Today's William & Mary ornithology class trip was to Hog Island WMA in
the shadow of the Surry nuclear plant. This area is closed to the
public at present, so we made special arrangements as an educational
group and had an escort. There has been a white pelican there for more
than a week. It was not the same individual that was being seen at
Craney landfill, as we have photographs of that bird from an earlier
trip. Waterfowl were not abundant, as elsewhere in the area (due to
the warm weather?) with two red-breasted mergansers, one hooded
merganser, 15 gadwall, 4 ring-necked ducks, 6 black ducks, 5 pintail
and approximately 30 mallards, along with 300-500 canada geese. 15
great egrets and 35 great blue herons were seen, as well as several
courting bald eagles, a red-shouldered, Coopers and sharp-shinned hawk,
2 kestrels and a harrier. A refuge biologist (and well-trained
birder) reports that a white-fronted goose has been present recently,
but we could not find it.
One lesser-black-backed gull was seen at the Scotland end of the ferry
trip, and followed the boat from a distance, along with 20 laughing
gulls, 15 great-backed backs, 40 herring gulls and several hundred
ring-billeds.
One the trip home along Jamestown Road at least 15 hooded mergansers
were seen on Lake Powell, which is still draining and concentrating
fish and birds. There is no good way to bird this lake legally or
safely from the road, which is where most of the herons, egrets, gulls,
cormorants and kingfishers are congregating.
Daniel A. Cristol, Associate Professor
Department of Biology
College of William & Mary
PO Box 8795, Williamsburg, VA
(757) 221-2405/6483 (tel/fax)
dacris@xxxxxx
http://dacris.people.wm.edu/
You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email
to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. To unsubscribe, send email to
va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.
