The Northern Virginia Bird Club visited Occoquan Bay NWR this morning, and
the 18 participants enjoyed some good, early spring birding. Waterfowl are
definitely on the move as we saw several high flying skiens of geese and
swans. One flock of swans held nearly 80 birds. There are still many
waterfowl on the river, but diversity has dropped a bit. Other signs of the
changing season were tree swallow, eastern phoebe, and increasing numbers of
osprey. Sparrows seemed to be moving. We came across a group of 6 fox
sparrows feeding along Bayview Drive. There were also many song sparrows
about, and a truly skulking savannah sparrow that fooled me into thinking it
was a mouse. Another nice sighting was a covey of northern bobwhite at the
electronic gate where the wildlife drive ends at the golf course. We
guessed the flock contained about 15 birds. Shortly after we saw the
bobwhite we came across a flock of turkeys moving slowly through the woods.
The complete list of 64 species is presented below.
Marc Ribaudo
Woodbridge
Location: Occoquan Bay NWR
Observation date: 3/5/11
Number of species: 64
Canada Goose 400
Tundra Swan 140
Wood Duck 2
Gadwall 1500
American Black Duck 2
Mallard 20
Green-winged Teal 2
Lesser Scaup 600
Bufflehead 40
Common Merganser 3
Northern Bobwhite 15
Wild Turkey 10
Pied-billed Grebe 4
Horned Grebe 3
Double-crested Cormorant 10
Great Blue Heron 12
Black Vulture 2
Turkey Vulture 6
Osprey 10
Bald Eagle 10
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 3
American Coot 200
Killdeer 1
Ring-billed Gull 50
Herring Gull 15
Great Black-backed Gull 10
Mourning Dove 4
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2
Downy Woodpecker 1
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 20
Eastern Phoebe 1
Blue Jay 8
American Crow 6
Fish Crow 12
Tree Swallow 3
Carolina Chickadee 8
Tufted Titmouse 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Brown Creeper 3
Carolina Wren 1
Winter Wren 4
Golden-crowned Kinglet 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Eastern Bluebird 12
American Robin 6
Northern Mockingbird 4
European Starling 1
Eastern Towhee 4
American Tree Sparrow 6
Field Sparrow 2
Savannah Sparrow 5
Fox Sparrow 7
Song Sparrow 30
Swamp Sparrow 5
White-throated Sparrow 15
Northern Cardinal 14
Red-winged Blackbird 60
Rusty Blackbird 7
Common Grackle 20
Brown-headed Cowbird 16
House Finch 2
American Goldfinch 1
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
