Overcast Morning Birding

Despite the threat of rain and overcast skies, my walk with two co-workers to Occoquan Bay NWR turned up 60 species. Highlights were King Rail (heard), 10 Bald Eagles, Prothonotary Warbler (one of 6 species of warbler), and Rusty Blackbirds.
 Complete species list is below:

Canada Goose     8
Wood Duck     6
Gadwall     80
Mallard     5
Ring-necked Duck     2
Lesser Scaup     20
Hooded Merganser     3
Ruddy Duck     50
Wild Turkey     1
Common Loon     2
Pied-billed Grebe     1
Double-crested Cormorant     10
Great Blue Heron     20
Black Vulture     1
Turkey Vulture     5
Osprey     15
Bald Eagle     10
Cooper's Hawk     1
Accipiter sp.     1
King Rail     X
American Coot     200
Solitary Sandpiper     1
Greater/Lesser Yellowlegs     1
Caspian Tern     12
Mourning Dove     3
Chimney Swift     6
Belted Kingfisher     1
Red-bellied Woodpecker     5
Downy Woodpecker     2
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)     1
Eastern Kingbird     1
Blue Jay     3
American Crow     5
Fish Crow     2
Purple Martin     6
Tree Swallow     10
Barn Swallow     3
Tufted Titmouse     3
Winter Wren     1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher     8
Eastern Bluebird     2
American Robin     5
Northern Mockingbird     2
Brown Thrasher     1
European Starling     3
Yellow Warbler     12
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)     4
Prairie Warbler     2
Palm Warbler     1
Prothonotary Warbler     1
Common Yellowthroat     5
Eastern Towhee     3
Field Sparrow     2
Song Sparrow     2
Swamp Sparrow     3
White-throated Sparrow     15
Northern Cardinal     5
Red-winged Blackbird     40
Rusty Blackbird     5
Common Grackle     18
Brown-headed Cowbird     6
American Goldfinch     10

FOY Hummer

If you hang it, they will come . . .

Put up our porch feeder yesterday at Lynne's urging ---
And an adult male showed to eat about the same time as Dad did!

Woohoo!

Morning Walk in the Woods

This morning I made it out for a 75 minute walk in the woods beside a local lake, Lake Accotink. Besides being a beautiful morning, there was some great birds to be seen. Seeing a bird that you haven't seen since the fall is like rediscovering an old friend. :)

Highlights today were Winter Wren, 40 YR Warblers, 4 Palm Warblers, 1 Pine Warbler, Rough-winged and Barn Swallows, and a Bald Eagle.

Spring Migrants

Spent a couple hours birding this morning at Occoquan Bay NWR (VA), and found some new spring birds. The most beautiful was a gorgeous male Yellow-throated Warbler. I was also happy to find a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. And there were lingering winter ducks as well: 3 Redhead, lots of Ruddy Ducks, as well as Ring-Necked Ducks, Lesser Scaup, Horned Grebes, Gadwall, and American Wigeon.

Osprey have returned and are nesting.

New ID Guide

You know you're really into birding when you read a 500+ page bird identification book page by page.

Now, granted, I don't think I'd do that with most field guides. But I have been benefiting greatly from a new guide released earlier this month. It is the Crossley ID Guide, written by Richard Crossley, a Brit who lives in Cape May (two more reasons to like the book). I actually got to hear him speak about a month ago, when he shared his life story and the reasons why he put together this book and thinks that it is significantly different from the loads of other id guides out there. I have to agree with him: it is different, and I think it really does have great potential to increase your ability to identify a bird. 

The reason I think that is this guide really gives you a better feel for the typical habitats where birds are found. If you were to take a typical field guide (say Sibley or Peterson) into the field trying to find a Horned Lark, it wouldn't be much help in terms of where to look. But one glance at Crossley's guide and you get a sense of the places Horned Larks hang out. You probably also get an idea of what a Horned Lark looks like at a distance, in flight, and in multiple plumages. The most interesting thing is you get all of this combine on one page, in one conglomerate photo.

This guide may not be the prettiest, but there is much to be learned, especially for the intermediate-advanced level birder.

Check it out!: Crossley ID Guide

By the way...I enjoyed seeing a Red-Breasted Nuthatch behind the Wild Bird Center where I work last week. Also saw my first Eastern Pheobe of the year yesterday (while sitting a friends deck table)

Florida Top Ten Photos: #1

Here it is...the grand finale to my Florida adventures:

 This Wood Stork, combined with the rising moon, created a really neat photo op. Can anyone figure out what the other bird in this picture is?

Below, here is a video of the area where these bird were. It was such an amazing night.

Surprise Visitor

We had a surprise visitor to our yard today. A new lifebird, yardbird and Feederwatch bird, to boot.

Imagine walking out the side door with the recycling and seeing this in front of you:

What in the world was a chukar doing in our yard?

To answer the question that you are asking, "No, it is not an escapee from Bringhurst's." They do not raise any chukar.

Here's the video as I approached it and it ran off. Note the quiet "chuckling", or "chukaring" it made as it went: