23 December 2019
This evening Sophie Buck and I had both a Virginia rail and a sora in the
cattail-filled ditch along the southern border of Fowler Road Irrigation Pond.
The Virginia made the “grunt” calls 4-5 times and was heard well. Sadly it did
not cooperate for audio recordings. To my knowledge this is the first Virginia
rail record for Lincoln county. Sophie managed a photo of the sora, which will
be uploaded to the eBird checklist (link below)
I have been checking this ditch for rails periodically over the past few years,
and this year it looked like the cattails have expanded, finally enticing rails
to stop by.
Also of note were 3 common goldeneyes on the pond.
Cheers,
Evan Buck
Laurel, MD (Formerly Lincoln County)
https://ebird.org/checklist/S62575101
