The Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy's policy is to hold its scheduled bird walks,
rain or shine, unless its dangerous but we don't expect a lot of people if the
weather is lousy. Yesterday morning three hardcore & dedicated (some people
would describe us as something else) birders showed up for a very wet & not
overly productive bird walk. While it rained, mostly hard, the entire time we
were out, we kept telling each other how nice it was to be outside ... One of
the problems we had in finding birds was that we had a hard time hearing the
birds sing due to the rain pelting down on our umbrellas. We did find 23 bird
species at Banshee, including an impressive number of Eastern Towhees loudly
singing from a variety of perches along with a lot of singing Field Sparrows
and Chipping Sparrows.
My most interesting sightings occurred on the way to and from Banshee when I
drove by the Dulles Greenway Wetlands Mitigation Project about 7 am & caught a
glimpse of a Barred Owl and one of the nesting BALD EAGLES sitting on its nest.
When I stopped on the way home I first saw one of the Bald Eagles standing
over the nest in the rain with its wings spread out. Its mate flew to a
close-by perch - tore up something & then flew down to the nest. After its
mate left, it dropped whatever it had torn up in the nest, continuing to stand
on the edge of the nest. Since nothing was visible in the nest I can only
guess that, for the 4th year in a row, one will soon be able to see an eaglet
or two.
The Banshee Reeks walk, sponsored by the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and the
Friends of Banshee Reeks, is scheduled every second Saturday of the month. For
more information on the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy, including a listing of
their future activities, see (www.loudounwildlife.org); for the Friends of
Banshee Reeks see www.bansheereeks.org.
Next month on May 9 the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy has scheduled 12 different
bird walks all over Loudoun County in celebration of International Migratory
Bird Day - check out our website for the different walks.
Species seen at Banshee Reeks:
Canada Goose
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Mourning Dove
Pileated Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Blue Jay
American Crow
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
American Goldfinch
Joe Coleman
