Saturday late afternoon at 5:45 I was passing the 234 exit at highway 28
south of Manassas and went to the spot at the end of Carolina St. I saw 3
Scarlet Tanagers and 2 Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks as I got out of the car. There
are barriers across the dead end road now as people were dumping trash in the
dead end. I talked to a city employee and its still ok to walk through there,
just not drive. There were huge amounts of warblers moving high up through
the tall oaks by the civil war fort. I stopped at the base of a huge oak and
started counting them moving through this tree. After awhile I sat down, then
laid down, to save the old neck from binocular-itis. In less than 25 min.,
131 warblers had moved through this tree. 2 Worm eating warblers, 2 Black
throated green warblers and 127 Yellow- rumped warblers. At 6:15 the flow
came to a complete abrupt stop and I didn't see another warbler through 6:45
when I left.
Sunday morning at 7:00 I was at Phelps WMA at the Curtis Parking area. I
could pinpoint 9 wood thrushes as I started down the road but otherwise it
was quiet. The sky lightened and the temp warmed and the Yellow-breasted
Chats came out in force. From the parking lot to the crossing where the new
construction is happening I counted a sure 200 Chats and I know I didn't get
them all. At this point I quit counting as it was distracting me too much
from the other birding. It was an incredible racket as most of them were
singing. Also observed of interest were:
Yellow-billed cuckoo-3
Wood thrush-16 total
Veery-6
Solitary Viero-4
White-Eyed Vireo-10
Yellow Throated Viero-4
Orchard Oriole-8
Baltimore Oriole-1
Great Crested Flycatcher-4
Yellowthroat-25+
Pine Warbler-8
Prairie Warbler-4
Black and White warbler-6
Yellow Warbler-2
Hooded Warbler-9(one male with full spring plumage sang and strutted his
stuff to an uninterested female about 6 ft from me for several minutes)
Northern Parula Warbler-11
Black-Throated Blue Warbler-6
Black-Throated Green Warbler-11
Yellow Rumped Warbler-45
Northern Waterthrush-2
Scarlet Tanager-26
Summer Tanager-6
Red-Headed Woodpeckers-2
Swamp Sparrows-4
Barred Owls were very vocal in the trees on the other side of the water by
the blinds.
Its hard to describe just how much noise a huge volume of singing Chats
make but most of the morning was a visual walk with very little singing
heard. It was kind of like a chorus of a swamp full of peepers or a 7 year
locust noise. Pretty incredible but intense. It started raining lightly at
9:30 and I walked out and left at 10:00. My thanks to Todd Day for telling me
about this place-it would be very easy to spend a full day there if you were
sure you could find your way out(big place but good easy walking trails).
Dave White
Zion Crossroads
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