[va-richmond-general] Purple Marin Roost on the Pamunkey River
- From: fitzgerald3herb@xxxxxxx
- To: va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2008 12:35:24 EDT
Yesterday afternoon around five thirty PM I met with a couple of Biologist
at the ramp in West Point on the Mattaponi River to go up the Pamunkey River
to the area around Sweet Hall Marsh to study a Purple Martin premigratory
roost site that exists somewhere in that area. This is the second trip that I
have made to that area trying to pin down the exact location of this roost.
The
roost location is very inaccessible to the public and it is about a thirty to
forty minute ride to the general area from West Point.
The area where this roost exists is in what appears to be in one of two
very large marshes that combined are about 1200 hundred acres in size and
because of the Hugh loops the river makes in that area it makes it hard to pin
the birds roost site down. We went up the river past the suspected area of the
roost to a transmission line that crosses the Pamunkey River just to the
west of Sweet Hall Marsh. There was thousands of birds at this location and is
called a staging area from which they gather prior to going to the roost site.
Even the expert Biologists could not estimate what I believe was well over
ten thousand birds and that did not include the hundreds perhaps thousands of
birds that were seen flying all over the two Marshes.
These birds set up to go to roost ten to fifteen minutes later at this
site than they do at the Farmers Market site in Richmond for what reason I do
not know and when they finally decide to leave the power line it is so close
to dark you do not any time to follow them before total darkness sets in.
Last night we did get a glimpse of the typical vortex they form when going to
roost over Hill Marsh but lost it in the darkness before we could get close
enough to pin down a definite GPS location.
It is my belief that this roost is considerably larger than the Farmers
Market Roost but because of the difficulty in getting near the site when the
birds arrive that is only my opinion. This excursion up the Pamunkey is one
pretty and exciting adventure and anybody that does not mind traveling in a
boat at night will enjoy making this trip. You will not only see Purple
Martins
but also many other species that use and roost in this area. The best place
to view the birds before eight o'clock is at the Transmission line after that
take the cut through in Sweet Hall Marsh and set up almost straight out from
the cut through between Sweet Hall Marsh and Hill Marsh. Anybody that can
pin this roost down better than we have today please let me know so I can
update the site on the PMCA web site and report it to Sergio Harding with DGIF
by
email at _sergio.harding@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(mailto:sergio.harding@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Jimmy Fitzgerald
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