Learn the secrets of predicting the NBA Championship! These and other mysteries can be understood with the purchase of Basketball in America: From the Playgrounds to Jordan's Game and Beyond, on sale at Barnesandnoble.com in either the paperback or hardcover edition.There's nothing wrong with a day that can't be improved by a little birding. That's my philosophy, anyway, and it may even be right. Certainly yesterday's foray into the wilderness made the onrushing deadline of grades and comments seem far less unpleasant, though I'm sure the company--my old birding comrades Tom Parker and Karen Bond--probably helped as well; it's hard to get flustered or stressed with such calming and collegial folks along for the ride.
Saturday's ride was, by design, both an early one (we left WFS at 4:00 a.m.) and a fairly short one, since Tom and I both had grading to do. Instead of heading to the faraway shores of Delaware or the ridges of the Shenandoah, Karen suggested that we investigate the nearby loops of Virginia's newly established
Birding & Wildlife Trail. It was a terrific idea; we traveled only about 70 miles away from home, but we discovered one wonderful birding spot and visited another I'd seen only in winter. End result: 61 species logged, one a lifer for me.
The big surprise was the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge (Port Royal Facility), whose name belies its teeny-tiny size. The place is probably only a few dozen acres, but they're strategically placed to provide the maximum variety of habitat. There's a grassy meadow, some scrubby trees, a narrow band of riparian forest, a bit of marshland, and of course the Rappahannock itself. We should have known we were in good shape when the first bird we saw from the car was a Bald Eagle perched atop a dead tree over the river, but the avian smorgasbord had only begun to groan. During our three-plus hours wandering the refuge, we saw some 37 species, ranging from the common to the exotic to the widespread-but-rarely-spotted. Orioles were present in numbers greater than I've ever seen; we saw both Orchards and Baltimores, males and females of each, including two first-year Orchards and two different nest-building females (one of each species). We logged a Pileated, several Red-bellied, and a number of fast-flying Red-headed Woodpeckers. The seed-eaters were also well-represented: Goldfinches, House Finches, Blue Grosbeaks, Cardinals, and a plethora of singing Indigo Buntings, not to mention Grasshopper, Fox, Song, and Chipping Sparrows. The most delightful were probably the warblers, though; Yellow-breasted Chats were doing their display flights, Common Yellowthroats were almost ubiquitous, and we were intrigued by a metallic
tzee tzee tzee tzee call from the riverside trees; I eventually caught a fleeting glimpse of a black cap and white cheek, but I was unwilling to make the final call until Karen put her Stokes Guide CD into the car's player and let us hear the bird for sure: it was indeed a Blackpoll Warbler, Life List #311 for yrs. truly.
From RRVNWR it was but a short drive to Pope's Creek, site of George Washington's birthplace. I had visited it in March of 2002, and had been staggered by the number and variety of the waterfowl wintering in its waters: hundreds of Tundra Swans, scores of Scaups, geese and cormorants galore, plus eagles and ospreys and herons kingfishers and harriers all over. In June, the numbers were down a bit, but we immediately spotted eagles, fishing ospreys, two species of swan and some half a dozen Great Blue Herons standing in the waters near the visitors' center. Taking to the road to visit the plantation's nature trail, we passed a pair of Wild Turkey hens, then parked beside an absolutely gorgeous marshland stand of wild irises, silvered by Friday's rains and gleaming gold in the morning light. The sight of a visiting female Ruby-throated Hummingbird made it more beautiful still. The trail wound through damp and leafy trees of immense size, giving us only glimpses of birds (a fleeing Red-tailed Hawk, a Hairy Woodpecker high atop a dead pine) but plenty of chances to hear them: the
teacher teacher TEACHER! of the Ovenbird, the non-stop preaching of the Red-eyed Vireo, and the
drink-your-TEEEEEA of the Rufous-sided Towhee. (They'll get me to call it the Eastern Towhee when they pry it out of my cold dead hands.)
Eventually we circled around to marshland near the creek and began seeing birds again birds: Acadian Flycatchers and Eastern Wood-Pewees were all around, as were snakes--we saw a pair of intertwined five-footers atop a downed log, and I'm still not sure whether they were racers or moccasins, but we let them slither into the hollows of the log without closer inspection. Then Tom stopped to hear a buzzing call better; I'd heard it and mentally assigned to a Chipping Sparrow without further thought, but now that he'd made me listen, I realized its pitch was wrong, and there was a little hiccup at the end. Karen and I peered into the tree and saw a small warbler hopping from branch to branch in the shade; it was pale underneath, but I finally saw a dark breastband, and Karen spotted a white eyering. With the call, we had our bird: a Northern Parula Warbler.
That wrapped up the morning nicely, and we returned to Karen's Subaru for the ride home. Not only had we been able to take a break from grading for a while, not only had we done better than ten species per hour, and not only had I discovered that they're finally making Diet Coke with Splenda--hallelujah!--but we had done it all within 90 minutes of home. And the next time someone gets the urge to bird without wanting to spend the entire day in the car, I think another visit to Port Royal may be in order.
5:01 PM
