Hola,
This afternoon at around three-thirty I started doing some birding at Sky
Meadows State Park, in extreme northwestern Fauquier County. The
highlights were the two birds mentioned in the subject line, as well as a fine
afternoon for other sparrows and woodpeckers.
I started in the western part of the park, in the trees near the entrance
looking for woodpeckers. I did manage a single Red-headed here, as well as
Piliated, Flicker, and Red-bellied. An Eastern Screech-Owl was singing on
its own, in the middle of the afternoon. That might be a first for me. I
tried to make it a Gray Tree Frog, but I couldn't. From here I drove up
to the Visitors' Center, but didn't see much of note. I left here and went
to the fishing pond within the park, and checked the ponds along the state
roads just north of the park near the hamlet of Paris. Nothing too notable
there either.
I then walked the Shearman's Mill Loop on the eastern side of US 17, and
found it quite birdy. The field and the tangled brambles in the woods all
had nice groups of sparrows. Most notable was a Lincoln's that was hanging
out with mostly song sparrows. There were also two Fox Sparrows here, one
of them singing.
The Rough-legged was seen from the Shearman's Mill Trail, but looking east
at the large pasture. A portion of the trail runs along the stream that
essentially divides the woods and the pasture, and the hawk was sitting in
the very top of a tree on that edge of the field. It didn't tolerate my
staring at it for long, and flew after about ten seconds. It was a light
immature, and my first in Fauquier County in quite a few years.
A couple other things I found in the county today were three Northern
Shoveler drakes on the pond at Harrison Road. There have been as many as five
Shoveler here. I also found two Horned Grebes on a private lake, my first
for the county this year.
eBird checklists for the entire day at Sky Meadows are below.
Cheers,
Todd
_http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10215942_ ;
(http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10215942) Shearman's Mill Loop
Trail
_http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10215739_ ;
(http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10215739) Fishing pond and Paris
_http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10215690_ ;
(http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10215690) Western part of Sky
Meadows, from
entrance to visitors' center.
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Todd Michael Day
Jeffersonton, Virginia
Culpeper County
blkvulture@xxxxxxx
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