By the time a group of local birders converged on the site of Leonard
Teuber's sighting of Rockingham County's first Scissor-tailed Flycatcher off
Va. Rt.
276 just before noon, the bird had disappeared. Some persons left after
staying for a while, others remained, and Tom Pendleton and I decided to search
the roads nearest to the south and then nearest to the north in case the bird
had flown some distance. We had just finished without success the second of
those two loops and headed back to the original site from the east (the side
away
from 276) when we realized the bird was back in its original place on a
utility wire just overhead. We drove a little way farther to where Bill Benish
had
his scope trained on the bird and had great looks. (Driving underneath it
and stopping does not seem to disturb it, but it is not the best place in the
world to stop for safety's sake.) This was about 1:40 p.m. and the bird was
still there when we left just before 2:00. It occasionally made a sortie high
in
the air to catch a bug but kept returning to its place. There are brush piles
down over the hill to the northeast, some easily seen and others not so
easily because of the contour of the land, and Bill said the bird had been down
among them for a while before it flew back to its place on the wire. Leonard
Teuber had come back and was seeing it for the second time. It seemed attached
to its spot on the wire near a pole. Birds of various other feathers -- indigo
buntings, bluebirds, goldfinches, chipping sparrows -- flew in and sat beside
it as if to say "Who's your daddy?"
Clair Mellinger has indicated directions if you are coming from the north
(Penn Laird and Cross Keys). If you are coming from the south take I-81 exit
235
and turn right on Va. 256, proceeding one mile to Weyer's Cave. At the
stoplight in this town turn left on Va. 276. Proceed out of town and down to
the
bridge across the North River. At the river you will leave Augusta County and
enter Rockingham County. The road you want will be the second county road to
your right, County Route 668, East Timber Ridge Road. Turn right and proceed
about 1.2 miles. You will be in an area where both sides of the road have
similar high-tech fences. At the end of a straight stretch the road will bend
right and there is a forested area on the right hand side. The power lines
will
be on the left hand side of the road at that point. The pole at the bend of
the road--where the wires take a slight jog to the right--is the one around
which the bird sits. It prefers to be on the near side of that pole. One
person with a camera walked up fairly close to it and got some pictures after
it
moved a few feet to the far side of the pole. She then backed off and the bird
stayed there. The bird had not left the area while we were there and seemed to
eye all the people with as much curiosity as the people were giving it. As
it sits normally there is only a faint hint of salmon in the undertail coverts,
but when the bird lifts its wings, the salmon is definitely visible in the
underwing coverts. From the length of the tail most of us would presume it is
an adult bird.
Good birding!
John Irvine
Harrisonburg, VA
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