Hello Everyone,
To start off my 2006 and birding adventures, I slept in. However, I couldn't
stay in for too long, as the thought of finding owls essentially in my backyard
took hold this afternoon. I won't disclose the exact locations (as some folks
think this is troublesome for some reason), but I did find one Barred Owl and
one Great Horned Owl at two parks along the river. Some of us are working on a
little project to survey the area owls, and I am the compiler for the Arlington
area. Please let me know if you know where owls are near you, especially if
you feel they are breeding nearby. The data collected can be important to
determine the health of the local environment and its ability to support
wildlife. All location info will be kept confidential.
On another note, as some of you know, I spent 2005 pushing myself to get to the
300-species mark for the year in Virginia, as I'm always up for a challenge.
For those interested, I hit the 300 mark on November 12 (Brant on Magotha Road)
on the rarities round-up, and finished the year at 309 birds. I did it to
accomplish essentially two things: to get some life birds and to get to amazing
places in Virginia that I had not been to before. I did both. I'm happy to
have done that, though at a lot of expense time-wise and in real dollars.
However, I really didn't chase too many things very far. My best birds were
Greater White-fronted Goose, Ross's Goose, Eurasian Wigeons (2), American White
Pelican, Neotropic Cormorant, Northern Goshawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Black Rail,
Baird's Sandpiper, Ruff, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Glaucous Gull, Thayer's Gull,
Dovekie, Razorbill, Atlantic Puffin, Rufous & Allen's Hummers, Northern Shrike,
Connecticut Warbler, Western Tanager, Clay-colored Sparrow, Lark Sparrow,
LeConte's Sparrow, among others. Thanks to everyone who helped me get up to
speed with Virginia birding. It's a beautiful state with a lot of great birds.
Finally, if anyone does get a good digital photo of the Brown-headed Nuthatch
Mike Friedman and I found yesterday, please forward it to me if you can.
Hopefully it will stay with us for the forseeable future and invite some of
it's friends.
Wishing everyone good birding in 2006,
Jay Keller,
Arlington
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