Gerry Hawkins, Del Sargent, and I met at the Blue Ridge Center for
Environmental Stewardship (BRCES) at 6:30 am yesterday (Sat., May 10) morning.
At 8 am Gerry's friend Martha joined us for one of the Loudoun Wildlife
Conservancy's May 10 IMBD walks. After a rather wet 4 hours Del and Martha
ducked out about noon, just when it was starting to clear up. Gerry & I
wrapped up in my neighborhood near Bluemont about 4:30 pm and birded the area
along Appalachian Trail Rd in between the two areas. The temps ranged from 50
in the morning to a high of 59 in the afternoon.
In spite of the wet conditions we did pretty well, 92 species, except for
warblers (only 13 species) and thrushes. Neither the warblers or the thrushes
(or much else) were overly vocal, esp. in the morning and were not found in
decent numbers anywhere with the exception of Wood Thrushes on AT Rd near the
PATC Blackburn Ctr and near the top of the mountain. We did find what we
thought was a GRAY-CHEEKED THRUSH near the Blackburn Ctr but because we got
such brief looks we can only assuredly say we had a spotted gray thrush; it
could have also been a Swainson's.
The highlight of our was a YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER along the Arnold Rd trail
into BRCES and a WILLOW FLYCATCHER a little later along the stream. Both
birds, along with several ACADIANS were well seen (not overly useful with
empids, at least for me) & heard. In the same area were CERULEAN, KENTUCKY, &
WORM-EATING WARBLERS. Somewhat further, near Gordon Pond, we found a
YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER. The BLUE GROSBEAK as well as GRASSHOPPER SPARROWS
were around the visitor center along with a couple of EASTERN MEADOWLARKS in
the farm land along Arnold Rd.
And the PROTHONOTARY WARBLER, which we found last week was singing up a storm
on the small pond near the visitor center. Del checked out the box he
installed & he doesn't appear to be nesting yet - hopefully, a female when take
him up on his offer soon.
WILSON'S SNIPE & a couple of RED-HEADED WOODPECKERS were on Legacy Farm off of
Ebenezer Church Rd. In the same area were groups of BOBOLINKS bubbling away.
At one time a flock of over 20 flew away from us singing - it was a great
sight! We were also pleased to find 26 MEADOWLARKS most of them in the same
area.
If you're int'd in the complete list pls let me know.
Joe Coleman, near Bluemont, Loudoun Co.
