Virginia Birders,
The Hampton Roads Bird Club explored different parts of Mathews County for its
monthly field trip on Sat, 11/10. Despite the rainy conditions the first hour
of the trip, we had 17 enthusiastic birders and recorded 59 species for the day.
Mathews County is a small rural county on the Middle Peninsula, bordered on the
west by Mobjack Bay and on the east by the Chesapeake Bay. Lots of water areas
to check out, usually with lots of ducks during cold weather, but we had very
few species on Sat.
All of the locations we visited - and several more - are described at the the
Dept of Game and Inland Fisheries website for the Virginia Birding and Wildlife
Trail: http://www.dgif.state.va.us/vbwt/loop.asp?trail=1&loop=CMT
We started at Bethel Beach (on the Chesapeake Bay side) at high tide, hoping to
see CLAPPER RAILS. We did hear several but never saw them. We got quite a show
from several FORSTER TERNS hovering over the marsh grasses, with BOAT-TAILED
GRACKLES and a NORTHERN HARRIER in the same area. On the beach were DUNLIN,
BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER and SANDERLINGS, with SURF SCOTERS and at least one BLACK
SCOTER in the water and a COMMON TERN flying out over the water. RED-THROATED
LOONS and a BALD EAGLE flew overhead.
Next we drove to Route 603, leading to the Mobjack Bay. Birds of note along the
road included several SONG, SWAMP and WHITE-THROATED SPARROWS, BROWN-HEADED
NUTHATCHES, KILDEER, PINE WARBLER and RED-TAILED HAWK. One of the highlights in
checking out the water was a group of 28 COMMON LOONS!
We also found BUFFLEHEAD, RUDDY DUCK, NORTHERN GANNET, ROYAL TERN and BROWN
PELICANS.
We stopped at New Point Comfort (the southern most tip of the county). As Nick
Flanders reported yesterday, we had a COMMON TERN there. We also had an amazing
number of TREE SWALLOWS, as least 2,000 in this location and several hundred in
the other areas.
Our last stop was at New Point Wharf on Route 602. We didn't have any new
species but we did see more NORTHERN GANNETS and BROWN PELICANS.
Complete list of species heard or seen appears below.
Meredith Bell
Hayes, VA
Location: Mathews County, VA, US
Observation date: 11/10/07
Number of species: 59
Canada Goose 2
Wood Duck 1
Surf Scoter 15
Black Scoter 1
Bufflehead 31
Ruddy Duck 1
Red-throated Loon 4
Common Loon 34
Northern Gannet 15
Brown Pelican 8
Double-crested Cormorant 12
Great Blue Heron 4
Black Vulture 3
Turkey Vulture 8
Bald Eagle 5
Northern Harrier 1
Red-tailed Hawk 2
Clapper Rail 5
Black-bellied Plover 2
Killdeer 6
Sanderling 3
Dunlin 2
Laughing Gull 15
Ring-billed Gull 24
Herring Gull 5
Great Black-backed Gull 76
Common Tern 2
Forster's Tern 8
Royal Tern 3
Mourning Dove 28
Belted Kingfisher 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 3
Blue Jay 3
American Crow 20
Tree Swallow 2500
Carolina Chickadee 3
Brown-headed Nuthatch 4
Carolina Wren 6
Golden-crowned Kinglet 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Eastern Bluebird 7
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 6
Yellow-rumped Warbler 35
Pine Warbler 2
Eastern Towhee 1
Chipping Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 13
Swamp Sparrow 1
White-throated Sparrow 5
Dark-eyed Junco 2
Northern Cardinal 2
Red-winged Blackbird 3
Eastern Meadowlark 6
Boat-tailed Grackle 15
House Finch 2
American Goldfinch 6
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
