A scrumptious day today starting with stunning
red sweet gum leaves edged by delicate frost
crystals, and ending with thousands of waterfowl
and a hooting owl at dusk. I spent about 3 hours
birding at Riverwood in upper King William near
Beulahville where I had my first purple finches
for the site this year and where there has been a
big influx of hermit thrushes, kinglets, winter
wrens, and sapsuckers since my last visit a
couple weeks ago. Two turkeys were squawking in
the tops of the giant willow oaks along the river
near the largest flock of wood ducks (16) I have
seen here in months. I had all the expected VA
woodpeckers here, including 1 red-headed. The 12
rusty blackbirds were eating dogwood berries at
the edge of the pine woods and a scrubby regrowth
area. Nearby, Green Pastures Pond had 3 snipe but
no waterfowl.
Further down the Mattaponi River had nothing to
report at Aylett or at the Walkerton bridge, and
both Frog Hollow and Woodbury turf farms
surprisingly had no killdeer or horned larks.
Then I went to The Pocket and to Elsing Green
(private property) where the highlights were the
large number of waterfowl, especially pintails
(2200), a few great egrets, and more red-headed
woodpeckers than usual.
Here are the lists.
All the best
Fred
Location: Riverwood
Observation date: 11/4/07
Number of species: 46
Canada Goose X heard
Wood Duck 16
Wild Turkey 2
Turkey Vulture 1
Bald Eagle 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Red-headed Woodpecker 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 11
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 9
Downy Woodpecker 8
Hairy Woodpecker 3
Northern Flicker 8
Pileated Woodpecker 4
Eastern Phoebe 3
Blue Jay 5
American Crow 10
Fish Crow 2
Horned Lark 1
Carolina Chickadee 13
Tufted Titmouse 9
Red-breasted Nuthatch 3
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Brown Creeper 2
Carolina Wren 10
Winter Wren 6
Golden-crowned Kinglet 19
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 22
Eastern Bluebird 6
Hermit Thrush 24
American Robin 25 in one flock
Northern Mockingbird 1
Brown Thrasher 6
Yellow-rumped Warbler 9
Eastern Towhee 4
Song Sparrow 6
Swamp Sparrow 2
White-throated Sparrow 40
Dark-eyed Junco 5
Northern Cardinal 14
Red-winged Blackbird 75 flying over, could
have been mixed blackbird flock
Rusty Blackbird 12
Common Grackle 25
Purple Finch 4
House Finch 2
American Goldfinch 14
Location: vicinity of The Pocket, King William
Observation date: 11/4/07
Canada Goose 1400
Gadwall 140 among the hydrilla
Wood Duck 23
American Wigeon 10
American Black Duck 90
Mallard 75
Blue-winged Teal 6
Northern Pintail 2200, mostly feeding among
the spatterdock leaves as the tide went out.
Green-winged Teal 125
Northern Shoveler 95 among the hydrilla
Lesser Scaup 4
Bufflehead 4
Ruddy Duck 120
Wild Turkey 2
Pied-billed Grebe 15
Double-crested Cormorant 1
Great Blue Heron 5
Great Egret 6
Black Vulture 2
Turkey Vulture 15
Bald Eagle 3
Northern Harrier 3
Red-tailed Hawk 1
American Coot 15
Killdeer 1
Wilson's Snipe 8
Ring-billed Gull 9
Forster's Tern 9
Mourning Dove 5
Great Horned Owl 1
Barred Owl 1
Belted Kingfisher 2
Red-headed Woodpecker 9
Red-bellied Woodpecker 5
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 9
Pileated Woodpecker 2
Eastern Phoebe 4
Blue Jay 7
American Crow 4
Carolina Chickadee 3
Tufted Titmouse 5
Red-breasted Nuthatch 7
Carolina Wren 8
House Wren 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 13
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 7
Eastern Bluebird 14
Hermit Thrush 2
American Robin 5
Northern Mockingbird 2
Brown Thrasher 2
European Starling X
Yellow-rumped Warbler 6
Eastern Towhee 2
Chipping Sparrow 25
Field Sparrow 10
Savannah Sparrow 3
Song Sparrow 30
Swamp Sparrow 10
White-throated Sparrow 25
Dark-eyed Junco 9
Northern Cardinal 8
Red-winged Blackbird 1000, possibly mixed
spp.
Eastern Meadowlark 2
Common Grackle 250
American Goldfinch 5
Frederick D. Atwood fredatwood@xxxxxxxxx
Flint Hill School, 10409 Academic Dr, Oakton, VA 22124
703-242-1675
http://www.agpix.com/fredatwood
http://www.flinthill.org
http://tea.armadaproject.org/tea_atwoodfrontpage.html
