Chesapeake Bay, VA 3/7/15

All photos are © Marshall Faintich

Walt Childs and I had enough of the snow here in central Virginia, so we made a day trip to the sunny waters of the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding area. There had been postings of five potential life birds for me in that area over the past few weeks. Our first stop was at Pleasure House Point in Virginia Beach. I had been there twice before last November, and this visit was the least "birdy" of the three visits. There were a few ducks in the lagoons and a small flock on the other side of the inlet. We saw about 10 avian species there.


Northern Shoveler


American Wigeons


Greater Yellowlegs


Herring Gull

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel Island #1 was much more productive. I saw a flock of Lesser Scuap where we parked on the east side of the lot, but it wasn't until we walked around to the northern point when we got the full impact of the birds there.


Lesser Scaup and Redhead


Some of the ducks on the northern point of CBBT#1


Black Scoter


Surf Scoter


Scoters


Scoters


Bufflehead


Female Red-breasted Merganser


Female Red-breasted Merganser


Female Red-breasted Merganser


Female Red-breasted Merganser


Male Red-breasted Merganser


Long-tailed Duck


Horned Grebes


Double-crested Cormorant


Red-throated Loon


Northern Gannet


Brown Pelican


Ruddy Turnstone


Ring-billed Gull

We made a short stop at the Eastern Shore NWR, where we added a few more birds to the trip list.


Common Loon


Northern Harrier


Yellow-rumped Warbler


Gadwalls


American Black Duck

Although we didn't see any new life birds, we ended the day trip with 42 species:

Red-throated Loon
Common Loon
Red-necked Grebe
Horned Grebe
Brown Pelican
Double-crested Cormorant
Northern Gannet
Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
American Black Duck
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Northern Shoveler
Redhead
Greater Scaup
Lesser Scaup
Long-tailed Duck
Surf Scoter
Black Scoter
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Ruddy Duck
Turkey Vulture
Black Vulture
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Greater Yellowlegs
Ruddy Turnstone
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Mourning Dove
Rock Pigeon
American Crow
Fish Crow
Carolina Wren
European Starling
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Common Grackle



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