Kayaking to Metompkin Island

 For the long Fourth of July weekend my wife and I wanted to do a short day trip. We had the Monday in-between off and one of our favorite kayak guides, Burnham Guides, had a trip to the barrier islands of Eastern Virginia. This is a great stretch of islands from Assateague in the north, home of the famous ponies, to Fisherman's island at the southern tip where the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel reaches land again. Thera are about 14 large ones protecting the Virginia Eastern Shore. Going with a guide relieved us of dealing with a lot of the logistics, in particular, finding a safe place to paddle that wouldn't be too crowded on the holiday weekend, and not worrying about getting lost in the maze of marsh creeks.

For this trip our group of 8 plus guide headed from Gargatha Landing out to Metompkin Island. This would be a six-hour trip with plenty of time for lunch and exploring Metompkin and swimming in the sea. It was a great day to be on the water paddling and, apparently, a good day for fishing. At the boat launch there were several people fishing from both the shoreline and in small craft in the creek. There was another group surf fishing out on Metompkin. Besides them, we only passed two other boats including one just as we were coming ashore at the end. Neither boat was very loud so it was a very peaceful trip. 

Route we took from Gargatha Landing to Metompkin Island

As each of us launched our boats, we crossed the creek and waited, giving time for everyone to get started and to make some final adjustments to the equipment. While I waited, I saw a lot of these periwinkle snails in the spartina.

periwinkle snail

It was a full moon Monday, we had seen a gorgeous moon rising the night before from the hotel pool, driving exaggerated tides. We left around high tide. Going out, the water was high making the paddling easy. We were also on an ebb flow so at times I could just relax and let the current take move me along.

Although we live on a brackish marsh, being this close to the ocean brings in a different set of marsh birds. Even before getting on the water, a small group of glossy ibises passed overhead. A neighboring house had martin houses up and we were pleased to see they had martins and not starlings in them. 

As we passed from the first creek out into Gargathy Bay (why the subtle change in name? I have no idea) we heard clapper rails calling back and forth and saw a few common terns on a bit of exposed mud. There were also plenty of willets and American oystercatchers crossing over the waters. The paddling was easy and gave lots of time to chat with the other paddlers and learn a little local history from our guide, Bill.

A turn north up a final creek led us to the in-land side of Metompkin Island, near the north end. Most of the island is protected for breeding birds during early summer but there are a few areas for landing boats and a crossing from marsh to ocean side. We landed one at a time giving me a chance to slowly float along the steep mud bank of the marsh. I could hear a bird calling but the mud was up to about eye level limiting my view into the grass. I pulled out the Merlin app and it identified the calls as a willet, but not the normal call. Just then, the willet lifted up out of the grass. Another win for Merlin! 

Our boats waiting for our return trip

Just down the beach from our landing spot half a dozen black skimmers rested on the beach. Bill had talked about their feeding behavior, skimming along the creek surface waiting for some food to hit their bill which they rapidly close, easier. It was great to be able to show everyone these amazing, and strikingly colored birds. A few of us were able to see them skimming later as we unloaded boats.

Beach at Metompkin Island

The day was hot and a dip in the ocean called to us. Dipping our toes into the water, we were surprised by how cold it was. I was expecting cool bath water temperatures, not, jump-back cold. We slowly made out way out into the crashing waves. We could see some others in our group were much further out but not any deeper. The beach had a surprisingly shallow slope. We never really made it into water much above waist level. 

My wife and I returned to the beach and took a walk before lunch. As mentioned, the island is mainly a breeding ground for shore birds. Least terns flew back and forth occasionally diving into the ocean for a small fish. Lazing on the shore just above the tide line were a range of laughing and herring gulls.

Least Tern taking a break on the beach

 Sharon spotted a piping plover in amongst the shells and rocks midway up the beach. After a minute, it scurried down close to the water and joined a second one. Piping plovers, along with the least terns, really depend on these protected beaches along the barrier islands and don't often get far inland, even along the Chesapeake Bay near us. Getting to see both species is a real treat that we don't get every year.

Piping plover

How cute is that?

