VA BIRDers,
Marc Ribuado, Gerry Hawkings, Rich Rieger and I birded the Mason Neck area
in the morning for the Fairfax County Spring Count. We then hit a few other
places such as linking up with Jay Keller for the Lorton Landfill cap and
others (like Dyke Marsh) where we walked just to find a few birds. We ended
the day at 125 species. (Admittedly quitting early due to malaise! No, just
kidding, we were dog tired as all of us put in long hours during the
weekdays before but really wanted to give this Fairfax County Big Day thing
a good shot. We began at 130am and quit at 630pm.)
Anyway, the highlights. Not many - pretty much meat and potatoes birding.
We tried for a few night rails and bitterns and such and came up goose egg.
Even the nighthawk attempt at Tyson's Corner was zilch. We did note many
calling Song Sparrows (at Tysons - at 230 in the morning!) plus the usual
No. Mockers. Anyway, let's hit the real highlights. Whip-poor-wills at
Bull Run PO Rd, at least 5 of them plus a several calling YB Cuckoos and
Field Sparrows. We also picked up YB Chat at Lorton near 430am. The best
daytime highlights were ducks as we found a male Common Goldeneye near a
Lesser Scaup on Belmont Bay - really odd! If the same bird, maybe it is
injured as Scott Baron suggested. Of course, many Lesser Scaup and a
Bufflehead mixed in - nearby were about 70 American Coot. Also noted 6
Horned Grebe (not all adult plumaged) plus one Pied-billed Grebe. And it
gets more amazing - off the Great Marsh there were 6 Gadwall, 4 more Am.
Coots, 2 American Wigeon and a single Canvasback! Wow! These birds are
seldom recorded in May in this area.
The songbirds were mostly common this time of year and we missed some like
Brown Thrasher. It is worthwhile to point out the oriole show with many of
each species. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers were huge (about 30 at Mason Neck in
my notes) as well as Northern Parulas (about 33 at Mason Neck). Red-eyed
Vireos were top with nearly 70 at Mason Neck - clearly a big blast coming
through! Wood Thrush near 22 and Scarlet Tanager with about 18 were
well-represented. A scattering of representatives of everything else,
usually more than one individual was tallied (the single Warbling Vireo at
Dyke Marsh is an obvious exception, I wonder what it will be like on the
field trip tomorrow???). We ended the day at Huntley Meadows and tallied
Green Heron, the American Bittern, not one but two Virginia Rails and a Sora
plus Bank Swallow.
I will send a summary of the count as soon as all the reports are in and
compiled. From the reports I have read, it's possible the count will be
near 140 and could exceed it. Thank you everyone for you kind help!
Kurt Gaskill
