[Va-bird] Mourning Warbler, leucistic crows etc, King William Co, Sunday Sept 12
- From: Frederick Atwood <fredatwood@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Virginia Bird <va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2010 16:10:49 -0700 (PDT)
Hello VA Birders
Yesterday I spent the entire day in the Middle Peninsula, mostly in King
William Co, with a short visit to Walkerton across the river in King and Queen
County. I found 98 species including some nice surprises.
I started at about 7:45 at my property near Beulahville along the upper
Mattaponi River (Riverwood). This is pine woods with some scrubby regrowth,
floodplain forest with vernal pools, and an 8 acre oxbow pond that the very dry
summer diminished to less than .5 acres of pools that were full of frogs,
tadpoles, and insect naiads. In part because of this change, I was able to add
7 species to my property life list, bringing the total to 131 species. The
highlight was a female Mourning Warbler, also my first of the year. The mud and
pools attracted my first Solitary Sandpipers, Common Snipe, Lesser yellowlegs
and Great Egrets (4). The egrets were also gobbling up the abundant cricket
frogs, tiny little tidbits that were jumping around all over the mud among the
lilypads in the "pond". I hope my carpenter frogs, a species of critical
concern in VA, did not add to the girth of these hefty-looking egrets. A flock
of 11 thrushes in the treetops at the
border of the pines and floodplain forest added 4 Veery and 1 Gray-cheeked
Thrush to the property list and also included 6 Swainson's thrushes. I have
never seen so many Northern Waterthrushes here, a total of 9 found in the
buttonbush and mallow thickets around the vernal pools and pond. What I thought
would be a 3 hour walk turned into 6 hours as I savored the flocks of warblers
and the foraging sandpiper and egrets (no wonder my stomach was growling) by
the time I made it back to my car, so I had less time to explore other areas
that I had planned.
From there I checked out the various locations that are typically good for
shorebirds. The muddy farm pool at the intersection of route 600 and 30 had
only a couple dozen killdeer and a least sandpiper. The turf farms at
Woodbury Rd, Locust Grove, and Frog Hollow, were reduced in size compared to
previous years and I could only find killdeer there, with a few Meadowlarks,
some Savannah Sparrows and a Cooper's hawk also at Woodbury; and a Horned
Lark, Great Egret and Osprey at Frog Hollow. Frog Hollow also had a flock of
crows, two of which caught my naked eye from a half mile away as they
fluttered up above a hummock in the field. They were both extremely pale
leucistic birds, almost white. One of them had some black on the face.
In Walkerton and The Pocket, the tide on the Mattaponi and Pamunkey rivers was
very high, so there were no mud bars on which to find shorebirds. But at dusk
110 wood ducks, 450 or so Canada Geese, 80 Mallards, 8 Black Ducks, a Pintail,
an American WIgeon, and 2 Pied-billed Grebes could be seen in The Pocket
(Pamunkey Indian Reservation on the Pamunkey R) while two Barred Owls called
from the swamp forest and at least 15 Soras made all kinds of noises in the
rice marshes. Two Black-crowned and one Yellow-crowned Night Heron also flew
over the Pocket at dusk and 56 Great Egrets perched all over the various
hunting blinds and other wooden structures in the area for the night.
In Walkerton I have never seen such an infestation of fall webworms as was
present on the walnuts, some of which were defoliated. As I sat in a screened
gazebo chatting with the property owner watching two bald eagles chase each
other around over the Mattaponi, we each removed a half dozen of the fluffy
caterpillars from our clothing. The yellow-billed cuckoos were also enjoying
the webworms, 5 of them in one tree.
Here is the list of totals (parentheses are numbers of places found at)
All the best
Fred
(3)--
-- -- -- -- -- Canada Goose 540
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Wood Duck 114
(1)-- -- -- -- -- -- American Wigeon 1
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- American Black Duck 8
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Mallard 95
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Blue-winged Teal 2
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Northern Pintail 1
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Pied-billed Grebe 1
(4) -- -- -- -- -- -- Great Blue Heron 7
(5) -- -- -- -- -- -- Great Egret 64
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Green Heron 3
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Black-crowned Night-Heron 2
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Yellow-crowned Night-Heron 1
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Black Vulture 19
(6) -- -- -- -- -- -- Turkey Vulture 65
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Osprey 1
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Bald Eagle 8
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Cooper's Hawk 1
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- American Kestrel 2
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Sora 15
(6) -- -- -- -- -- -- Killdeer 68
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Solitary Sandpiper 2
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Lesser Yellowlegs 1
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Least Sandpiper 1
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Wilson's Snipe 1
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Forster's Tern 3
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Rock Pigeon 35
(7) -- -- -- -- -- -- Mourning Dove 37
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Yellow-billed Cuckoo 5
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Barred Owl 2
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Chimney Swift 12
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Ruby-throated Hummingbird 2
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Belted Kingfisher 3
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Red-headed Woodpecker 2
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Red-bellied Woodpecker 8
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Downy Woodpecker 8
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Hairy Woodpecker 2
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Northern Flicker 2
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Pileated Woodpecker 4
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Eastern Wood-Pewee 14
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Acadian Flycatcher 3
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Empidonax sp. 1
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Eastern Phoebe 6
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Great Crested Flycatcher 1
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Eastern Kingbird 9
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- White-eyed Vireo 13
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Yellow-throated Vireo 3
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Red-eyed Vireo 8
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Blue Jay 17
(5) -- -- -- -- -- -- American Crow 78
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Horned Lark 1
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Tree Swallow 55
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Barn Swallow 2
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Carolina Chickadee 18
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Tufted Titmouse 25
(4) -- -- -- -- -- -- Carolina Wren 11
(4) -- -- -- -- -- -- House Wren 2
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 4
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Eastern Bluebird 19
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Veery 4
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Gray-cheeked Thrush 1
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Swainson's Thrush 6
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Gray Catbird 1
(4) -- -- -- -- -- -- Northern Mockingbird 9
(5) -- -- -- -- -- -- European Starling 67
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Cedar Waxwing 11
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Northern Parula 5
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Yellow Warbler 3
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Chestnut-sided Warbler 2
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Magnolia Warbler 4
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Black-throated Blue Warbler 1
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Yellow-rumped Warbler 1
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Yellow-throated Warbler 1
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Pine Warbler 8
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Prairie Warbler 1
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Palm Warbler 4
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Black-and-white Warbler 4
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- American Redstart 11
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Ovenbird 4
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Northern Waterthrush 9
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Mourning Warbler 1
(4) -- -- -- -- -- -- Common Yellowthroat 26
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Hooded Warbler 4
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Eastern Towhee 1
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Chipping Sparrow 43
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Field Sparrow 11
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Savannah Sparrow 5
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Summer Tanager 6
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Scarlet Tanager 1
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Northern Cardinal 23
(3) -- -- -- -- -- -- Blue Grosbeak 14
(4) -- -- -- -- -- -- Indigo Bunting 19
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- Bobolink 4
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Red-winged Blackbird 2,000
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Eastern Meadowlark 4
(1) -- -- -- -- -- -- Common Grackle 500
(2) -- -- -- -- -- -- House Finch 21
(5) -- -- -- -- -- -- American Goldfinch 13
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
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