Greetings,
I saw two things today in the fields south of Remington that I have never
seen before, anywhere. One was a Lapland Longspur in near-perfect breeding
plumage, the other a Grasshopper Sparrow in March.
After snowfall, the scraped road edges around the various farms and
pastures concentrate songbirds. Also, as the snow melts, the troughs in the ag
fields and ditches along the roads become big puddles. The songbirds come to
these for water, and the snipe go there to forage. There were songbirds
and snipe everywhere out there today.
The gorgeous Longspur was along Norman's Ford Road (directions linked in an
eBird checklist below), at the intersection with the first driveway on the
left. It was in a puddle drinking water, then moved around a bit and
foraged in mud. Truly a spectacular looking thing.
The Grasshopper Sparrow flushed and perched on a wire fence along Grassdale
Road, where I was able to get a few poorly-lit digi-binned images through
the window of my vehicle. The bird was in the section of Grassdale between
the stream and the house at the end of the road. While I was out of the
car trying to re-find the Grasshopper, a Vesper Sparrow flew past me and
landed on the dirt edge of the road. I took a couple of digi-scoped images of
that bird as well. All of the photos can be found in an eBird checklist
below.
At Savannah Branch Road, in the little wetland area on the north side of
the road, there were a bunch of Snipe chilling out. I counted 91 in one
small area.
After seeing the Grasshopper and Vesper Sparrows, I put a small amount of
effort into rounding up a good-for-the-piedmont-in-March number of sparrow
species. Starting with the Fox Sparrows at my feeders in Culpeper County,
I ended up with eleven species, including White-throated, Junco, Song,
Savannah, Grasshopper, Vesper, Chipping, Field, Swamp, and White-crowned. The
only additional species I probably could have found with a reasonable
amount of effort would have been an American Tree Sparrow. I suspect there is
a
Towhee to be found out there somewhere, too.
Lastly, I heard Upland Chorus Frogs singing in several locations, on this
gray day with the temps around 35 degrees when I was hearing them.
Cheers,
Todd
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S17494444 eBird checklist with ;
a link to a map of Norman's Ford Road
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S17494389 eBird checklist with ;
photos of the Grasshopper Sparrow and Vesper Sparrow, as well as a link to
a map of Grassdale Road.
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S17494231 Savannah Branch Road
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Todd Michael Day
Jeffersonton, Virginia
Culpeper County
blkvulture@xxxxxxx
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