April 2015

The SISKIN
Newsletter of the Northern Virginia Bird Club
Vol. 60, No. 2
April 2015
Inside
Calendar of NVBC field trips April 15 – July 11, 2015
Fantastic Birds
Access Permit for WMAS
Winter Birding in Japan
Report and photos from NVBC 2015 winter weekend trips
Book Notes
A Home with an Escape Hatch

Upcoming Weekend Trips
Spring Chincoteague Weekend
The Chincoteague Spring Weekend club trip is scheduled for May 15-17 (Friday-Sunday). Mid-May is an excellent time to visit the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge (NWR); spring shorebird migration is in full swing with most birds in breeding plumage. Last year’s trip tallied 116 species including such Eastern Shore specialties as Black-necked Stilts, American Oystercatchers, Piping Plovers, Whimbrels, Marbled Godwits, Red Knots, White-rumped bed Sandpipers, Little Blue, Tricolored and Yellow-crowned Night Herons, Cattle Egrets, Glossy Ibis, Gull-billed, Least, Royal and Common Terns, Black Skimmers, Clapper Rails, Seaside Sparrows, Chuck-will’s-widow, Brown-headed Nuthatches and Boat-tailed Grackles.
Plans for the weekend include birding the Chincoteague NWR on Friday afternoon starting at 3:15 p.m. (optional) or on Saturday starting at 7:30 a.m. Activities on Saturday morning include birding along Beach Road, Swan Cove and Tom’s Cove and a walk along the Woodland Trail looking for land bird migrants. We have reserved the Chincoteague Natural History Association’s bus for a 90 minute trip to the Washflats on Saturday at 1 p.m., providing a look at territory otherwise inaccessible by vehicle. Time and tides permitting, we will also visit the Queens Sound Flats and the Chincoteague City mudflats. On Sunday morning, we will visit Saxis Marsh. The trip concludes at noon on Sunday.
NVBC membership is required for this trip. To sign up for this trip, call or email Elton Morel (703-553-4860 or eltonlmorel@verizon.net). The trip is limited to 28 people and usually fills up, so please contact Elton Morel first to ensure that space is available before making hotel reservations. When signing up, please indicate whether you are interested in the Washflats bus trip (fee) on Saturday afternoon and a Saturday evening group dinner. If the trip is full, your name can be put on a waiting list.
We have obtained a special rate of $94 per night on twenty rooms for Friday and Saturday nights at the Best Western Chincoteague Island Hotel on Maddox Boulevard. A two-night stay is usually required. Hotel reservations must be made by April 3 to get this special group rate. Participants should make your own reservations by calling 800-553-6117 and be sure to say you are with the Northern Virginia Bird Club. Check-in time is 3 p.m. on Friday, May 16, and a 72-hour cancellation notice is required. Chincoteague NWR is a U.S. fee area, and Saxis Marsh is a Wildlife Management Area requiring a permit. (See article on this page)
— Elton Morel
Highland County Weekend
Our summer trip to Highland County in the mountains of western Virginia, led by Marv Rubin, is scheduled for the weekend of June 5-7 (Friday-Sunday). The trip limit is 16 people. Headquarters will be at either the Highland Inn or Montvallee Motel in Monterey depending upon whether the Highland Inn re-opens by the time of our trip. We will start the trip at 3:15pm on Friday afternoon with a drive around the Blue Grass Valley to look for Bobolinks and Vesper Sparrows. On Saturday morning, we will go to Paddy’s Knob to look for Mourning Warblers and Least Flycatchers. On Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, we will bird other areas of the county. We will arrange a group dinner at either Highland Inn’s dining room or Hap’s High’s Restaurant on both evenings. The trip will end in Monterey at about noon on Sunday. Call or email Marv Rubin (703-915-7545 or mbrubin@verizon.net) to sign up and get information to make your reservations as soon as our accommodations are settled upon. NVBC membership is required for this trip.
— Mary Rubin

