I'm my own best company. Yes, that's right. Nobody showed up this
morning. So, borrowing a phrase from the Little Red Hen, I just did it
myself. It was a cold (45F), drizzly, low overcast morning. Since the walk
was scheduled for Railroad Ditch, I had made the start time 7:30 so I could
get a vehicle pass from the office, which I did. The walk became a drive.
To get a satisfactory feeling for what was around, I adopted the following
protocol. I drove 0.3 mile, stopped, surveyed for 10 minutes, and repeated
this pattern down the dike for two hours. At that point I cut the time of
each stop in half for the remaining distance to Lake Drummond. I left the
refuge at 11:30am and I think that protocol worked well.
As for the birds the only FOY bird was Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher which had
been reported by others a week ago. The drizzle kept the birds down and
most of the usual swamp winter birds were seen or heard. A flyover pair of
Purple Finches was nice, and I got the Barred Owls going several times, one
even came in to see who I might be. The marsh at the right turn had only a
Great Blue Heron and not the American Bittern which I had hoped would show
as it has on this date in years past. A couple of Louisiana Waterthrushes
sang lustily, but not the hoped-for Ovenbird. No vireos let their presence
be known. A Bald Eagle near the lake was surveying his kingdom, now the
residue from the fire several years ago. That area has a lot of large
puddles which are attractive to Wood Ducks. And you know how Bald Eagles
love ducks. But the big bird for me was a Lincoln's Sparrow which was with
a mixed flock of sparrows including White-throated, Song, and Swamp. The
flock was about 100 yds west of the lake. I got to watch the group for
about ten minutes from the comfort of my car. It was a smallish sparrow,
more the size of a Swamp than a Song. The fine streaking on the breast, its
dark sub-malar stripe, and slight crested look to its head were also noted.
Nice bird. Lincoln's Sparrow is a rare winter bird in our part of Virginia,
but I suspect this was a migrant. I noticed when I was entering this data
that someone had posted a Lincoln's Sparrow in DC. So that seems to support
migrant. Anyway, the sighting brightened an otherwise rather dreary day.
The complete list follows this email.
My next swamp walk will be Friday, April 8 at 7:00am from the parking
lot at the head of Washington Ditch. Last year on April 7 on Washington
Ditch, I recorded my earliest ever Swainson's Warbler. I certainly won't
predict one that early this year, but there will certainly be some new
migrants in the swamp by then. I'll predict American Redstart and Ovenbird
with a maybe for Prothonotary Warbler. Please join me. No reservation is
necessary; just show up.
Robert L. Ake
6603 Catherine Street
Norfolk VA 23505
Location: Dismal Swamp NWR Railroad Ditch
Observation date: 3/31/11
Number of species: 41
Wood Duck 17
Double-crested Cormorant 7
Great Blue Heron 1
Turkey Vulture 3
Bald Eagle 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Mourning Dove 4
Barred Owl 4
Red-bellied Woodpecker 9
Downy Woodpecker 7
Hairy Woodpecker 5
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted) 10
Pileated Woodpecker 10
Eastern Phoebe 2
Blue Jay 2
American Crow 1
Carolina Chickadee 6
Tufted Titmouse 3
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Carolina Wren 21
Winter Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 9
Eastern Bluebird 4
Hermit Thrush 1
American Robin 3
Gray Catbird 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 3
Pine Warbler 7
Louisiana Waterthrush 2
Common Yellowthroat 9
Eastern Towhee 6
Song Sparrow 4
Lincoln's Sparrow 1
Swamp Sparrow 7
White-throated Sparrow 25
Northern Cardinal 6
Common Grackle 47
Brown-headed Cowbird 1
Purple Finch 2
American Goldfinch 1
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
