Marc, I got to Occoquan later in the morning -- missed on the turkeys and the
river otter. I saw good numbers of sparrows along Charlie Road. Tons of song
sparrows - everywhere. The highlight was a single Vesper Sparrow in the fields
along Charlie Road -- it flew up into one of the Sycamores and I was able to
get great looks with a scope. Distinct and bold complete white eye ring, long
tailed, buffy breast and yellowish streaked flanks. Just after I saw the
Vesper, two Savannah Sparrows appeared in the road -- smaller overall than the
Vesper, with shorter tails. It was nice to get them virtually side by side.
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S13426574 ;> From:
moribaudo@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2013 14:17:50 -0400
Subject: [Va-bird] Occoquan Bay NWR; rusty blackbirds, brown thrasher
I had an enjoyable morning at Occoquan, tallying 63 species. At the
entrance gate singing brown thrasher, field sparrow, and fox sparrow got me
off to a good start. A winter wren was singing along the entrance road, and
turkeys were gobbling somewhere west of the parking lot. Rusty blackbirds
were also very vocal. I saw and heard at least 40 around the refuge. The
largest flock (about 20) was around the pond on the other side of the fence
along the golf course, near the club house, but small groups were seen and
heard all around the central marsh. A second thrasher was singing in this
area as well. A hermit thrush was feeding in Easy Rd, and there were 2 snipe
in the marsh. Lesser scaup made up most of the waterfowl in the river, but I
also noted tundra swan, canvasback, ring-necked duck, ruddy duck, bufflehead,
and hooded and red-breasted merganser. Of note were 15 horned grebes in 2
flocks (10 and 5). Ospreys are everywhere, and there were several hundred
cormor
ants in the river.
The highlight of the morning, though, was a river otter fishing in the marsh
along Deephole Pt. Road. I could follow its movements underwater by watching
the bubbles as it zig-zagged after fish. It was pretty successful, catching
2 fish while I watched. The second was pretty large and the otter dragged it
up on the shore to eat, offering great views.
Marc Ribaudo
Woodbridge, VA
_______________________________________________
va-bird mailing list
http://mailman.listserve.com/listmanager/listinfo/va-bird
Thank you for subscribing to Va-bird, a service of the Virginia Society of
Ornithology. Please consider joining the VSO.
http://www.virginiabirds.net/
