This is a repeat of my message last week. Please get in touch with me by
Thursday if you want to participate. As it stands, I don't have enough
participants to make this effort worthwhile.
Ben
So, what are the best spots to snag passage migrants after a good flight
night in spring? Bart Hutchinson, Jim Mathews, Jason Waanders (honorary
member),
and I would like to know for our annual Fairfax County Birding Dads Big Day.
We have traditionally done the dawn chorus at Great Falls, but want to try a
more southern strategy this year.
So here's my idea. On either the May 1 or May 2, we station birders at
various locations in the county. Each team counts all of the passage migrants
(and
interesting residents) for, say, 1 hour after sunrise (my idea is to keep the
counting time relatively short so as not to disadvantage relatively small
areas -- I'm interested in concentrations of birds, not birds findable with a
morning of hiking around). Then we collect the data and see where the birds
are.
Depending on how many people are interested, we could cover the following
spots:
Riverbend
Great Falls
Wakefield Rec. Ctr.
Dyke Marsh
Huntley -- Hike/Bike Trail
Huntley -- Main entrance
Ft. Belvoir -- Accotink
Ft. Belvoir -- Ruins
Meadowwood -- two spots?
Pohick Bay Regional Park
Mason Neck SP (access?)
Mason Neck NWR
Mason Neck residential neighborhood at "heel"
Other possibilities:
Hunter-Hacor property (near BRPO Rd.)
Laurel Hill (Lorton)
White Oaks Park
Burke Lake
Mt. Vernon (access?)
Fort Hunt Park
Hemlock Overlook Park
Other northern county sites (Reston, etc.)?
Others?
For calibration, I suggest we have a couple of nearby spots outside Fairfax
County covered:
Occoquan NWR
Leesylvania SP
Cockpit Rd.
Northern Rock Creek Park
Monticello
Ideally, we would do this every year, like the waterfowl survey. If you are
interested, let me know which day(s) you are available (of course, whether
that day will follow a good flight night will be random chance), where you
would
prefer to cover, and whether you are willing to cover another spot. If it
looks like we have enough interest to pull this off, I will send more details.
I'm also happy for any ideas on how to make this work better.
Ben Jesup
Alexandria
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