Sorry for the late post. I was at Phelps Wildlife Management Area on Friday
morning from 6:45 till 9:30. A great birding morning! I saw all the warblers
Linda Millington mentioned(except Magnolia) in good quantities plus a
Blue-Winged Warbler and 2 Cape May Warblers and Pine Warblers singing. Wood
Thrushes(20) were down from my last visit. I observed 85 Yellow Breasted Chats,
with
visuals on 25+. This or next weekend would be a great time to go if you want to
actually see and hear Chats. Lots of Chats. Everywhere. Last year at this time
I observed and counted 100 and then just quit counting. Couldn't stop hearing
them, though. I also had a male and female Summer Tanager singing from 15 ft
away in full view. I didn't see the eagles at the wetlands but did add Eastern
Kingbird and Louisana Waterthrush. On the way out I heard and saw 2 Swainson's
Thrushes and 2 Baltimore Orioles, heard a Black-Billed Cuckoo. I saw 6 or 8
Yellow-Billed Cuckoos going in in cherry trees at the tent caterpilars. I don't
have my list book here so I'm just trying to hit highlights. This is a great
easy place to bird during migration and you can tell the type of environment
by the lists produced by Todd, Sue, Linda and others. Here at home I have a
large beaver dam visible from the deck. There have been 8 Solitary Sandpipers
on
the mudflats around the pond for over a week now. I was down by the water
today watching them, and a pair of Killdeers do the broken wing act when a
female
Wood Duck came over the dam with 14 puffball babies. As soon as she was 3 ft
in the water she saw me and was back over the dam with all the babies in under
10 sec. I counted twice but 14 hatchlings seems like a huge brood to me. They
all looked totally identical. Any ideas? There were 2 females around earlier
but I have only seen one female and one male lately. An adoption? Anyway, best
of luck to her! Dave White Zion Crossroads
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.
