Red-shouldered Hawk chicks
I only had time to check out the Red-shouldered Hawk's nest in my back yard. At least two of the chicks look like they may be getting ready to fledge.
Red-shouldered Hawk chicks
Red-shouldered Hawk chicks
Wintergreen Mountain and the Blue Ridge Parkway 5/30/12Most of the Wintergreen Resort on the mountain is above 3000 feet, with a peak of more than 3900 feet. I haven't birded up there for a while, and wanted to give it a try, hoping that perhaps there might be some high elevation warblers there that do spend the summer above 3000 feet in the Allegheny Mountains of the other side of the Shenandoah Valley. However, almost everywhere I went there had either road construction or home building/repairs going on. All I saw were a few common year round resident bird, but I did see a Cerulean Warbler and heard another one. |
|
I decided to head back the long way, going along the first 14 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I heard a few more Cerulean Warblers, saw some American Redstarts, and got a photo of a Worm-eating Warbler actually eating a worm!
American Redstart
Worm-eating Warbler
Walt Childs and I went over to Crozet to do some birding. We started out at the Western Ridge (Lickinghole Creek) trail and lake, and saw quite a few species. Some of the highlights included the Bald Eagle perched on a limb near its nest, a female and a very colorful male Orchard Oriole, a Semipalmated Sandpiper, and an immature Common Yellowthroat that remained perched on a small tree branch only a few feet away from us. The papa Yellowthroat soon showed up but kept its distance from us.
Bald Eagle
Male Orchard Oriole
Male Orchard Oriole
Male Orchard Oriole
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Immature Common Yellowthroat
Immature Common Yellowthroat
Immature Common Yellowthroat
Adult male Common Yellowthroat
Next stop was the Old Trail golf course pond where we saw an immature Ring-necked Duck, and then two adult male Ring-necked Ducks on the other side of the pond. When the immature duck saw us, it headed over to the adults.
Immature Ring-necked Duck
Adult male Ring-necked Ducks
Ring-necked Ducks
We then headed over to the ponds at the King Family vineyards, but there wasn't much to see. Finally, even though it was then early afternoon, we decided to drive the first 14 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway so that I could show Walt my two favorite sites for warblers. At the mm. 7-8 cirque, I heard quite a few warblers - mostly American Redstarts, but also heard some others; however, the vegetation was so dense that we only saw glimpses of birds. At Hickory Springs overlook we only saw a few birds. We did see an interesting Indigo Bunting. It was an immature bird in transition from juvenile to adult plumage, and it wasn't until we got a good profile of its bill that we could positively identify it as an Indigo Bunting. It had a rusty back and a very light, almost white breast, so we also considered Eastern Bluebird and Blue Grosbeak as possibilites before seeing its bill in profile.
Indigo Bunting
Our 5/31/12 list (37 species):
Tree Swallow Barn Swallow Northern Rough-winged Swallow Belted Kingfisher Mallard Ring-necked Duck Semipalmated Sandpiper Killdeer Green Heron Bald Eagle Red-shouldered Hawk Northern Cardinal Indigo Bunting Red-bellied Woodpecker Flicker(?) Turkey Vulture Starling American Robin Common Yellowthroat American Redstart Eastern Towhee Dark-eyed Junco Scarlet Tanager Tufted Titmouse Mourning Dove American Crow Eastern Kingbird Eastern Wood Pewee Eastern Phoebe Orchard Oriole Northern Mockingbird Common Grackle Catbird Cowbird |
