[va-richmond-general] Henricus/Dutch Gap, Sunday, 2/15/2009

After a bit of a delay getting into the park this morning (during which we collected 15 species for the count), the seven birders who joined me for the Great Backyard Bird Count event at Henricus/Dutch Gap had a spectacular morning. We were greeted at the first observation platform by close-up looks at two mature and one immature Bald Eagle on snags directly in front of the platform, dealing with a Canada Goose that someone had dispatched, presumably the eagles. Though the numbers of waterfowl weren't huge, we had good variety: Northern Shovelers, American Wigeon, more Northern Pintails that I think I have ever seen at this site, Ring-necked Ducks, Gadwall, Mallards and a few Hooded Mergansers were joined by nine American Coots in the marsh. A dozen Bufflehead were found on the fly ash pond by Caroline and John Coe, who also contributed nine Eastern Meadowlarks to the count. It was also a good day for wading birds, with seven Great Blue Herons in view at one time in the marsh joined by one Great Egret. Two Great Blues were observed on nests at two different locations.
We had a total of 46 species in spite of missing a few commonly found species.
Complete list is given below from eBird -- for other participants, note that these counts are totals from a traveling count, not the maximum number seen at one time that I reported for the Great Backyard Bird Count.
For those of you who are keeping score, Virginia is in the top ten states for checklists submitted and Richmond is in the top ten list of Localities for checklists submitted. 

--
Lewis Barnett -- Chair, Dept. of Math & CS, U. of Richmond, VA 23173
             -- lbarnett@xxxxxxxxxxxx | lbarnett@xxxxxxx
             -- http://www.mathcs.richmond.edu/~lbarnett/

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Location:     Henricus - Dutch Gap Conservation Area
Observation date:     2/15/09
Number of species:     46

Canada Goose     34
Wood Duck     2
Gadwall     12
American Wigeon     12
Mallard     38
Northern Shoveler     12
Northern Pintail     12
Ring-necked Duck     15
Bufflehead     12
Hooded Merganser     11
Double-crested Cormorant     70
Great Blue Heron     7
Great Egret     1
Black Vulture     7
Turkey Vulture     7
Bald Eagle     4
Sharp-shinned Hawk     1
American Kestrel     2
American Coot     9
Killdeer     12
Ring-billed Gull     168
Herring Gull     2
Mourning Dove     3
Belted Kingfisher     1
Red-bellied Woodpecker     1
Downy Woodpecker     2
Northern Flicker     2
Eastern Phoebe     1
American Crow     3
Carolina Chickadee     4
Tufted Titmouse     1
Brown Creeper     1
Carolina Wren     1
Golden-crowned Kinglet     1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet     4
Eastern Bluebird     3
American Robin     2
Northern Mockingbird     3
Brown Thrasher     2
Yellow-rumped Warbler     6
Song Sparrow     4
White-throated Sparrow     2
Dark-eyed Junco     20
Northern Cardinal     3
Red-winged Blackbird     20
Eastern Meadowlark     9

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/VA)

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