[va-richmond-general] I thought people on this list would enjoy this article about birdingby Metro subway!

Kathy Kreutzer, Chesterfield, VA

washingtonpost.com 
To See a Blue Warbler, Try Taking the Red Line 
Birders Ride Metro for 'Big Day' Count 

By D'Vera Cohn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 8, 2003; Page B01 

Who would have thought that two of Washington's better birders -- the kind of 
people who can identify a black-throated blue warbler or an orchard oriole 
merely by hearing their songs -- would have trouble finding a crow? 

But that's the problem John Bjerke and Neal Fitzpatrick found themselves with 
at midafternoon yesterday, nine hours into an expedition to count as many 
species as they could see or hear in one day. 

It is called the "big day" in the world of birding. This year, Bjerke and 
Fitzpatrick decided on an unusual approach suited to an urban environment: 
birding by Metrorail, moving by train from place to place during the peak of 
spring migration. 

"Things are definitely starting to move through," Bjerke said the day before, 
after reading the increasingly feverish postings on a local birding e-mail 
list. 

Bjerke and Fitzpatrick had both done the 4 a.m.-to-midnight big day plenty of 
times, blasting around by car with lots of quick stops. The hunt can get so 
intense, Bjerke noted, that one New Jersey birding organization ruled that no 
team could win its big-day competition if any of its members got a traffic 
ticket. 

Birding by rail seemed like a mellower approach. It would demonstrate the rich 
variety of species that can be found even in such a noisy, built-up area as the 
District. The trade-off would be that they had to do it on a weekday because 
Metro starts running too late on the weekends to catch the busy dawn bird 
chorus. 

The two first tried rail-birding last year as participants in a competitive 
fundraiser for the Audubon Naturalist Society, a local environmental group. 
They recorded 74 species in 12 hours, some spotted from a moving train. When 
competition time rolled around this year, they planned a rail route that would 
take them to Rock Creek Park, Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens and Theodore Roosevelt 
Island. 

Bjerke, 53, a government statistician, and Fitzpatrick, 54, Audubon Naturalist 
Society director, began at 5:15 a.m. at the Shady Grove Metro stop, turning up 
cardinals, mockingbirds and other local residents at and near the station. 

Later, riding the escalator up from the Woodley Park/Zoo station, they looked 
up and nabbed a flock of black-crowned night herons, which roost at the zoo. A 
pigeon was noted. 

The two men expected to identify most species by their songs, because birds can 
conceal themselves amid the tree leaves. Down the path into Rock Creek Park, 
winding past the back of the National Zoo, they heard phoebes, gnatcatchers and 
sparrows. At 6:40 a.m. -- "Finally," Bjerke said -- they saw the D.C. state 
bird, a wood thrush. 

A hairy woodpecker sat on the trail ahead, and a group of brightly attired male 
wood ducks were in the stream. And with traffic roaring by 10 feet away, the 
two birders happily heard the three-part song of the Tennessee warbler. 

Walking slowly and silently, one or the other stopped abruptly when he caught a 
few notes of bird song. The sun was fighting off the morning fog as they headed 
up Klingle Road, a potholed, closed-off street beloved by birders but which the 
city wants to reopen. A cinnamon scent rose from the ground. 

When the sunlight reached the top of the trees, it warmed up the insects, 
bringing them to life and attracting flocks of birds to feast on them. Amid all 
the flitting, buzzing and gliding, the pair bagged 46 species by the time they 
left the park for a Starbucks break at 9 a.m. "Not so bad for the middle of the 
city," Bjerke said. Still, he was puzzled by one thing: "No crow. Amazing." 

They rode the subway downtown with the suit-and-tie commuters, then headed out 
on the Orange Line toward the Deanwood stop. Riding above ground between 
Stadium/Armory and Minnesota Avenue, when the train crosses the Anacostia 
River, they pointed to several window birds, including an egret and a 
ring-billed gull. "We're out in open country!" Bjerke joked as the train passed 
the massive Benning Road power plant. 

Outside the station, heading to the pedestrian bridge over the Anacostia 
Freeway, they heard a Baltimore oriole. It was a 10-minute walk to Kenilworth 
Aquatic Gardens, which was packed with goldfinches, catbirds, flickers and 
indigo buntings. Swallows swooped over the marsh, catching insects. They saw a 
warbling vireo in the same tree in which they had seen one last year. Hawk and 
osprey flew by. 

The sun burned overhead and the air was steamy when they left the park shortly 
before 1 p.m. They were up to 71 species -- three short of last year's total -- 
and though they had a fish crow, they still had no American crow. 

From the Rosslyn stop, it was another 10-minute walk to Roosevelt Island, down 
a path bordered by the fragrant dripping white blooms of the black locust. They 
stopped at the Potomac River. 

"It would be nice to see a kingfisher," Bjerke said. Obligingly, one sped by, a 
blue-crested bird with a white stripe around its neck. 

"Kingfisher on demand," said Fitzpatrick. 

But the island itself, though known as an excellent birding spot, would yield 
little else new. Birds are less active at midday, and the ones the birders saw 
were species they had already seen. As airplanes thundered overhead, a cedar 
waxwing finally brought them to 74, tying last year's total. But 12 hours after 
starting out, back at Shady Grove, they had spotted neither an American crow 
nor a house wren, two of the most common birds around. 

"That's the way it is," said Bjerke, who pronounced himself "pretty happy" with 
the count. 

© 2003 The Washington Post Company 

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