant (195 in
Tappahannock)
15 Great Blue Heron
76 Tundra Swan (68 were actually at Skinker's
Neck on route 17 not at the above places)
3255 Canada goose
8 Wood Duck
6 Green-winged Teal
4 American Black Duck
26 Mallard
10+/- Gadwall
10+/- American Wigeon
60 Canvasback (mostly in Tappahannock)
34 male and 13 female Ring-necked Duck
45 Scaup sp
10 Great Scaup
21 Lesser Scaup
45 Bufflehead
2 female Hooded Merganser
1150 Red-breasted Merganser (1110 male, 40
female)
201 Ruddy Duck
10 Black Vulture
15 Turkey Vulture
18 Bald Eagle ( 12 adult in 11 locations, 6 imm)
2 Northern Harrier
1 Sharp-shinned Hawk
1 pair of Osprey
1 displaying Red-shouldered Hawk
8 Red-tailed Hawk
6 Am. Kestrel
43 Killdeer (another 50 or so in Essex Co fields)
1 Common Snipe
Gulls: 700 Ring-billed, 100 Herring, 56 Great
Black-backed (almost all GBB in Tappahannock)
40 Mourning Dove
1 Great Horned Owl
2 B Kingfisher
1 Red-headed Woodpecker
5 red-bellied woodpecker
3 downy
2 pileated
15 flicker
2 fish crow in Tappahannock
jays, crows, 2 carolina chickadee, 2 titmouse
3 carolina wren
15 E bluebird (only)
1 hermit thrush
300 Am Robin
7 Mockingbird
1 brown thrasher
6 yellow-rumped warbler
(no pine warblers singing yet)
15 cardinal
2 rs towhee
5 savannah sparrow
2 swamp sparrow
25 song sparrow
30 white-throated sparrow
13 white crowned sparrow
60 junco
350 red-winged blackbird
45 Eastern Meadowlark
2 house finch
2 goldfinch
=====
Frederick D. Atwood fredatwood@xxxxxxxxx
Flint Hill School, 10409 Academic Dr, Oakton, VA 22124
703-242-1675
http://www.agpix.com/fredatwood
http://www.flinthill.org
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