August 2015

The SISKIN
Newsletter of the Northern Virginia Bird Club
Vol. 60, No. 3
August 2015
Inside
Calendar of NVBC field trips, August 15-November 7, 2015
Trillium Trail Trip Report
Chincoteague and Highland County Trip Reports
Book Notes
World Series of Birding Report
Raven Loonatics 2015 Birdathon

New Club Officer and Dues Structure
At the Club meeting in April, members approved the slate of officers nominated for re-election as announced in the April Siskin. Re-elected were President, Larry Meade; Vice-President for Field Activities, Elton Morel; Secretary, Diane Marton; and Treasurer, Jean Tatalias; as well as Directors, Emily Caven, Catherine Kubo, and Joanna Taylor.
In addition, David Farner was elected as Vice-President for Programs. David is new to the Board but many of us know him from meetings and bird walks. He is currently Park Manager for Gulf Branch Nature Center and Fort C. F. Smith Park. David has a keen interest in Civil War history as well as in birds.
Also at the April meeting, the membership approved a recommendation from the Board to change the dues structure to $10 for an individual membership and $15 for a family membership. This is the first dues increase in a decade for the Club and it will allow us to continue to attract great speakers for our programs and continue our youth scholarship program. The new dues structure goes into effect for the upcoming 2016 year.
— Jean Tatalias

NVBC GENERAL MEETING—WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 8 PM
The Wildlife of Tanzania
Speaker Bill Young
The Wildlife of Tanzania presentation will take you on a 30-day safari through East Africa. In March of this year, Bill Young visited 11 parks in Tanzania, seeing about 450 species of birds, 50 species of mammals and countless other nature wonders. Bill will show pictures and video of his experiences with hornbills, turacos, rollers, bee-eaters, and many other type of birds, as well as lions, elephants, giraffes, hippos, rhinos, and a broad array of other wildlife.
Bill Young is a writer and birder from Arlington, Virginia. Last year, his book The Fascination of Birds: From the Albatross to the Yellowthroat was published by Dover Publications. It examines the relationship between birds and a broad range of subjects, including biology, ecology, literature, music, history, politics, economics, religion, geography, physics, chemistry, linguistics, the visual arts, the performing arts, sports, and comedy. Bill as William Young posts his nature videos on his YouTube channel.
Early bird refreshments start at 7:30 pm. Any contributions of food or beverage will be most gratefully received. There will be a drawing for door prizes. Northern Virginia Bird Club pins will be available for members who would like to buy them ($5 each).
MEETING PLACE: St. Andrews Episcopal Church, 4000 Lorcom Lane, Arlington, 22207.

Presidential Peentings
The Northern Virginia Bird Club specializes in conducting what are, in my humble opinion, some of the best local bird walks and out of town birding trips around. However, there are several other great local birding and conservation organizations that you might also be interested in checking out. The Audubon Society of Northern Virginia (ASNV) is a chapter of National Audubon which sponsors various workshops and classes in addition to field trips and its excellent Audubon at Home program. Many of our members are also involved in ASNV and the NVBC has scheduled some joint walks with them. The Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy is another group that is heavily involved in conservation and education. They sponsor field trips, bird and butterfly counts, stream monitoring, kid friendly events, and much more. The Prince William Conservation Alliance fights the good fight to preserve wildlife habitat in their county while also sponsoring a variety of events such as the Bluebell Festival at Merrimac Farm. The Friends of Huntley Meadows and the Friends of Dyke Marsh (FODM) do important work to keep these two jewels of our region alive and well. Without the tireless efforts of the FODM, the upcoming restoration of Dyke Marsh would likely never have happened. All of these groups are huge assets to our community and I hope you get a chance to get involved in some of them.
— Larry Meade

Trillium Trail Trip Report
…in search of Cerulean Warblers and spring migrants
Twenty-four NVBC birders enjoyed a foggy walk along the Trillium Trail in Fauquier County on May 9 led by David Ledwith and Elton Morel. Our day was both frustrating and exhilarating. For most of the morning we were birding in thick, misting fog. Species diversity was really low we managed to find 36 species, but the quality turned out to be excellent.
The highlight of our walk was a remarkably cooperative singing Kentucky Warbler. This bird was on the Appalachian Trail (AT) a couple of hundred yards west of the main gravel road and up the steep, rocky, wooded ravine along the AT trail. The bird was so busy singing on a branch, we even got scope views of the bird. And of course, the Cerulean Warblers were singing everywhere around us but were very difficult to locate in the fog-shrouded trees. We managed a few good looks at these birds. Other highlights of birds seen fairly well were of a Worm-eating Warbler, Hooded Warbler, Ovenbird, Scarlet Tanager, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Wood Thrush, Acadian Flycatcher and of course the ubiquitous American Redstarts. Yellow-throated Vireos were also present, but only a few of us managed any kind of look at these birds. I suspect we missed a few migrant warblers because of the foggy condition.
— Elton Morel

