I just came in from birding along the Potomac within the City of Alexandria
limits, and do not have any unusual bird sightings, just a lot of hunkered down
gulls and the usual Caspian and Forster Terns.
At low tide (about 2pm), I checked the mudflats at Hunting Creek bridge on the
river side, and the mudflats behind both Hunting Creek Apts and the Porto
Vecchio Apts, and there were hundreds of dead catfish and other fish. I've
been down there 40 or so times this spring and summer at low tide and have
never seen more than a few dead fish. The heavy rain really didn't start until
a bit before low tide, so I can't imagine this fish kill was due to some sort
of urban runoff from DC.
There was nothing unusual going on - we are nowhere near having any kind of
storm surge up here or anything like that, so I don't see how this could be
hurricane related.
Any ideas?
Cheers,
Steve Hersey
Alexandria, VA