NVBC GENERAL MEETING—WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 8 PM
The Project Passenger Pigeon
Speaker David Blockstein
In 1800, billions of Passenger Pigeons crisscrossed the skies of the eastern species died in the Cincinnati Zoo. The centenary of the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon provides a teachable moment to consider how the most abundant bird in the world went extinct and to ponder its implications for today. David E. Blockstein, Senior Scientist of the National Council for Science and the Environment, is the author of the Birds of North America species account on the Passenger Pigeon and one of the leaders in Project Passenger Pigeon (www.passengerpigeon.org).
Election of NVBC Officers for 2015-2017
Officers and directors will be elected to serve two-year terms beginning July 1, 2015. The following people have agreed to be candidates:
President: Larry Meade
Vice President, Programs: nominee pending
Vice President, Field Activities: Elton Morel
Secretary: Diane Marton
Treasurer: Jean Tatalias
Directors: Emily Caven, Catherine Kubo, Joanna Taylor
Nominations will also be accepted from the floor.
Refreshments start at 7:30 pm. Food and drink contributions are welcome. There will be a drawing for door prizes.
Meeting place: St. Andrews Episcopal Church, 4000 Lorcom Lane, Arlington, 22207.

Presidential Peentings
Charlotte Friend has been an essential part of the Northern Virginia Bird Club for many years. In addition to leading walks for us, she has had the job of managing our membership. She has coordinated new memberships and renewals and performed other nuts and bolts tasks with unfailing competence and diligence. While much of her work has been behind the scenes, we could not have functioned without her. Now she is stepping down from the job and moving on to new adventures in Maryland. We will certainly miss her. We are extremely fortunate that Elizabeth Fenton has agreed to step into Charlotte’s shoes and take on the job of membership for us. Thanks Elizabeth!
On another note, as I write this, we have just finished the grand finale snowstorm of the winter and spring is in the air. Ospreys have come back and Woodcocks are flying at Huntley Meadows. Warblers will be coming into the area before we know it. In case you are interested, I will be teaching a warbler class on April 30 with a field trip May 2. This class is sponsored by the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia and the Northern Virginia Bird Club. For more information, you can go to www.audubonva.org. Happy warbling!
— Larry Meade

Fascinating Birds
On May 13, William Young will give a presentation titled “99 Reasons to be Fascinated by Birds,” based on his book, The Fascination of Birds: from the Albatross to the Yellowthroat (Dover Publications, 2014). He will explore the connections between birds and subjects such as biology, ecology, literature, music, history, politics, economics, religion, geography, physics, chemistry, linguistics, the visual arts, the performing arts, sports and comedy. This Friends of Dyke Marsh quarterly meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Huntley Meadows Park Visitor Center and is cosponsored by the Northern Virginia Bird Club and Audubon Society of Northern Virginia.

Access Permit for WMAS
The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) continues to require an Access Permit for Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) and public fishing lakes under its management. The permit is not required for persons holding a valid hunting, fishing or trapping license or a current certificate of boat registration issued by the Department or for persons 16 years of age or younger. The fee is $4 for a daily permit or $23 for an annual permit and may be purchased online or from any license agent. Most, if not all, Walmart stores and many sporting goods stores are DGIC license agents. More information is available at the DGIF website, www.dgif.virginia.gov. The club has two trips scheduled this spring to a WMA – the walk at Thompson WMA’s Trillium Trail on May 9 and the Saxis WMA on May 17 as part of the Spring Chincoteague Weekend.
— Elton Morel

