I did two nightjar surveys for the Center for Conservation Biology in King and
Queen Co this week. In these surveys the birds are counted for 6 minutes at
every mile for ten stops (9 miles).
The first was in upper King and Queen near Newtown along routes 628 and 625
starting at 9:17pm on the 13th. On this count I hear 14 whip-poor-wills. 1-4
were present at 50% of the stops. I also heard a barred owl and a killdeer,
and
lots of frogs.
The second was in lower King and Queen near Ino, starting at 3:13 AM on the
15th, and was the first 9 miles of the USGS Breeding Bird Survey which I
conducted immediately after finishing the nightjar survey. On this count I
found nightjars at every stop. This is very rural timber country with a great
variety of forests in varying stages of succession. It was perfect survey
conditions with no wind and a full moon unobscured by clouds and no
mosquitos!.
Here is my ebird list from that survey
Northern Bobwhite 1
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1 calling at stop 6
Eastern Screech-Owl 1 calling at stop 3
Great Horned Owl 1 fledgling squealing at stop 10
Barred Owl 2 calling at stops 1 and 7
Chuck-will's-widow 12 at 80% of the sites, in order: 1,3,0,1,3,1,1,1,1,0
Eastern Whip-poor-will 20 at 90% of the sites, in order:
2,0,3,3,1,1,2,2,3,3
Yellow-breasted Chat 6 single birds heard singing at sites 2,5,7,8,9,10
All the best
Fred
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