David Clark and I drove to King George County to look for the
Hudsonian Godwit and the four Sandhill Cranes that have been reported
from the ponds near Route 3. We stopped at the Lagrange Lane site
first. The time was about 10:30am. Dixie Sommers had just arrived a
few minutes before we did. We were careful to stay on the road and
search for the bird from there. Sadly, the bird was not in the water
and mud nearest the road. After a few minutes of further searching
Dixie said that she was looking at a few shorebirds including one larger
shorebird across the ponds near the west side. We all trained our
scopes on that group and eventually saw the bird well enough to be
convinced that the large shorebird was indeed the Hudsonian Godwit. It
preened, walked around quite a bit, never flew, and unfortunately never
got really any closer.
So we drove west to Farley Vale Drive and parked the car on the
cinder road next to Route 3. Dixie told us she had seen the cranes
before she came to look for the godwit. She said the cranes had flown,
but that had been more than an hour earlier. David and I scanned the
ponds on both sides of the entrance road without any success. There
were a couple of thousand Laughing Gulls, hundreds of Canada Geese, and
several hundred mixed ducks, mostly Gadwalls, which were all made to
dance from time to time by the dozen or so Bald Eagles which were
hanging around the ponds. I walked back along the cinder road toward
the highway until I was able to scan the western border of the eastern
pond. The four Sandhill Cranes were there. David came over and we
studied them for awhile. The cranes all seemed to be adults although
the sun was more or less behind the birds not allowing the best of
views. We again checked over all the ducks, but found nothing
particularly unusual. So we headed back east to Norfolk with a stop for
lunch and a little birding along the way.
Bob Ake, David Clark
Norfolk VA
