VA BIRDers,
A few additions to the various postings this weekend. On Saturday, Roach's
Run in Arlington had a Great Egret, plus the small group of Hooded
Mergansers noted from prior visits. At sunset at the Hunting Creek mudflats
I scoped from the old wooden pier/platform near the Wilson Bridge and found
one Laughing Gull mixed in with several thousand gulls. As I drove south on
GW Parkway, a Merlin was perched in a tree between the golf course and the
parkway.
Sunday sent me to Burke Lake, too, and my waterfowl counts were nearly
identical to Fred's - nice posting Fred! Always good to hear about Burke
Lake. The Common Goldeneye may be the first actually reported in Northern
Virginia on VA BIRD this season. The Bald Eagle nest is smack dab in the
middle of the small Great Blue Heron rookery there and I suspect the herons
will be a bit perturbed come February/March.
I then drove to Occoquan Bay NWR and ran into Linda Chittum. We waiting
nearly 20 minutes for the Sedge Wren to finally make a noise, doing a call
that sounded a lot like a drawn out Common Yellowthroat chip note (not
described in Sibley) which I recall was sort of a "drurrrrr". A close copy
of it can be found on the Bird Calls and Songs Blog with URL and description
below:
http://pjdeye.blogspot.com/2009/03/wren-calls.html
"Calls by a migrant, a churr and the chip, which recalls Yellow-rumped
Warbler but is richer (Nov, PA)".
Let's see how long it sticks around!
The snow/sleet became a bit more steady and Linda and I left. A quick visit
to Occoquan Marina produced nothing really unusual duck-wise, although one
can see the huge rafts of waterfowl to the east and there were 4 more Boneys
to see. I stopped at Pohick Park and the wind borne snow/sleet made viewing
to the north difficult so I sufficed with a quick scan and managed to find 2
Common Loons. One could see about 21 Tundra Swan peppering the shore at
Fort Belvoir. The picnic area easily held a single flock of 80 juncos.
I left via the GW Parkway and near Mt Vernon chanced upon 12 Brown-headed
Cowbirds near the road. Last stop was Dyke Marsh (@1130) - I was hoping the
snow would bring some action to Haul Road and it was pretty good. The first
150 yds of the trail were covered with White-throated Sparrows (35+),
Northern Cardinals (16), a couple of Song Sparrows and a Fox Sparrow. 3
Yellow-rumpeds flew about, 3 Winter Wrens (one sang) and one each of the
kinglets were noted. And a calling Eastern Screech Owl.
Kurt Gaskill
