A Dismal Spring Day

Yesterday, my wife and I enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather here in SE Virginia by looking for spring migrants at Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Dismal Swamp is a great place to catch some early migrants, especially warblers. While I'm sure there are plenty of migrants later in spring, once the dense trees fully leave out, there's no hope of seeing anything much. We try to time our annual visit to when the early wave of warblers are coming through and the leaves aren't too dense. 

We often times start at Jericho ditch with the mistaken belief that this is the year we will actually see a Swainson's warbler. The Swamp is one of the best locations in Virginia to find this skulking warbler that allaboutbirds.com says "tends to remain frustratingly hidden in the understory." While others have heard it at Jericho Ditch on a few guided walks we have taken, we've never comfortably identified the song nor come close to seeing one. This year my wife suggested forgoing that annual disappointment and go to Washington Ditch boardwalk which we usually prefer for the rest of the birds. 

Even in mid-April the trees were well leafed out so we started with a lot of songs and no sightings. After some searching we ended up finding a group of yellow-rump warblers, actually late leaving this area, not early arrivals. Since they are winter birds here, their song is always a bit confusing. Further down the road we heard a northern bobwhite calling. A great find as populations have plummeted around here and most of the country. I'll go out on a limb and say it will likely be the only one we hear this year. It's a personal favorite of ours so an exciting bird to find. 

This blue grosbeak was actively feeding low and close to the road giving the opportunity for some good photos. 

As we started the boardwalk we heard a pair of wood thrushes singing back and forth. One was close to the boardwalk and eventually, easy to see.  Shortly after we started down the boardwalk, my wife remembered something she left at the car and returned to retrieve it. I stayed and tried to find some of the birds singing. I was using the Merlin app to help identify the sounds. It works really well, especially to put a name to a familiar song. But here was one that I wasn't quite sure about. Maybe a Swainson's? But probably not. We never really find them. But no, Merlin confirmed; it too heard a Swainson's warbler. We continued down the boardwalk listening to the song get louder and louder. Finally, it had to be right there close. And pop, the bird hopped up to a branch about 10 feet off the ground and 20 feet away. And it sat there and put on quite a show. We were able to get excellent looks as it sat there and sang. It moved a few times just a tree or two for about ten minutes. Finally, it hopped down onto the ground and disappeared behind some trees and fallen limbs. Singing the whole time. 

The real glory at Washington Ditch is the number of prothonotary warblers that nest there. I even have a picture of one nesting in a hollow about a foot off the railing at waist height. While none were that close this time, they were out in force. We never went more than a minute or two without sweet-sweet-sweet-sweet ringing out. 

As the morning wore on birds were fewer and further between. But there are also a lot of great native plants in the swamp. As my wife pointed out, good to see a bunch of aggressive plants that aren't invasive. 

The greenbrier (Smilax) and coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) were blooming.

There were also several large, flying insects. Zebra and tiger swallowtails are common. We also saw a viceroy (might be the first one I've recognized in the wild).

There was also this beautiful ebony jewelwing damselfly.

Overall, a great day with some exciting and unexpected birds and lots of engaging nature.

Busy Morning

 This morning was a busy morning at the bird feeder. It is cold, just above freezing and not expecting to get any warmer today, but sunny. Around 9:00 the birds started showing up and we had a wide variety and several of the most beautiful ones we have were putting on quite the show. in about thirty minutes we had 22 species including four species of woodpeckers, several sparrow species, three warblers, and lost tanager. My wife first saw the Western Tanager early this week. I was working at the time and missed the first sighting. And then the second and even third sighting. Finally, a day later I was able to see it. Then we went a couple of days of not seeing it. It doesn't seem to have a regular cycle yet so we were happy to see it come back this morning and it showed off for several minutes.

We have a lot of Yellow-rumped Warblers throughout the winter and usually one or two Pine Warblers hanging out. This Orange-crowned Warbler is a infrequent visitor.

And this morning we had a lot of Eastern Bluebirds at the feeder. It is not uncommon to see a couple of them around but usually far back in the yard or on the edge of the marsh. So 5 at the feeder is quite the sight. We loved the variation in blue between the male and female. Her blue was such a wonderful sky blue. And note the Pine Warbler that decides it wants in the photo action too.

(Lots) More Butterflies

 This past week my wife and I were up in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We stayed in a cabin part way up the mountain near "Warbler Road." Warbler Road is a group of gravel roads leading from the James River up to Sunset Fields on the Blue Ridge Parkway and is well known for the diverse birding, especially northern warblers and other song birds found at the higher elevations. Finding a cabin so close to the start of Warbler Road made morning birding easier. However, that is a slow way to get to and from the parkway. I had noticed that the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail book recommended taking another gravel road back to the parkway after reaching the bottom instead of heading out to the interstate. That road was right next to our cabin so we gave it a try and it was a beautiful and relaxing drive. A little slow but not as windy or treacherous as the main road and it avoided the interstate. Plus, it was about 10 minutes quicker. 

