Birding buddies Bart Hutchinson, Jim Mathews, Jason Waanders, Philip Kline,
and I spent the morning at LSP. Before meeting with the others, Jason and I
tooled around Mason Neck and Lorton for a few hours listening for owls. At
Pohick Bay Regional Park we heard a distant barred owl and whistled in a
screech before we were located by a ranger, who reminded us the the park is
closed after dark and that our car, parked near the locked gate, was a
traffic hazard. Seems the gate was being opened early (5 a.m.) for a bass
tournament. And people say birders are crazy. At Lorton, the only birds of
note were a kingbird and a flyover green heron as dawn was breaking.
Just as we were turning of Neabsco into we heard a prothonotary, and there
one was perched on the privacy fence of the house at the entrance.
Beautiful! The area around Featherstone Point and the boat ramps was not
particularly active. Later, we walked the Powell's Creek Trail (after
bumping into Kurt, the only other birder we saw), where our best birds of the
day were. Noteworthy birds:
spotted sandpiper 1
Caspian tern 4
common loon 2 (flyovers)
kingbird 1
blue jay 100s streaming overhead in flocks as big as 70 birds
white-eyed vireo 3
blue-headed vireo 2
red-eyed vireo 8+ (Powell's Creek Trail)
wood thrush 10+ (PCT)
northern rough-winged swallow 1
RC kinglet 3
parula 8+ (both FP and PCT)
yellow-rumped warbler 40? (both)
prothonotary 5 (both)
worm-eating warbler (PCT - highlight of the morning; he sat in the scope (no,
not INSIDE the scope . . . ) at a range of 20 feet and sang for 10 minutes)
ovenbird (8+ PCT)
LA H20thrush 3 (PCT)
scarlet tanager 8+ (PCT)
orchard oriole 3
cowbird -- more than a sufficiency
An extra bonus was that a number of these birds were lifers for Philip and
Jason, who haven't been on the east coast long.
Ben Jesup
Alexandria, VA
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