After studying Brenda Tekin's photographs of a Red-necked Phalarope taken in
the p.m. hours of September 9th at Leonard's Pond in Rockingham County, I am
convinced that her bird was a different individual from either of the two
birds I saw there the previous afternoon. This bird was less advanced toward
basic plumage than even the female I saw, judging from the bright, crisp
borders on various feathers on the back and wings. Both of "my" birds
apparently
left during the night, or early next morning when the sky lifted, as none of
the ten or so Rockingham Bird Club observers present early on the 9th saw
them during the morning. Brenda's e-mail does not say how early it appeared.
(Brenda, you might think of including the time of day with your photos.)
Fortunately several others who went to the pond late on the 9th got to see a
singleton, but I have heard of no reports since, and very few shorebirds
(three or
four Leasts, one Semipalmated Sandpiper, and six Killdeer) were present
there on the afternoon of the 11th when I checked the pond.
There seems to have been a smattering of Red-necked Phalaropes that either
fell out from, or were pinned down by, the remnants of tropical storm
Florence. Not only did we have three birds here, and another not far south at
Bell's
Lane in Augusta County, but Ken Hinkle sent me a report off the West
Virginia birdline of a sighting of one by Wendell Argabrite just north of
Huntington, WV, and another phalarope, which Wallace Coffey and others only
got a quick
look at and may have been either Red-necked or Red, was on South Holston
Lake just across the Tennessee border from Virginia.
As to speculation that the Bell's Lane bird may hvae been one of the two I
saw here on the 8th, I am inclined to think not. Maybe I'm
anthropomorphizing, but one of the fascinating things about "my" birds, which
were clearly of
opposite sex, was how chummy they seemed. One would start out in a particular
direction and instantly the other would follow, virtually mirroring the
twists and turns of the first (and in this case, it was not a question of the
female doing all the leading). If one flew to the other side of the pond--for
no reason I could see--the other would instantly follow. When they stopped
and rested, which they did often, they would stand side by side, almost
touching. This out-of-breeding-season "fidelity" displayed in so many ways
was very
intriguing, and it continued for the whole hour I was watching them. And
that in a species where the females disappear and form hen parties as soon as
their eggs are laid! On the basis of their behavior here, I had the feeling
that when these birds departed, they would do so together, and would still be
together at the next pond they chose to alight on. (Or perhaps it was rather
a case of flying around in a former hurricane, and misery loves company.)
Leonard's Pond has been very productive, perhaps because its design, as
Clair Mellinger has pointed out, did not involve steep banks, but gently
sloping
mudflats when it was created.
Last fall and this we had single juvenile Baird's Sandpipers. A year or so
ago Sanderlings showed up, our first county record. This fall I saw a
Willet, the second county record, whose bloody and broken leg (Tom Lord
suggested)
may have resulted from an encounter with a snapping turtle. Often we've had
as many as eight species of shorebirds present. I even saw five Bobolinks
there about a week ago, feeding in the high weeds.
Cattle, which have not been in the main pond for some time, were back in
there yesterday, and their footprints have churned up the mud flats. It
remains
to be seen what effect this will have on the shorebirds that stop and feed
there.
John Irvine
Harrisonburg, VA
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