Catching Up

Ruby-crowned Kinglet along George Washington Memorial Parkway (VA)

Willet on Elliott Island Road (MD)

Osprey @ Belle Haven Marina (VA)

Clapper Rail on Lighthouse Road (DE)

 

Ruddy Turnstone on Port Mahon Road (DE)

Dunlin on Port Mahon Road (DE)

 

Forster's Tern @ Bombay Hook NWR

Marsh Wren @ Prime Hook NWR

Lots of rain here in Northern Virginia recently, so I have been processing a few 2008/09 "captures" for the first time.

     

Lesser Scaup

Photographed on the Choptank River, February 09.  

Harford County, MD

Red-shouldered Hawk

White-breasted Nuthatch At Nest Cavity

This past weekend, I did some birding in Harford County, Maryland. On Sunday, I was between Swan Harbor Farm and the Susquehanna State Park for most of the day.

At Swan Harbor, I found a Wild Turkey foraging along the edge of the park's entrance road. Twelve plus Blue-winged Teal were present at the park's central impoundment, along with a nice assortment of Northern Shoveler, Green-winged Teal, and American Coot. I also thought that I heard a Sora vocalizing from a far corner of the impoundment.

Shorebirds present near the impoundment included Killdeer, Lesser Yellowlegs, Least Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Dunlin, and Wilson's Snipe. I spent some time photographing a Dunlin that was in very worn winter plumage.

An American Kestrel was hanging around. A pair of Bald Eagles are breeding on the property. Eaglets seem to be in the nest, and both parents were present at the nest when I looked at it from a distance. The attending parent was sitting in the nest with the chicks, and the non-attending parent was perched just outside the nest. I also spent quite a bit of time sorting out the Horned Larks and Savannah Sparrows that I found in the fields surrounding the impoundment.

At a nearby neighborhood park, I found a pair of breeding Red-shouldered Hawks. I photographed the non-attending parent (pictured above) as it flew by me on its way to the nest to "switch out" with the attending parent who was incubating eggs. After this, I watched the non-attending parent gathering and carrying nesting material to the nest. At one point, a Bald Eagle and a Red-tail Hawk were up orbiting above the nest tree. The Red-tailed Hawk was being harassed by an American Crow. Neither the Eagle or the Hawk got close enough to the nest tree to put the resident Hawks up, though it was clear that both of the Red-shouldered Hawks were aware of what was happening above them.   

At the Susquehanna State Park, I walked the park's Greenway Trail, which runs along the Susquehanna River. I was mostly looking for Louisiana Waterthrush and Yellow-throated Warblers. I had no trouble hearing and seeing the Waterthrush which will soon be breeding along the Greenway in droves. I did not see any Yellow-throated Warblers, though I bumped into someone elsewhere in the park who asked me to identify a bird that he photographed along the Greenway earlier in the day. The bird was a Yellow-throated Warbler. LOL!

I did see a couple of very cool looking Hermit Thrushes along the Greenway. These bird's, whenever they are silently moving through a forest, often give me the impression that they are somehow "about the queen's business." The Susquehanna River was loaded with with

Double-crested Cormorant and some Red-breasted Mergansers too. I watched a Bald Eagle eating a fish, using a tree branch along the river's edge as a feeding perch.     

Along Stafford Road, I looked in on a locally well-known Bald Eagle nest. A pair of Eagles has been breeding at this location for twenty years now. This year, eaglets are again in the nest, and I had an opportunity to see food being carried into the nest and to see the resident pair copulating outside the nest. 

Also on Stafford Road, I watched a Red-tailed Hawk doing some perch hunting, and I found a pair of breeding White-breasted Nuthatches. Both the male and female Nuthatches were present at the nest cavity. One of the parents is pictured above at the nest cavity. I watched both parents carrying nesting material and food into the nest and fecal sacks out of it.

Monticello Park

Female Red-shouldered Hawk Perched Outside Nest

Male Red-Shouldered Hawk At Nest

A pair of Red-shouldered Hawks (RSH) is breeding at Monticello Park, a small neighborhood park located in Alexandria, VA. The park is a well known migrant trap, and I usually spend quite a bit of time birding it every spring and fall. This is the first RSH breeding record for the park, at least for the years that I have been birding Monticello.

The Virginia Gold Book describes RSH as being a permanent common resident here in Virginia's Coastal Plain. This pair includes a Female sub-adult, which is a little unusual because most RSH females don't begin breeding until they are at least two years old and are in adult plumage. The female pictured above is in juvenile plumage.

Red-shouldered Hawks sometimes use old leafy squirrel nests, which this breeding pair may have done. They often use fresh greenery as nest lining or to adorn their nests. Some of this greenery can be seen in the nest picture above.

A typical Red-shouldered clutch is 2-3 eggs. Both parents incubate the eggs, though most incubation is done by the Female. Incubation lasts for about 30 days. Young fledge in 35-45 days. Fledglings remain with the parents for a couple of weeks before leaving the natal area.   

This past weekend at Monticello, I was approached by another birder, someone I know but not well. Out of the blue, this birder told me that he read something that I published online about the perils of listing some years ago. He thanked me for the article, telling me that it helped him form his own birding outlook.

I can easily recall the first time that I met this birder and his wife at Monticello. They were a couple of fresh faces in the park, and it was obvious that these folks were new birders. It was late evening. We were losing light rapidly. The three of us were standing on the foot bridge at the bottom of the park when a Grey-cheeked Thrush dropped into the park's stream. As I tried to put these birders onto the Thrush, one of them pulled a field guide from a pocket and went running in the direction of the bathing Thrush, screaming as he went, "I'm going to count it."

Count what, I wondered! Our view of the Thrush, given the time of day and lighting conditions, was hardly satisfactory. And, by the time this new birder got anywhere near the Thrush, the bird had flown out of the stream and was heading for the nearest understory in near darkness. 

My last memory of this birder that evening was watching him chasing the disappearing Thrush, while waving a field guide in one hand and shouting again and again, "I'm going to count it." LOL! I remember that I went home that evening and published something about the perils of listing on a birding web site that I published at the time. Then, my own feelings about listing were pretty militant, especially since I had just given it up and was learning new ways to think about birding.  

This past weekend, I had an another opportunity to speak with this birder for a few minutes. We talked a little about where he and his wife are at in their birding world these days. We talked about listing too.

I told this birder that many birders are over-invested in listing, and that birders are listing for variety of reasons, including everything from sport to science. Since I first met this birder, my own feelings about listing have moderated a bit, and I told this to this birder too.

"Listing's biggest evil is that it has come to define this modern birding era in unseemly and unwise ways," I said. "Listing," I remarked, "is best managed as a private affair." A long life list is not some kind of birding or conservation credential. I told this birder that he was lucky to have learned something about the perils of listing early in his birding life because my own experience taught me that it can be difficult lose the birding junk that listing puts in one's head once it has been hardwired for listing in unhelpful ways. 

This birder told me that he understood what I was saying, and that he agreed with me. He thanked me once again for helping him put listing into some rational perspective early in his birding life, and we went our separate ways.