We had a great morning/early afternoon out at Dutch Gap today - perfect weather
and lots of evidence of arriving migrants and local breeding birds.
The star of any visit to Dutch gap during migration and breeding seasons is the
Prothonotary Warbler - we didn’t encounter our first Prothonotary until a bit
after 10:00 am, but as we worked our way deeper down the trails behind the
visitor center, they became a bit easier to find. We totaled seven in all, and
got good looks a several, including one somewhat misguided individual who was
trying to decide if the support poles for one of the fishing docks was going to
be a likely nesting spot. (Sorry, Susan, the first one really did show up right
after you had to leave.)
I was trying to keep at least half an eye out for evidence of breeding today in
support of the Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas project
(http://amjv.org/index.php/vabba2/about), and we had good success today. There
were two active Osprey nests on our route, as well as a heronry with both Great
Blue Herons and Double Crested Cormorants on nests. Great Horned Owlets were
spotted from the first observation platform, one still using the nest snag as a
roost, and the other in a nearby sycamore tree. We also found a Mourning Dove
nest with a bird that appeared to be incubating in the same tree as a much
larger nest that appeared to be in good order, but with no one home. One of the
unique behaviors that we got to see today was an Osprey circling over the
historical area, breaking off a dead tree branch (we could hear the cracking of
the wood) and then carrying the detached stick across the river to the nest
site on the opposite shore. An Eastern Bluebird carrying food, Tree Swallows at
nest boxes, and several other species engaged in what looked like territorial
squabbles rounded out evidence of breeding. The three hardy souls who stuck it
out to the end were treated to a Red-headed Woodpecker checking out a nest hole
back near the new bridge. (Sorry, Sally, we didn’t find it until about 1:00 pm)
The only other warblers today were one Prairie Warbler singing at the entrance
to the park, several singing Yellow-throated Warblers, and a couple of
lingering Yellow-rumped Warblers.
We had a total of 57 species, listed at the end of this message - they’re in
alphabetical rather than taxonomic order because I had to do a little Unix
wizardry on four separate checklists I kept so that the birds we saw today
would end up in the correct Virginia Breeding Bird Survey blocks. The
individual checklists with some photos are here:
http://ebird.org/ebird/atlasva/view/checklist?subID=S28990194
http://ebird.org/ebird/atlasva/view/checklist?subID=S28990638
http://ebird.org/ebird/atlasva/view/checklist?subID=S28991596
http://ebird.org/ebird/atlasva/view/checklist?subID=S28992124
Read on if you are interested in the Virginia Breeding Bird Survey project…
If you use eBird, I would encourage you to visit the web site I mentioned
above, read through the Breeding Bird Atlas manual, and start adding breeding
status details to your checklists where appropriate. You can then mark your
checklist for inclusion on the Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas portal - there’s a
button on the lower right-hand side of the page when you view an entered
checklist that allows you to “Change portal.”
The blocks for the BBA project were determined by taking each 9mi x 6mi USGS
topo map quad and dividing it into six equal 3mi x 3mi blocks. It happens that
parts of Dutch Gap are in three different blocks, so in an attempt to keep the
data we collected today as accurate as possible, I broke the checklists up,
starting a new one each time we crossed a block boundary.
Good birding!
--
Lewis Barnett
blbarnett3@xxxxxxxxx
Complete species list, 4/16/16
Dutch Gap Conservation Area, Chesterfield County, VA
American Coot 2
American Goldfinch 8
American Robin 4
Bald Eagle 5
Belted Kingfisher 1
Black Vulture 14
Blue Jay 3
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 9
Brown Thrasher 5
Brown-headed Cowbird 9
Canada Goose 10
Carolina Chickadee 10
Carolina Wren 8
Caspian Tern 1
Cedar Waxwing 6
Chipping Sparrow 2
Common Grackle 3
Common Yellowthroat 3
crow sp. 4
Double-crested Cormorant 7
Downy Woodpecker 1
Eastern Bluebird 7
Eastern Meadowlark 5
Eastern Phoebe 1
European Starling 1
Fish Crow 1
Great Blue Heron 9
Great Horned Owl 2
House Finch 5
Killdeer 1
Laughing Gull 20
Mallard 1
Mourning Dove 5
Northern Cardinal 6
Northern Mockingbird 6
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 2
Osprey 8
Pileated Woodpecker 1
Pine Warbler 2
Prairie Warbler 1
Prothonotary Warbler 6
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2
Red-headed Woodpecker 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Red-winged Blackbird 26
Ring-billed Gull 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Savannah Sparrow 2
Song Sparrow 1
Tree Swallow 7
Tufted Titmouse 7
Turkey Vulture 4
White-eyed Vireo 1
White-throated Sparrow 13
Wood Duck 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler 2
Yellow-throated Warbler 4
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