  On the first trip up, my wife noticed several wild flowers on the side the road and it was easy to pull over and investigate (we passed 2 cars in the three trips along the entire length). One that was particularly interesting is this four-leaved milkweed (Asclepias quadrifolia). 

It has been a dry May throughout Virginia but that partially brought one day when a few afternoon storms built up. We largely stayed dry and the roads quickly dried out. But on the drive back to the cabin we saw a kaleidoscope of butterflies (yes, that seems to be the accepted group name, I looked it up on the all-knowing Internet). We think that the rain must of brought some minerals up to the surface and they were all drinking them in. It was a striking sight with nearly twenty tiger swallowtails all grouped together. As we stood there, a few started flying around but the rest largely ignored us. And then a truck drove by and flushed them all up into the air. It was a serendipitous find that I won't soon forget.

Happy Butterflying!

Hot butterflies

Today my wife and I braved near 100 degrees weather, that's without the steam high humidity factored in, to count butterflies for the NABA annual butterfly count. We have been joining the Chippokes count in Virginia for the last several years. This year we were out with several others on Jamestown Island. The weather was quite oppressive (low overnight was around 80 and the heat index was forecast to reach at least 110) so we worked to shorten our day. Usually we are out for most of the day. But this time we started at 9:00 and planned to end by 12:30 before the heat took too much of a toll on us. For that reason, we split the route in two.
Luckily, the butterflies weren't as put off by the heat as the butterfliers. Our small group found 20 species in the three hours we were in the field. That's pretty close to past totals and included some excellent finds. At a marshy area with a few remaining blooms of pickerelweed, there were a lot of skippers including four species on one stalk.

 Nearby we found three gemmed satyrs. Very pretty and a first for my wife and myself. Unfortunately, none decided to pose for the camera.

At our next stop we bushwhacked through some grasses and flowers finding many more species including this female Zabulon skipper and Appalachian brown.

Zabulon skippers were the most numerous species we found. There were also many Palamedes Swallowtails and Silver-spotted skippers. At the end of the morning we met up with the other half of our sector at a small butterfly garden managed by the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory. It was just outside our sector but offered a nice, central meet-up location. Here, I was able to photograph this grey hairstreak, a species we didn't see on the official count.

All in all, the good butterflies outweighed the oppressive heat. Although, we are really glad we ended early.

Lunch Time

A few days ago I stopped by the local bird store to pick up some seed and Bark Butter for our birds at home. As the sales lady was leading me up to the counter with my purchases another staff member called out that the pine warbler was back for lunch. This bird comes several times a day to the door overlooking their very nice bird-feeding area, and waits until someone puts out some mealworms. It will start chipping at the door if the staff doesn't respond quickly enough. They offered me the honor of feeding it this time.
With a handful of squirmy mealworms, I slowly opened the door and extended just my arm. Almost instantly the warbler hopped over from its place on the back of a patio chair to my hand and grabbed a couple of worms and scarfed them down before returning to the chair. A few seconds later it came back for a second pass. This time I had my phone ready for the event. And it was quite the event. The bird stuck around for nearly 20 seconds eating several mealworms before flying off. It did miss the one that started climbing up my arm.
A yellow-rumped warbler came in to the chair and the sale lady said they sometimes would eat out of people's hands as well but they were a bit more shy. I think flicking the worm climbing under my cuff put the yellow-rumped off so it left. The pine warbler returned one more time for a quick bite before heading high in the trees; a pine of course.
I left the rest of the mealworms on the stone patio for the yellow-rumped friends.
It is always really amazing how small, light, and gentle wild birds are. It landed with just the slightest pressure from its feet on my finger tips. They are so light that it almost tickles like when someone is just barely running their hand over your skin.
It was an incredible experience.

Interactions at the Feeder

So I'm sitting here 30 days into the 2019 government shutdown. During these weeks, I've spent a lot of time feeding and watching the birds in the backyard. I have a log feeder that I made, it is actually the second one after the first ended up splitting after several years, fill several holes with BarkButter. It is really popular with the birds and the other day I noticed a nice waiting line forming. Several birds would sit in the nearby buckeye tree or on the edge of our deck and wait their turn. Since the feeder hangs on a 6 foot long chain from a branch in a pine tree, it moves quite a lot. Either with the winds or when a larger bird lands on it. So, unlike the the tube feeder with safflower seed where every opening is often occupied, the log feeder tends to serve a single bird at a time. Or maybe it is different kinds of birds that frequent this feeder. (Another short study?)

