Greetings,
This report is a day late. Yesterday, 10 December, there were two Lapland
Longspurs in the muddy/snowy field on the SE (right) side of Grassdale
Road near Remington, Fauquier County.
I first detected the longspurs as they were wheeling around with American
Pipits and Horned Larks that were being harried by a Northern Harrier. Their
whistled "TEW" note stood out. Eventually the flock landed, but over a
relatively large area. After a bit of scanning, I spotted one longspur. It
walked out of view behind a rise in the field. I changed my position by a
couple hundred yards to get another angle, and was able to find two
longspurs. The field had large bare patches of mud and standing water, as
well
as large areas of a couple inches of snow. There may very well be more of
them out there, but distance and the topography of the field made it hard to
get great looks at all of the birds. The longspurs seemed more interested
in hanging with Horned Larks than Pipits when the birds were on the
ground, though there were pipits nearby.
The field had loads of birds. I counted 171 Wilson's Snipe, my highest
total from a single location, the bulk of which were in the field with the
longspurs. I also logged 135 Killdeer, 33 Horned Larks, 90 American Pipits,
and 30 Eastern Meadowlarks. There were two Harriers, two Red-taileds, one
Red-shouldered, and a couple of American Kestrels in the general area as
well.
What wasn't present were any Snowy Owls, and there is ample habitat out
there for them.
The eBird checklist below contains a link to a map for Grassdale Road.
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S15928256
Cheers,
Todd
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Todd Michael Day
Jeffersonton, Virginia
Culpeper County
blkvulture@xxxxxxx
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