On a more human note, from Metompkin, you can see up to Wallops Island and the launch complex. One of the women fishing when we first put in mentioned that she comes out to the boat launch to watch rockets. We are able to see launches, especially evening and night ones, from our house but it takes several seconds before their visible. Here, you could see, and hear, it right from take-off.

By the time we headed back in, the water level had really fallen. The creek we came in on was now a mere trickle. Bill had hoped to take us further north on the creek and come back via another route but that wasn't to be. We loaded up the boats and had to walk them about 100 yards to deeper water. Luckily there was enough water that the boats could float with us guiding them along from the exposed mud.  Once we found a big enough channel to get in the boats we still had to hug the edge of the grass to stay in a channel deep enough to paddle. Even when things opened up, we had to keep finding the channel as the water outside the channel was often only a foot or two deep. In those cases, paddling stirred up the mud as much as propelled you forward. A few people ran aground but with enough effort could work themselves loose without needing a rescue pull. 

Gargathy Bay was now a large mud flat with a creek running around the outside edge instead of open water. You can see the different route we took coming and going in the map above. The channel was wide enough that it was easy to paddle giving time to watch all of the birds that had flocked to the mud for feeding.

Once the boats were loaded on the trailer and the cars packed, we were ready for a cool snack. Bill had mentioned the local town was having an ice cream social. Unfortunately, that didn't start for another two-and-a-half hours. Too long to wait around, especially since we still had a two hour drive home. 

We had a great time paddling an area we probably wouldn't have found on our own, saw a few bird species likely for the only time this year, and had a great day.  We look forward to paddling these waters again.

A Pile of Intrigue

This past fall we had several northern flickers migrate to or through our backyard. While flickers are year-round residents here, we usually see an influx in the fall. Seeing multiple flickers land in the yard and start probing for insects is one of the joys of fall.

eBird map of yellow-shafted northern flicker for June and July (http://ebird.com/map)

eBird map of yellow-shafted northern flicker for October through December (http://ebird.com/map)

We also have a lot of hawks moving through in the fall and occasionally they will take a bird in the yard. One day we found this pile of feathers in the lawn, a sure sign someone, probably a Cooper's hawk, had taken a flicker and started removing the feathers. While sad that there is one less flicker around, this is the circle of life and it allows another bird to continue living.

 

It is quite interesting to see what must be the belly feathers with the dark spots on the ends and how loose and fluffy they are compared to the more commonly found flight feathers.

And speaking of flight feathers. There were several of those here too. What we found really interesting was that not all of them had the yellow-shaft that the local yellow-shafted race (https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Flicker/id). There is a red-shafted race common in the western US but those have all red. In the field guides they will show intergrades where the two races mate but those tend to be orangeish in color. So what causes the mix and red and yellow?

A mix of red-shafted and yellow-shafted feathers from the same bird 

Some internet searching led us to an article by David Sibley in Bird Watching magazine where he talks about the various color forms of northern flickers. This mix of colors apparently stems from the birds eating non-native Asian honeysuckle berries while growing in the feathers that are red. The birds can process most carotenoids to make yellow (for the yellow-shafted) but they are unable to properly process something in the honeysuckle so it always produces red. 

Quite an interesting tidbit about these fascinating birds and another example of how non-native species can bring new chemicals and conditions into an ecosystem that the local populations aren't able to properly handle. At least this time, it seems to have a pretty neutral impact.

Note: it is illegal in the US to collect wild bird feathers. The above feathers were only brought together for the photographs.

Christmas Bird Count

 Again this year my wife and I led a sector count for our local Christmas Bird Count organized by the National Audubon Society. We have been doing the count for about a decade now and most of that time in the same sector. The stops are familiar but every year we adjust the order based on the weather to try and maximize the species and individuals encountered. Some years it is really warm and we visit the wooded areas first to get the song birds as they wake up. Other years we head to the Bay front to get early morning movements out to the feeding areas and return to the woodlands later once the birds have had a chance to warm up. And a couple of times we have been really limited by heavy fog keeping our viewing range down and the birds grounded.