Chincoteague Weekend Trip Report
Twenty-three members of the Northern Virginia Bird Club went on our May 15-17 weekend spring trip to Chincoteague. We collectively saw and/or heard 97 bird species. Our weekend started with a drive around the Wildlife Loop at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. We saw an excellent variety of herons, egrets and shorebirds. Amongst a fairly large group of Glossy Ibis, David Ledwith spotted a White-faced Ibis. The views of this bird were difficult because of the long-distance and heat shimmer, but we managed to observe all of the key field marks and take many photos for documentation.
We then went down Beach Road to the south beach parking area where I had earlier located a nesting Piping Plover protected from predators by a wire cage. I was so focused on this spot that I passed right by what was probably the bird of the trip. Larry Wright showed a photo of a bird, asking if I had seen it. I was astonished—it was an American Golden Plover in nearly complete breeding plumage. We walked back to the location of the bird and frantically searched for it for several minutes until we spotted it at a different location. The bird was amazingly cooperative allowing all of us to get multiple scope views and photographs. It even walked right next to a breeding plumage Black-bellied Plover for comparison. We had the additional luck of finding what turned out to be our only Whimbrels and Marbled Godwits of the trip packed up against the shoreline of Tom’s Cove at high tide.
Repeating last year’s luck, a search for Chuck-will’s-widow at sunset on Friday in the parking lot entrance to the Wildlife Loop was remarkably successful. We heard several “Chucks” all around us but didn’t see one until we walked a short ways down the Marsh trail. As we crossed the Wildlife Loop road, Twila Frieders spotted a dark object perched up on a stump about two feet off the ground—it was a female ‘Chuck’ perched up right on the side of the trail. We had excellent scope views of this very cooperative bird and even got to see the bird in flight chasing prey before returning again to its perch.
On Saturday morning, we started our birding by walking to the new boardwalk at the entrance to the refuge. There we heard many Clapper Rails and then found two rails walking below and under the boardwalk for several minutes. We then took a short walk around the Woodland Trail where we found Pine Warblers, Blue Grosbeaks, Indigo Buntings, White-eyed Vireo and Brown-headed Nuthatches. Surprisingly, we did not find any spring migrants passing through. In the afternoon, we went on the Wash Flats bus trip. While we enjoyed seeing the ponies including the newborns, we failed to find any Gull-billed Terns and it wasn’t particularly birdy. In an effort to find Gull-billed Terns, we then went to the Queen Sound Flats. Luck wasn’t with us for finding the Gull-bills but we enjoyed good looks at the Common Tern colony and Black-necked Stilts along the causeway.
On Sunday morning, we finished the trip at Saxis Wildlife Management Area on the western side of Accomack County. We had excellent views of many singing Seaside Sparrows, but the Marsh Wrens weren’t cooperating. We could hear a few fairly well but had to settle for fleeting, long-distance views of the bird when it occasionally performed its display flight. We ended the morning at Saxis by observing an amorous pair of Peregrine Falcons atop their nest box at Drum Point across the Messongo Creek.
— Elton Morel

Highland County Weekend Trip Report
Ten NVBC members participated in the 2015 spring trip to Highland County, June 5-7. The participants stayed at the Highland Inn, with breakfast each morning, and had group dinners at High’s Restaurant in Monterey, Virginia. A total of 77 species were seen or heard (16 heard only). Highlights of the trip were sightings of Red-headed Woodpecker, Bobolink, Chestnut-sided, Blackburnian and Mourning Warblers, Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Baltimore and Orchard Orioles. The pair of Baltimore Orioles made repeated visits to a nest. The usual targeted Golden-winged Warblers, along with an Alder Flycatcher, were heard but refused to show themselves to the group.
— Mary Rubin

Book Notes
John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell erstwhile co-authors (Gifts of the Crow, 2012; In the Company of Crows and Ravens, 2005) have each come out with a new book. Marzluff’s Welcome to Subirdia: Sharing Our Neighborhood with Wrens, Robins, Woodpeckers and Other Wildlife, 2014, reports the surprising news that many bird species are not only surviving but thriving in the suburbs of Seattle. For these, residential areas can provide better habitats than more rural habitat, Marzluff and his students document the kinds of changes that occur as habitat is altered and how different bird species adapt. Their findings result in recommendations about how to organize suburban development to protect and foster animal life, including birds, as well as humans.
Angell’s The House of Owls, 2015, chronicles his experiences with the screech owls which have been nesting outside his bedroom window since his family moved to a Seattle suburb in 1969. He combines his skills as a naturalist and illustrator in this entertaining narrative of the antics of the creatures and their offspring over time. A nesting box, strategically placed outside his bedroom window, has allowed him to witness incidents like an irate female knocking her mate off its perch when he failed to heed the begging calls of their nesting chicks. There are 94 charming illustrations.
Laura Erickson and Marie Read co-authored: Into the Nest: Intimate Views of the Courting, Parenting, and Family Lives of Familiar Birds, which offers over 500 illustrated profiles of the nesting behavior of North American bird species. Laura Erickson, who served as a science editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Marie Read, who also was associated with Cornell as a photo/illustrations editor, joined forces to provide a stunning photographic guide book.
— Carol and Chris White