Orange-crowned Warbler on log feeder before study started

I was intrigued by this behavior and having nothing else to occupy my mind, I decided that I would collect a little data. Not being a field ornithologist, I just made up a protocol for my data collection. I knew I wanted an ordered list of who visited the feeder, if anyone actively displaced another bird (or tried and failed), as well as who was waiting in line. For my first attempt I decided to record everyone waiting once a minute for a 15 minute block as well as the ordered list of who visited. This morning it was quite cold for here, 21 F, so there was a lot of activity. I made a little disturbance putting some water out in the frozen birdbath. So I waited a few minutes until activity returned.

While there was pretty constant activity there, it did lack the variety that I sometimes see there. In total, six species visited the feeder during my 15 minute sampling (Northern Mockingbird, Yellow-rumped Warbler, White-throated Sparrow, Carolina Wren, Downy Woodpecker, Carolina Chickadee). Four of those were seen waiting for the feed (not the Downy Woodpecker or Carolina Wren). The vast majority of feedings happened without any overt aggression (26/28). There was also one time where a White-throated Sparrow made multiple attempts to approach the feeder but never landed or took food.

Yellow-rumped Warbler taking food from the log feeder on the wing

There was an average (N=15) of 0.67 birds and median of 1 bird waiting at my count times. Only once were there multiple birds waiting (both a Northern Mockingbird and a Yellow-rumped Warbler) although at that time no one was actively feeding.

The best interactions were a White-throated Sparrow that tried multiple times to dislodge the Downy Woodpecker and failed. It would fly at the feeder and then turn away. There was also an unrecorded bird that dislodged the Mockingbird once.

I'm not sure I learned a whole lot but it was a fun experience and got me thinking about data a little while I'm not working. I did figure out that that it was way harder to collect the data than I was expecting. I need either a better shorthand or collect the data less frequently. But between writing, looking at the timer for the one-minute intervals and looking at the feeder I felt was was always behind and missing something.

Carolina Wren on the log feeder 

End of year birding

I see it has been quite a while since I blogged. A new job with more travel, a new hobby, and a couple of vacations ate into my time. I guess I also wasn't doing as much photography and somehow it seemed like blogging without pictures was a bit of a waste. But that shouldn't be the case. So here I am with the start of hopefully a few catch-up entries.
While I try not to be too competitive birding, I can't always suppress my competitive side. Especially when eBird provides you with data that is so easy to compare. As it got close to the end of the year and I had 199 species for Virginia in 2018, the 200-mark was calling. I thought maybe we would make a stop along the Eastern Shore during holiday travels to Pennsylvania, but the weather didn't cooperate. On the way up we were aiming to reach family before dark and rain arrived and the trip back was entirely in a heavy downpour. That left the last day, New Year's Eve to add that last new species. My BirdsEye app showed 8 species within 25 miles that I could add to my Virginia year list. Five had been seen at or near Fort Monroe. My wife and I bird there frequently and I consider it kind of like my local patch. We had done the Christmas Bird Count at Fort Monroe a couple of weeks earlier and had missed most of those (One showed up after that). Two hundred for the year and missed birds at "my" patch: the sirens were calling.
That afternoon we headed down with the hope of being able to see one or two of the new species along with enjoying the area. First stop was the new waterfront park in Phoebus just across Mill Creek from Ft. Monroe. A white-winged scoter had been reported a few days earlier. At the park, they recently added a parking lot and a floating boat launch. The later is now fully populated with gulls. As I scanned for the common eider that had been in the area for a few weeks, my wife set up the spotting scope. And bang, there along the far side of water was the white-winged scoter. In the scope, the while comma behind the eye was very clear. We often see the other two scoter species, black and surf, around Ft Monroe but this was the first we had seen the white-winged in the area. That was 200. But we were out to enjoy the birds so we moved on to Fort Monroe proper.
Next stop was the Chamberlain hotel where there is often a lot of ducks along the rocky seawall as well as good views of anything out by the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel island. Here we found some brant swimming next to the island. (I had actually seen a few while scouting for the CBC but always a pleasure to watch them.) While my wife was scanning the waters with the spotting scope, I walked to the end near the marina to see around the corner. Just over the wall was the common eider. Not 30 ft away. It was very nice looking male. While watching it we saw a Bonaparte's gull fly by. I was now at 202 for the year. Then, back around the other side of the Chamberlain we saw a female long-tailed duck swimming by. Now I was up to 203.
I was hoping to see one new species for the year to get to that round, but otherwise arbitrary, count for the year. And ended up seeing several new species and some nice views of other winter time visitors. In the end, I was a great way to end the year.