Greetings,
Fenton Day and I did a little bit of birding this afternoon at a couple
spots in Prince William and Fauquier Counties. The best find was the
staggering number of Common Mergansers at Lake Manassas in Prince William. We
tallied (as best we could) 1420, and that was mostly by counting them by tens,
until a lot of them got up and flew, when we had to count them a bit
differently. This number dwarfs any previous high count away from the Coastal
Plain of Virginia, with the previous high at the same location a decade or so
ago. We estimated that 30-40% of them were adult drakes We had seen
almost a thousand of them from a spot on Glenkirk Road on the southeast corner
of the lake, near the dam (eBird checklist below has a link to our
observation point). There is a Prince William Park Authority work-trailer in a
gravel parking lot for the upcoming construction of a new park; we parked
there
and were able to see a big chunk of the deepest part of the lake. The full
count of birds was had by viewing from a spot on private property.
Other piedmont notables from Lake Manassas (from the two locations we
birded there), included four Snow Geese that took flight from the lake and flew
off to the west; eight Red-necked Grebes (one in near high breeding
plumage); 30 drake Red-breasted Mergansers (and there were some hens, but
picking
through hundreds of Common hens for a few more Red-breasteds wasn't
particularly appealing today); two Horned Grebes; four Redheads; one Lesser
Scaup
and about ten unidentified scaup; Bald Eagle on nest; two Snipe working
the edge; and my first Tree Swallow of the year.
Prior to heading over to Lake Manassas, we spent a few minutes at Lake
Brittle, where one Red-necked Grebe is hanging out. I had three there
yesterday in the big wind and cold, and it is possible the other two were still
there but out of view. There were a few Common Mergansers at Brittle as
well. Other water birds included Bufflehead, Ruddy Ducks, Hooded Mergansers,
and a few distant scaup that might have been Greaters (though I had close
Lessers there the day before).
Cheers,
Todd
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Todd Michael Day
Jeffersonton, Virginia
Culpeper County
blkvulture@xxxxxxx
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