August 2017

The SISKIN
Newsletter of the Northern Virginia Bird Club
Vol. 62, No. 3

August 2017

Inside

Calendar of NVBC field trips, August 12 – November 4, 2017
NVBC Officers 2017-2019
Chincoteague and Highland County Trip Reports
New Trip Site: Royal Lake – Lakeside Park
To see the newsletter photographs in color, go to www.nvabc.org and click on the Siskin icon.

Cape May Fall Weekend Our fall trip to Cape May will be held from October 27–29, 2017. We will be hanging out at the world-famous Cape May Hawk Watch, Morning Flight and visiting other local hotspots such as the Meadows, Higbee Beach and the Cape May Bird Observatory. We will start at 3 pm on Friday and finish up Sunday afternoon with a semi-pelagic on the Cape May Ferry (2:30 pm).

Space is limited to 20 people. NVBC membership and registration is required. Our hotel for the weekend will be the Sea Crest Inn. A group rate will be negotiated later in July or August. The rate information will be provided to people who sign up for the trip. You will be required to mail a deposit within 7 days of making the reservation. This hotel does not serve breakfast but many of the rooms have a kitchenette. The hotel is in walking distance of the beach pavilion that is our typical Saturday morning destination:

SEA CREST MOTOR INN 101 Beach Avenue Cape May, NJ 08024 Phone: 609-884-4561 or 866-733-1405

To make a reservation, please call the Sea Crest Inn and provide your name and phone number. You will be asked to mail a personal check or money order within 7 days of calling. On the check enter the dates you will be staying and NVBC. You will be mailed a reservation confirmation. Please drop me an email at drgerco@hotmail.com if you would like to participate. —Gerco Hoogeweg

NVBC GENERAL MEETING—WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 8 PM A Birding Year In and Around Japan Speaker: Libby Lyons Libby Lyons is a long-time Arlington resident who had the chance to live in Japan in 2016. She explored that amazing country with a focus on fauna, flora, fabric and food. She birded from Hokkaido with its Steller’s Sea Eagles and Japanese Cranes to Kyushu with the sunrise spectacle of an eddy of 10,000 cranes, and to Okinawa viewing the elusive Okinawa Rail. She also took birding forays (often in conjunction with work trips) to Thailand, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

Libby was a biology professor for ten years before she joined the National Science Foundation 20 years ago. She will present a travelogue peppered with scientific tidbits, e.g., the decline of such rare species as the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, the syntax of Japanese Tits and conservation attitudes in East Asia.

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. Directions are on page 5.

Presidential Peentings Last year the second Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas began its five-year mission to map the distribution and status of Virginia’s breeding bird community. VABBA2, as it is known for short, is helmed by Dr. Ashley Peele who has been tireless in her efforts to train and educate Virginia birders about this atlas. It is supported by the Virginia Society of Ornithology (VSO) and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF). Not only will the data collected in this effort enable an assessment to be made of the current state of Virginia’s breeding birds, it will also allow a comparison to be made with the data from the atlas completed more than twenty-five years ago. All of the data collected is done through a special VABBA2 eBird portal. This means that birders who are regular eBirders simply need to put their checklists with breeding data on the portal to have their data included in the atlas. You can even put checklists from last year on the portal.

When I am out in the field atlasing, I find that I bird a bit differently. Instead of just checking off a bird I see and moving on, I spend a little more time seeing what the bird is up to. Is it carrying food, collecting nesting material, or maybe visiting a nest? All of these activities would confirm the bird as a breeder. I call it putting on my “atlas eyes”. I find myself automatically noticing bird behavior in a more analytical way than I did before the atlas began. For example, it seems like every time I look at a bird, I check to see if it is carrying something in its bill which would likely mean it’s a confirmed breeder. Another good way to confirm breeding birds is to find babies. On a recent walk for NVBC, our group found a Common Yellowthroat singing. We waited a bit instead of moving on and were rewarded by seeing a female Common Yellowthroat pop up and fly over to feed some babies. If we had not been in atlasing mode, we might not have seen this.

Atlasing also has prodded me to visit more local birding spots. I have found several productive locations in the two atlas blocks that I am responsible for that I may never have known about otherwise. Keep in mind that you do not need to be assigned a block to atlas to contribute. Any data anywhere in Virginia by anyone is welcome. The VABBA2 is citizen science at its finest. Data that you collect will be fully utilized and will not sit on a shelf or in the cloud somewhere. I encourage you to find out more about, and hopefully become involved in, this important project. —Larry Meade

NVBC Officers 2017-2019 Term At the Club meeting in April, members approved the slate of officers nominated for re-election. Re-elected were President, Larry Meade; Vice-President for Programs, David Farner; Vice-President for Field Activities, Elton Morel; Secretary, Diane Marton; and Treasurer, Jean Tatalias. Also re-elected were Directors, Catherine Kubo, and Joanna Taylor. Newly-elected Directors include Tom Nardone, Ghazali Raheem and Phil Silas.

