[va-richmond-general] Re: Purple Marin Roost on the Pamunkey River

  • From: "katya" <katya@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2008 19:08:07 GMT

Wow, is there any way RAS might consider making this trip as a group--soon?  It sounds very interesting.

Katie

-----Original Message-----
From: <fitzgerald3herb@xxxxxxx>
Sent 8/7/2008 8:35:24 AM
To: va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [va-richmond-general] Purple Marin Roost on the Pamunkey River

  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@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
                                                                                                               Jimmy Fitzgerald




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