We had a good turnout on a beautiful morning for our walk at the 42nd Street
section of James River Park. It was nice to meet several members of our MeetUp
group for the first time today - hope you all had a great time! It was also
great to have Tyler Twyford from the James River Park staff along for the walk
today.
We got a few of warblers right off the bat, Pine, Redstart and Parula up on the
street near the entrance, but activity was pretty slow for the first part of
the morning. Tyler was able to give us a look at a couple of Spotted
Salamanders at the Visitor Center, and after that, the bird activity picked up.
In the area around the butterfly garden, we found Magnolia Warbler,
Chestnut-sided Warbler, Common Yellowthroat and Scarlet Tanager. We swept the
likely woodpeckers, seeing or hearing at least three Red-headed Woodpeckers in
various spots. Red-headed isn’t unheard of at this location, but it’s always a
good day when you find one. We heard a Red-shouldered Hawk calling all along
the trail, and finally got a visual as it flew from the railroad tracks over
towards the river after we made the turn back toward the parking lot. One
Osprey and a few of each species of vulture rounded out our raptors for the
day. We didn’t find any shorebirds. We had Catbird and Brown Thrasher, but
missed the mimic thrush trifecta when we couldn’t turn up a Mockingbird,
usually a pretty sure thing down around the Visitors Center area. In all, we
encountered 47 bird species by the end of the walk. The complete checklist is
given below.
It was a pretty good day for insects/arachnids. Beautiful spiderwebs were easy
to pick out among the vegetation in the early morning light, and thanks to the
miracle of the Internet, we were able to identify an Arrowhead Orb Weaver, with
it’s characteristic yellow arrowhead shaped markings on its abdomen. We had
several species of butterflies as well: Tiger Swallowtail, Sachem (a skipper)
and Pearl Crescent. (Except for Tiger Swallowtail, I’d characterized those IDs
as “tentative” until someone who really knows what they’re talking about looks
at the pictures!) Over on the 42nd Street Island, we ran across a striking red
insect, which seemed to be a kind of Velvet Ant called a Cow Killer. The name
is a sort of rural myth - though these insects have a painful sting, they
aren’t capable of killing a cow.
Check out the Richmond Audubon Facebook page for pictures of some of the
creatures mentioned in this message.
—
Lewis Barnett
blbarnett3@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:blbarnett3@xxxxxxxxx>
James River Park--42nd St, Richmond City, Virginia, US
Sep 24, 2016 7:17 AM - 11:37 AM
Protocol: Traveling
1.0 mile(s)
Comments: <br>Submitted from eBird Android 1.3-beta7
47 species
Canada Goose 49
Mallard 2
Double-crested Cormorant 4
Great Blue Heron 1
Black Vulture 6
Turkey Vulture 1
Osprey 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 2
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) 20
Mourning Dove 1
Chimney Swift 2
Belted Kingfisher 1
Red-headed Woodpecker 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker (Eastern) 3
Hairy Woodpecker 2
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted) 1
Pileated Woodpecker 1
Eastern Phoebe 2
White-eyed Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 2
Blue Jay 4
American Crow 1
Carolina Chickadee 9
Tufted Titmouse 7
White-breasted Nuthatch (Eastern) 2
Carolina Wren 10
Eastern Bluebird 1
Wood Thrush 1
American Robin 28
Gray Catbird 2
Brown Thrasher 1
European Starling 17
Cedar Waxwing 3
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 1
American Redstart 3
Northern Parula 1
Magnolia Warbler 1
Chestnut-sided Warbler 1
Pine Warbler 1
Scarlet Tanager 2
Northern Cardinal 3
Common Grackle (Purple) 1
Brown-headed Cowbird 1
American Goldfinch 6
House Sparrow 20
View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31734758 ;
<http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31734758>
This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org/VA ;
<http://ebird.org/VA>)
