Six people enjoyed the gorgeus October morning on the weekly walk sponsored by
the Friends of Dyke Marsh. A few more migrants would have been nice, but it
was a good morning. A nice mix of waterfowl were off the Belle Haven picnic
area, including pied billed grebes, tundra swan (sitting on the flats off
Hunting Towers), shoveller, gadwall, black duck, American wigeon, mallard,
Canada goose, and coot. Also on the flats were Forster's and Caspian terns,
gulls, and a flock of unidentified shore birds. I heard one greater yellowlegs
but these were not yellowlegs. The picnic area was pretty quiet, except for
the chimney swift flock when I first arrived at 7:15am. About 200 swifts were
flying low over the trees, and then they formed a tight flock and flew low over
the water, drinking and bathing. It was really neat to hear them hitting the
water. After about a dozen circuits, they gained altitude and dissapeared. A
nice find was a yellow-bellied sapsucker, found by one of the sharp-eyed
attendees. The rest of the walk found one large flock of yellow-rumped
warblers, 3 blackpoll warblers and single magnolia and chestnut-sided warblers,
house wren, both kinglets, swamp sparrow, Cooper's hawk, red-shouldered hawk,
and a single osprey. We tallied 59 species in all. Here is the complete list:
Canada goose - 150
tundra swan - 1
wood duck - 2
gadwall - 1
American wigeon - 3
black duck - 1
mallard - 12
northern shoveler - 12
ruddy duck - 5
pied-billed gull - 7
double-crested cormorant - 50
great blue heron - 8
great egret - 6
osprey - 1
Cooper's hawk - 1
red-shouldered hawk - 1
American coot - 16
greater yellowlegs - 1
laughing gull - lots
ring-billed gull - 20
herring gull - 2
caspian tern - 6
Forster's tern - 10
rock pigeon - 22
mourning dove - 2
chimney swift - 200
belted kingfisher - 2
red-bellied woodpecker - 6
yellow-bellied sapsucker - 1
downy woodpecker - 7
hairy woodpecker - 2
northern flicker - 14
blue jay - 15
American crow - 2
fish crow - 6
carolina chickadee - 10
tufted titmouse - 8
white-breasted nuthatch - 1
carolina wren - 12
house wren - 1
golden-crowned kinglet - 3
ruby-crowned kinglet - 2
American robin - 20
gray catbird - 1
northern mockingbird - 3
european starling - 20
chestnut-sided warbler - 1
magnolia warbler - 1
yellow-rumped warbler - 16
blackpoll warbler - 3
common yellowthroat - 2
song sparrow - 5
swamp sparrow - 5
northern cardinal - 10
red-winged blackbird - 75
common grackle - 20
house finch - 6
American goldfinch - 4
house sparrow - 5
Marc Ribaudo
Woodbridge