VA BIRDers,
Sherman Suter and I visited a few locations Sunday morning searching for
waterfowl along the Potomac River. Highlights were Redhead, Greater Scaup,
Common Raven and Brown-headed Nuthatch.
We drove down George Washington Parkway and encountered our first group just
a few miles north of Mt Vernon, near Riverside Park - a bit south of Fort
Hunt. Seeing the Tundra Swans from the road got our attention; pulling over
we saw many scaup so we got out and took a look. We quickly saw Redheads -
at least 27 - mixed in with 3 dozen Gadwall, a couple of American Wigeon, a
few Mallards, a dozen plus Canvasbacks, nearly 50 Ring-necked Ducks, a
Greater Scaup, 100+ Lesser Scaup (and distant views of 300 scaup sp), 16
Bufflehead, 30 Common Mergansers, a Red-breasted Merganser, plus Common Loon
and a couple of Bald Eagles. The parking lot held a Brown Creeper.
Our next stop was Pohick Regional Park where we viewed Pohick/Accotink Bay.
A dozen plus Tundra Swans were noted as well as 200 or so American Black
Ducks, 135 Mallards, and a few Ring - necked Ducks, another 250 Lesser
Scaup, 8 Buffleheads, 4 Hooded Mergansers, 300 Common Mergansers and a
Red-breasted Merganser. We also tallied a Pied-billed Grebe here and noted
2 adult and 2 sub-adult Bald Eagles. It was quite windy here and there was
much chop on the water so we are quite sure we missed substantially more
birds.
Next, we visited a couple of friends at Hallowing Point and noted 6 more
Tundra Swans plus 90 American Black Ducks, 8 Mallards, 6 Green-winged Teals
(near the mouth of the Great Marsh of Mason Neck), 8 Greater Scaup, 2500
Lesser Scaup, 4 Hooded Mergansers, and 45 Common Mergansers. The eagle
count here was 3 adults and 4 immatures. One backyard held a pair of
Eastern Bluebirds where the male was singing and flying about the female
perched on an old snap. A Sharp-shinned Hawk made a half-hearted move
towards the bluebird, but failed. It soon left, perhaps embarrassed?
We next visited Occoquan Regional Park, mainly to try something different as
well as to avoid the wind. Here we heard the Brown-headed Nuthatch twice
but could not find the beastie. Rich Rieger's Pine Warbler put in an
appearance and later we heard it weakly sing. Plus the Winter Wren, very
close to where it was noted in early January. We drove near the quarry off
Peniwell (sp?) Road and spotted a few crows mobbing a bird on the ground.
It was a Common Raven, which then posed quite nicely for us on a snag across
from a small McMansion under construction. Curiously, no eagles in this
area.
Our next stop was the marina at the mouth of the Occoquan River. Here we
tallied a few more American Black Duck, 260 Mallards, 85 Lesser Scaup, 24
Bufflehead, a Hooded Merganser, 45 Common Mergansers, and 5 Ruddy Ducks. We
also noted 2 Horned Grebes and tallied 3 adult and 9 immature Bald Eagles
plus a Red-tailed Hawk flying over the forest.
We headed to the Veterans Park area of Woodbridge and found 22 Gadwall, 4
American Black Ducks, 22 Mallards and a couple of Common Mergansers. Our
next stop was mostly uneventful, so we headed back home to escape the wind.
Kurt Gaskill
