This morning 11 of us, including four visitors from the Augusta Co Bird Club,
showed up for the regular monthly (every 4th Sat.) bird walk at the Blue Ridge
Center. We walked approx. two miles on the northern portion of the property
and afterwards four of us drove a couple of miles on the southern side of the
property along Arnold & Sawmill Roads. While there was a rather low ceiling
when we started it did not begin drizzling until we were well into the walk and
it never rained enough to cut down on the birding. The highlights of the walk
were two Barred Owls perched close to each other on the Farmstead Loop near the
log cabins, at least 4 Louisiana Warblers singing in different locations along
both Piney Run & Sweet Run, four singing Eastern Towhees, more than 20 singing
Field Sparrows, and at least 3 singing Chipping Sparrows. After we finished at
BRCES the four of us who were left (three from Augusta Co & myself) drove over
to Bloomery Rd in Jefferson Co, WV to drive along the Shenandoah River where we
added several more species. We found a mixed flock of 11 Horned Grebes, one
Lesser Scaup, and one Ruddy Duck. While none of the Horned Grebes were in
breeding plumage several were pretty close. There were also a couple more
Horned Grebes in other spots, a couple Pied-billed Grebes, a couple of Wood
Ducks, a number of Common Mergansers, one female Hooded Merganser. At every
location we stopped along the river there were Rough-winged and Tree Swallows.
We found 43 species at BRCES and added 9 more along the Shenandoah.
I'd like to thank Matt Orsie of Jefferson Co, WV for scouting the Shenandoah
River for us yesterday.
Information on the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship can be found
at http://www.blueridgecenter.org. Information on the Loudoun Wildlife ;
Conservancy and its many free activities can be found at
www.loudounwildlife.org.
Joe Coleman, near Bluemont, Loudoun Co
See below for complete list of bird species seen at the Blue Ridge Center as
reported to eBird:
Canada Goose X
Wood Duck 2
Mallard 2
Great Blue Heron 2
Turkey Vulture X
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Killdeer 1
Mourning Dove 1
Barred Owl 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker 4
Downy Woodpecker 2
Hairy Woodpecker 2
Northern Flicker 1
Pileated Woodpecker 4
Eastern Phoebe 6
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Fish Crow X
Tree Swallow 4
Carolina Chickadee X
Tufted Titmouse X
White-breasted Nuthatch X
Brown Creeper 1
Carolina Wren 3
Eastern Bluebird X
American Robin X
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling X
Louisiana Waterthrush 4
Eastern Towhee 4
Chipping Sparrow 3
Field Sparrow 20
Song Sparrow 3
White-throated Sparrow X
Dark-eyed Junco X
Northern Cardinal X
Red-winged Blackbird 1
Common Grackle 1
Brown-headed Cowbird X
House Finch 2
American Goldfinch 1
House Sparrow X
This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org/VA)