Howdy y'all.
This morning I did another Breeding Bird Survey
following the USGS BBS protocol in which the
observer counts everything seen or heard during a
period of 3 minutes at each of 50 stops which are
all .5 miles apart. Starting at Taylorstown at
5:12 AM I continued down Loyalty Rd to Waterford,
then took a left on 698 through Paeonian Springs
and through Leesburg, then along Evergreen Mills
Rd to Woods Rd, past the entrance to Banshee
Reeks and Dulles wetlands mitigation site ending
up just W of route 15 at about 10:40. Traffic
was extremely heavy on Evergreen Mills Rd (making
the census quite difficult) but was pretty light
almost everywhere else. I tried hard for vesper
sparrow, dickcissel, and bobolink, even between
sites in good grassy habitat along Loyalty Rd
where I have occasionally found Dickcissel and
Bobolink in the past, but was unsuccessful. (The
protocol doesn't allow for much dilly-dallying.)
It is always interesting to me how different
these birds are from what I find down in King and
Queen County where warblers, red-eyed vireos,
tanagers, blue grosbeaks and quail are much more
common but cardinals, mimic thrushes, kingbirds,
warbling vireos, song sparrows, fish crows,
meadowlarks, and grasshopper sparrows are much
less common.
I'm off to Cape Cod and Ecuador for the summer
asap. I hope you all find several life birds and
observe lots of fascinating bird behavior.
Here is the list from today's BBS:
Draft Observer Copy
Breeding Bird Survey - Route Summary Report
Route: 88002 Observer: ATWOOD , FREDERICK
Survey Date: 06/28/2003 Time Start: 0512 Time
End: 1040
Start Temp.: 64 End Temp.: 72 Temp. Scale: F
Start Wind: 0 End Wind: 1
Start Sky: 2 End Sky: 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Species Total Ind. Tot.Stops
Great Blue Heron 2 2
Green Heron 3 3
Black Vulture 7 1
Turkey Vulture 36 7
Canada Goose 69 3
Mallard 3 2
Bald Eagle 1 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1 1
Cooper's Hawk 1 1
Red-tailed Hawk 2 2
American Kestrel 2 2
Northern Bobwhite 4 3
Rock Dove 46 5
Mourning Dove 60 32
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1 1
Chimney Swift 13 10
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 17 12
Downy Woodpecker 4 3
Hairy Woodpecker 2 2
Yellow-shafted Flicker 5 5
Eastern Wood-Pewee 11 10
Acadian Flycatcher 1 1
Willow Flycatcher 1 1
Eastern Phoebe 4 4
Great Crested Flycatcher 4 3
Eastern Kingbird 25 14
White-eyed Vireo 1 1
Warbling Vireo 3 3
Red-eyed Vireo 7 5
Blue Jay 17 11
American Crow 82 36
Fish Crow 7 6
Purple Martin 1 1
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 5 3
Barn Swallow 117 25
Carolina Chickadee 10 7
Tufted Titmouse 13 9
White-breasted Nuthatch 4 3
Carolina Wren 18 11
House Wren 16 14
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 5 4
Eastern Bluebird 11 8
Wood Thrush 9 6
American Robin 63 27
Gray Catbird 77 34
Northern Mockingbird 79 36
Brown Thrasher 5 4
European Starling 225 28
Cedar Waxwing 5 2
Yellow Warbler 2 1
Prairie Warbler 2 2
Ovenbird 1 1
Common Yellowthroat 10 9
Yellow-breasted Chat 2 1
Scarlet Tanager 1 1
Eastern Towhee 18 14
Chipping Sparrow 36 21
Field Sparrow 19 15
Grasshopper Sparrow 24 12
Song Sparrow 35 25
Northern Cardinal 81 37
Blue Grosbeak 4 2
Indigo Bunting 37 26
Red-winged Blackbird 73 22
Eastern Meadowlark 22 13
Common Grackle 131 25
Brown-headed Cowbird 15 9
Orchard Oriole 9 7
Baltimore Oriole 3 3
House Finch 17 14
American Goldfinch 48 22
House Sparrow 33 13
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Species: 73 Total Ind: 1729
Vehicles 229 26
=====
Frederick D. Atwood fredatwood@xxxxxxxxx
Flint Hill School, 10409 Academic Dr, Oakton, VA 22124
703-242-1675
http://www.agpix.com/fredatwood
http://www.flinthill.org
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