This year the weather was about average; warm enough to be comfortable walking but cool enough that returning to the car or coffee shop were quite welcomed. We also had a newish birder join us for her first Christmas count. She is a fellow Master Naturalist so we knew each other.

The day felt kind of hit or miss with a few stops being very productive and several feeling slow. But that might be the way it normally is and we only remember the highlights and not the slow stops. All told we ended up recording 59 species and 3861 individuals. There isn't a lot of variation in habitat in the sector so that's a good number. In the past several years we have been in the mid-50s for species count.

Some of the highlights include a couple of boat-tailed grackles flying overhead at our second stop. We usually have to wait and hope for them in the grocery store parking lot when we break for lunch. Good to see them early and in "real" habitat. That stop also had an osprey soaring overhead. They are infrequent in winter but our sector is probably the most likely spot for a December spotting around here. 

There is one spot on the beach overlooking the Chesapeake Bay that the gulls like to hang out at. There are several break walls along the beach and just one of those coves hold about 95% of the gulls on the beach. Not sure why the like that one and not the others, but it's been consistent for as long as we have been coming here in winter. This is where we see lesser black-backed gulls on some counts. We found  at least 5 in with 750 ring-billed gulls and a few of other gull species. Wouldn't be surprised if there were a few more but everyone was moving around. 

Lesser Black-backed Gull with a lot of Ring-billed Gulls

In the past, the lessers have shown bright yellow legs that make it easy to identify (the slightly lighter dark back is sometimes hard to be confident with in the glary light). But several of these looked pink to dirty yellow. Some investigation in Sibley's after returning home confirmed they are still lessers and juveniles. Good to learn something new.

At the same stop we saw around 800 red-breasted mergansers fly by in a couple of very large groups. There were also a large group of double crested cormorants sitting and feeding on the water. We sometimes se large numbers moving out the James River to the Bay but this is a first that I remember seeing them all sitting on the water so close to shore.  This was definitely one of the good stops this year.

The next stop included some open fields where we found some very pretty eastern meadowlarks showing off with great views of them facing us. I hadn't carried along my camera and by the time I got it, they were moving parallel to us so not a photogenic. But any bit of bright yellow in winter is a good find.

Eastern Meadowlarks

We also saw nine great blue herons all standing in a row on an island in the small marshy bay (called Mill Creek for some reason as it doesn't seem to flow in from anywhere and I can't imagine there being enough flow to run any sort of mill).

We didn't see much at the far end of the sea wall looking over the bay but did pick up a few surf scoters and horned grebes that we didn't see anywhere else.

After lunch we stopped by a small park on Mill Creek that generally has a lot of pelicans, gulls, and cormorants sitting on an old pier and buffleheads swimming in the water. Although the walk to the pier is about 40 ft, it took us 15 minutes to get there from the car. We were mesmerized by an American kestrel putting on a show for us right overhead.

It was hovering/hunting for a while right in front of us and then decided to perch on this telephone pole for a couple of minutes. After a rest, it took off and was hovering along side us. It dropped down a couple of times but never dove to the ground and caught anything. Eventually it flew off and we continued on to the old pier to see the expected birds. But quite the show for us.

Finally, we had prioritized a marina we always visit towards the end of the day. It is often getting dark or we are exhausted by the time we get here. It offers not a lot of new and unusual species but it has better and more varied habitat than the more urban park and built-up beach that we usually do first and only provides rock pigeons, gulls, and starlings. And it was a good move as we saw 19 species there. This included a pair of belted kingfishers hunting from the boat masts and a row of 11 killdeer all sitting on a private dock across the creek. Just sitting there. Another unexpected sight for the day. 

We did stop and count the 75 pigeons and 200 ring-billed gulls at the beach. Surprisingly, no starlings. But don't worry, we saw plenty earlier in the day. But it felt much better doing that after the nice experience at the marina. 

Once again we had a fun and productive day on the count and provided more useful data on the changing bird populations and distributions. For example, the lesser black-back gulls were quite the amazing find the first year we found them. Now, only a handful of years later, they are almost expected. 

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