Winter Birding in Japan
A chance to see long-standing friends and those Red-crowned Cranes so important in Japanese art and culture—why did I wait so long to sign up for a birding tour! This past January I went on a Field Guides Tour led by the very knowledgeable, easy-going Phil Gregory and the capable Jun Matsui, who drove, spotted birds, and never tired of translating and telling the seven of us our lunch choices at fast-food stops. Around thence Tobu Narita hotel we picked up Brown-headed Thrush, as well as such attractive species as Japanese Wagtail, Falcated Duck, Bull-headed Shrike, Brown-eared Bulbul, Daurian Redstart and Dusky Thrush that we would continue to see elsewhere.
Soon we were off to the scenic Japan Alps around Karuizawa and Nagano. Walking along snow-covered trails beside creeks and up into the hills—ice grippers really were a necessity—we spotted the endemic Japanese Green Woodpecker, a stunning male Copper Pheasant, an obliging Eurasian Woodcock, a Pygmy Woodpecker, Rustic Buntings and at a feeder a Japanese Accentor, Winter Wren, and Meadow Buntings. Numerous tits (Willow, Varied, Coal and Japanese) flitted about at the feeder or high in the trees. Snow Country means snow monkeys, and we made the pleasant one-mile hike in to their hot spring, somewhat more developed than I expected, but then Jigokudani Park is a major tourist attraction. Many monkeys were in and around the spring until food arrived, at which time they all bounded out and dug up the grain scattered over the snow.
With snow-dappled peaks in the distance we continued on to the Kanazawa area and the Sea of Japan, picking up Baikal Teal, Smew, Taiga Bean and Greater White-fronted Geese, a Green Pheasant, a bonus Naumann’s thrush, Gray-headed Lapwings, and in a field some 400 elegant Bewick’s (Tundra) Swans, giving us graceful flight views as well. Flying to southern Kyushu, at Lake Miike in Kirishima National Park we found such highlights as the head-thrusting Forest Wagtail, the Ryukyu Minivet, a Goldcrest, and a fleeting view of a Japanese Grosbeak. The stars of this area, however, are the cranes at Arasaki, some 9,000 Hooded and 1,500 White-naped—noisy, flying, parading, eating. Throw in a Sandhill and a couple of Common cranes, too. Individuals feeding them are garbed in biohazard suits, and every time our van left the area the wheels were disinfected, precautions to prevent the spread of any disease.
Also in the area or nearby, a Black-faced and two Eurasian spoonbills, a Temminck’s Stint, Daurian Jackdaw, Chestnut-eared Buntings, a Crested Kingfisher, Mandarin Ducks, a Long-billed Plover, Saunders’s Gulls, Chinese Penduline-Tits, surprisingly abundant Japanese White-eyes—and my Japanese friend, a citrus grower, who supplied our group with some 15 pounds of Japanese mandarins to snack upon.
But the best was yet to come in the far north, in snowbound eastern Hokkaido! Deplaning just after lunchtime, we headed out immediately to a small field in Tsurui, where some two hundred majestic Red-crowned cranes were dancing and bugling, pair-bonding, and one sandy-headed youngster learning the proper moves by tossing a dry leaf in the air and dancing with it. Early the next morning we were at the famous Otowa bridge. We did not see the National Geographic view of mist rising from the river and cranes displaying under a blue sky. Instead it was a stunning sumi-e or ink painting: the blacks, grays and whites of the sky, the birds, the snow-covered banks, the frosty river, the trees with branches limned in white snow. The distant cranes, with heads tucked in, resembled sheep. As they awakened, heads came up, and family groups moved up the river toward us.
Did I say I want to return! However, it was on to see Whooper Swans, a staked-out Ural Owl, and immediately after that, our first view in the trees of the enormous Steller’s Sea Eagle with its massive bright orange bill and long white wedge-shaped tail. They were to become commonplace, adorning almost every utility pole on the Notsuke Peninsula, delighting us with every view—especially when one perched near a White-tailed Eagle, giving us a size comparison. Harlequin Ducks, a Pacific Loon, a boat trip from Habomai harbor with Common Murres, Ancient Murrelets, Spectacled Guillemots and a close-up look at Russian-occupied Japan, islands taken at the end of World War II and never returned.
All just a prelude to… Superb views of the Blakiston’s Fish Owl, not just at one but at two locations! We had barely sat down to dinner at the small family-run Washi no Yado minshuku when the first fish owl came down to a small portion of the creek outside that had been cordoned off and stocked an hour earlier with live fish. Special lighting enabled us to see the owl but did not interfere with its vision. At one point it caught two fish and dropped them beneath the nearby tree, from which its mate came down to share in the catch. A third owl in the tree was probably their offspring. The next night at our luxurious Yoroushi Dai Ichi onsen, again at dinner the fish owl appeared. At breakfast the next morning, a fish owl was still there, in the daylight, with a Solitary Snipe nearby.
Snowed in at our last stop, we nonetheless saw a White-backed Woodpecker at a feeder. As others departed for home, I took a four-hour train ride to Sapporo to meet again with Mitsu Yamamoto, an exchange student at my Wauwatosa, WI high school in 1960 and now a prominent translator. My trip fittingly ended with great fellowship, fond reminiscences, fine food and snow outdoing Boston’s accumulations this winter.
— Diane Marton

Club Announcements
“Like” Us on Facebook: NVBC is on Facebook. If you are already a Facebook.com member, just log in to your Facebook page and search for “Northern Virginia Bird Club” then “like” us.
NVBC eMail Exchange: To receive email notices, join the NVBC eMail Exchange. For sign-up directions see back page of the newsletter.
Trips and Events: Beginning birders are welcome on all trips. When reservations are required, please call one of the trip leaders. If in doubt about a trip because of weather, please call one of the leaders. Check the NVBC website for updated information about trips: www.nvabc.org/trips.htm.