Skunked

It had to happen, sooner or later, that is having a day go by without a new bird species for the year.  But I've got an excuse.  We all do, don't we?  I got together with some of my buddies (Tony Hage, Dick Palmer, and Charlie Bell) for lunch at Paneras.  Since I'll be away from here for several weeks, it seemed like a great thing to do.  And it was.  We had a nice leisurely (two hour) lunch.  I took my netbook and introduced them to this blog.  I expect them to be following all my posts from here on out.
Tomorrow I may stop and bird at a couple of places en route to Staunton.  I'm not planning on continuing this lack of new birds.  Stay tuned.  The next post will come on the road.  With my new Mifi from Verizon it may be that many of my posts will actually be posted "on the road."

Quiz time

In the afternoon as a reward for my morning good deeds I decided to go out and see what I could find. I headed to Lake Smith but couldn't find the Common Merganser. Next I tried Lynnhaven Inlet, but the only new bird I found was a House Sparrow. I couldn't let that be the subject of today's blog, so I decided, somewhat in desperation, to fork out the money and see what was on Island #1 of the CBBT. I did manage four new year birds there - Ruddy Turnstone, Greater Scaup, Long-tailed Duck, and Purple Sandpiper. The upper photo is of a mixed flock of scaup, and it's your challenge to decide which are Lesser and which are Greater Scaup. The lower photo was also taken on the CBBT. The quiz for this photo asks, "How many species can you detect and what are they?" Good luck.
Tomorrow I'll be getting my act together for the TX trip, so I doubt I'll add any new year birds. But who knows! I certainly wasn't expecting a Pacific Loon from my yard.
By the way! When I got home from my bird search this afternoon, there was an email from Debbie Schroeder telling me that she saw the Common Merganser from her house. The time she gave was not long after I left Lake Smith. Ugh!  My total is currently 116.

A Tale of Two Buntings

It was another one of those days. I took the Prius in for its 10K checkup so it would be ready for our trip to TX although we haven't decided yet which Prius we'll take. I went to Verizon to get setup with a broadband wireless router so we could stay connected and I could keep blogging throughout the trips this year. At home I worked on the species lists so I could post them on my website and have a link to them on this blog. They really looked great until I found out that they weren't being shared. So at least one more hill to climb.
In the early afternoon I decided to go see if the Painted Buntings that were at an office complex near Witchduck Road last year had returned. I sat in the car watching the bird feeders that someone who works in the building keeps full. It took only five minutes for the female to come out of the dense bushes which also held White-throated and Song Sparrows, cardinals, and chickadees. With her green plumage she is unique among American birds. After another fifteen minutes the male popped up. What can be said about the beauty of the male Painted Bunting that hasn't already been said. "How can so much color be packed into such a small bird?" or something to that effect. Because I was there in the afternoon, the sun was directly behind the birds unless you used the building to block out the sun. Morning might be a better time. After drinking in this beauty for a while, I drove to Lake Smith to look for the Common Mergansers. Although there were many waterfowl there including Hooded Mergansers, I didn't find THE mergansers. I'll try again. Total is now 111.

Working at home

Not much happening birdwise today, a rather slow Monday.  I had to get the report collected for the Nansemond River CBC and get it in to Audubon.  However, there were three male Canvasbacks on the river back of our house that added one new species to the total.  This is a web pic since those birds were too far away to be successfully photographed.  So my total is now 109.  This week I'll be trying to get things together and run errands to prepare for our trip to TX.  If all goes well, we should be heading south early Saturday morning.

Miss one gull - get another

The day started for John and me at our house in Norfolk where the birding gods favored us with a surprise visit to the Lafayette River behind our house of a Pacific Loon, my second at the house, the other coming in November 2006. Buoyed by that sighting, we decided to make a run to Chincoteague to try for the Black-headed Gull that had been seen sporadically. On the way north we picked up Ned Brinkley. The high wind and cold temperature got in our way of a deligent search along Main Street. After an hour of not finding that gull we headed to the refuge where my luck got better. On the beach road was an immature Iceland Gull (photo) which we studied awhile. Scanning the opposite side of Snow Goose pool I spotted a group of three wigeon fly in, one of which was the previously reported male Eurasian Wigeon. Several of the associated ducks in the pool were also new for the year. On the wildlife drive we found few Snow Geese and definitely no Ross's Goose, but there were 8 conspicuous large white birds that turned out to be White Pelicans. Six of them got up and flew south. Five of those flyers are shown in the photo to the left. On the way back home after a gas and my requisite coffee stop we saw an American Woodcock in the gloaming fly out over Hwy 13.  The year's total now stands at 108, with Northern Shoveler being the 100th bird.

Nansemond River CBC

Boy was it windy and cold! Numbers were down. Andrew Baldelli joined John and me for the sector I usually do, namely Pughsville North. The TCC campus is moving so the place was rather dead. I checked with security to tell them we were going to be around and then we set off for the superfund site which produced a bit less than in earlier years. The pond had only Hooded Mergansers, but a small flock of Sanderlings flew in at our feet and played jump the waves with the wind-swept water breaking over their feet. A Red-shouldered Hawk was nice. Woodpeckers were slow. We did catch up with a Blue-headed Vireo. After the Boat-tailed Grackles at Walmart and a McDonald's lunch, we worked the edges and the two big ponds at Harborview. The 3 American Coots and the single Green-winged Teal were the only ones for the count. Bennet's Creek had another Blue-headed Vireo and a feeder stop produced Brown-headed Nuthatch, House Finch, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and a Baltimore Oriole. The compilation for the count is incomplete but the tally was 121 with two sectors yet to report. The 15 new year birds brought my total to 97.

Day One: The adventure has begun

At 7:00 am John Spahr and I began our big year at my house with coffee, homemade granola, and yogurt.  Our first official bird was a Song Sparrow to be followed by 30 other species in the yard.  Diane Tennant and Stephen Katz, reporter and photographer, respectively, for the Virginian-Pilot , were also there as part of a story she is writing on our big year.  The story will appear January 10.  Having no rain to start the day was a nice plus.  Our itinerary took us to Stumpy Lake, which I had birded yesterday as part of the Little Creek CBC.  We tallied a few more birds.  At that point Andrew Baldelli called to tell me that he was looking at the Ash-throated Flycatchers that Audrey Whitlock and Elisa Enders had found yesterday on the CBC.  So, I changed the rest of our planned itinerary and we zoomed over to see those birds, whose photos appear on the left.  Lynnhaven Inlet held some shorebirds, gulls, and Brant on the outgoing tide.  Lunch at Charlies started with she-crab soup, of course.  The bay overlook at First Landing State Park was blustery, but the 64th Street section was much milder.  At Rudee Inlet we saw some Bonaparte's Gulls, two Black Skimmers, and a young male Common Eider.  To end the day I decided to make a run to Mackay Island, a spot which had been in my original itinerary, for any waterfowl that might be moving around.  There we saw Snow Geese, Tundra Swans, Northern Harrier, and a Tri-colored Heron.  We ended the day with 82 species unofficially.