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."
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Quiz time
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.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
A Tale of Two Buntings
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.
Monday, January 4, 2010
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.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Miss one gull - get another
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Nansemond River CBC
Friday, January 1, 2010
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.
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