Sat., Jan. 17, the Roanoke Valley Bird Club,
9 members strong, endured an all day trip north
to Bath (Lake Moomaw) and Highland County and
ended at dusk at the Swoope area looking for
Short-eared Owls.
Lake Moomaw was pretty much as Allen Larner
described it a couple of weeks ago, devoid of much
waterfowl activity. Scaup, Bufflehead, Hooded Mergs,
and Coots were found with numbers in the 20s counted,
but the highlight were two Redheads found by our
illustrius president as we were leaving. We also found
a single Pied-billed and Horned Grebe, along with the
(few) token Mallards. Active hunting in the area didn't help
our cause, either. Perhaps the highlight of the day was
at the "marina" where we watched a adult and 9 immature
Bald eagles putting on a show. One had caught a fish and
the others chased it until the fish was dropped. Another
eagle would swoop to gather it in and the chase would start
all over again. We likely saw 10 immatures and 2 adults
at the lake.
From there to the Holding Ponds and Upper Lake. The
Holding Ponds were frozen over, but the upper end well
beyond the dam had 40-50 Mallards, about 10-15 Black
Duck, and our only Canadas of the day, maybe around 30.
We saw another adult Bald here, also.
Highland Co. was spent dodging snow squalls, and a
number of target hopefuls were missed. No Golden eagles,
Shrikes, Horned Larks, or SE Owls. WE did find 4 Rough-
legged Hawks (2 light, 2 dark), 2 more Bald eagles ( 1
ad., 1 imm.) , and a Harrier (fem.), along with many
Kestrels and Red-tails. It was raptor heaven.
We got to Swoope at 5:00, and ended up in the little
time we had before it got too dark to see finding at
least 5 SE Owls pretty much in the same location, all
within a quarter of a mile.
A long ambitious trip for a day but rewarding with a
trip list of 48 species and a lot of good birds.
Tad Finnell tadcipiter@ aol.com
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