The Board extends its appreciation to Emily Caven for her service as a director and for her contributions including designing and producing the club’s business cards. We will be losing another director, Catherine Kubo, when she moves to Indiana. She will be missed not the least for her contributions in leading trips, setting up and maintaining the group email exchange and serving on the board. Our club could not sustain itself without the dedicated services of many volunteers.

Spring Weekend Trip: Chincoteague Members of the Northern Virginia Bird Club went on our annual spring trip to Chincoteague on the weekend of May 19 to 21. We collectively saw and/or heard 85 species during the weekend. By our standards, 85 species was a low number mostly due to 20+ mph winds on Saturday that severely limited bird activity, especially land birds.

Our weekend started with the usual drive around the Wildlife Loop at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. We had a few good birds in close, mostly Dunlins, Semipalmated Plovers, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Short-billed Dowitchers and many fine looking Black-bellied Plovers in their breeding plumage, but most of the birds were far out in the center of Snow Goose Pool. We spotted an unusual looking ibis amongst the Snowy Egrets and Little Blue Herons that we initially identified as a White-faced Ibis ; however, there were a few features about the bird that weren’t quite right. After reviewing the photos later in the weekend and having expert review of the photos, it was determined that the mystery ibis was a Glossy X White-faced Ibis hybrid. A quick trip out Beach Road to the north beach parking lot netted us good views of a Piping Plover on the nest inside a protective wire cage.

Our evening trip to find the Chuck-will’s-widow at sunset on Friday night was a mixed bag. Plenty of “Chucks” were heard, one very close to us, but all we could manage to see was fleeting glimpses of a shadowy bird flying through the foliage. On the other hand, what we did encounter was an abundance of ferocious and unrelenting swarms of mosquitos that eventually cut short our efforts to search for another “Chuck”.

On Saturday morning, we woke up to a brutal forecast for the day—high winds throughout the day. We started our birding by walking to the new boardwalk nearby the hotel. There we heard several Clapper Rails and a few of us managed to see the rails. Our trip out to Tom’s Cove and the beach parking lots netted us more Piping Plovers, Least Terns, Black Skimmers, Ruddy Turnstones and Sanderlings, several of which were already in their reddish breeding plumage. In the late morning, we ventured out to Queen Sound Flats to find Black-necked Stilts, American Oystercatchers and the Common Tern colony. The afternoon’s birding was really difficult given the high winds, but we did manage to add White Ibis at Mariner’s Point and a couple of Royal Terns on our return trip to Tom’s Cove.

Sunday morning brought much better weather, good enough to go on the highlight event of the weekend—a boat trip out on Chincoteague Inlet provided by Daisey’s Island Cruises. We did a big circle around the inlet across the channel opposite Mariner’s Point, then out to the far end of the point off Tom’s Cove, and finally back to Mariner’s Point. Our highlights were Red Knots transitioning to breeding plumage, several non-breeding Common Loons, a couple of Common Terns, a pod of dolphins feeding on a school of fish and finally, a Clapper Rail out in the open amongst the pieces of wood piled up along the beach next to the nearby salt marsh. —Elton Morel

Highland County Spring Trip Thirteen members visited Highland County, Virginia the weekend of June 2 to 4, identifying 79 species. The trip started Friday at the Highland Inn in Monterey and proceeded to the Bluegrass Valley area with stops at a Trout Farm and the Forks of Waters. Highlights were a family of Wood Ducks, a female Orchard Oriole, Bobolinks, Ravens and Eastern Meadowlarks. The next morning, the group went to Paddy’s Knob where good views were had of a Mourning Warbler and Black-billed and Yellow-billed Cuckoos. Other sightings of note were Chestnut-sided Warblers, Indigo Buntings, a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, a Scarlet Tanager and a Blue-headed Vireo. In the afternoon we returned to the Bluegrass Valley where a House Wren and Yellow Warbler were seen, but no Golden-winged Warblers.

On Sunday morning, we drove south to the Bolar area based on reported Golden-winged Warbler sightings on Big Valley Road. Highlights were sightings of Cedar Waxwings, Baltimore Oriole and Least Flycatcher at the Jackson River Bridge and Northern Parula, Brown Thrasher, Yellow-billed Cuckoo and a heard (and partially seen) Golden-winged Warbler on Big Valley Road. —Mary Rubin

New Trip Site: Royal Lake – Lakeside Park The club has added a new trip site for fall. Royal Lake is a J-shaped, 38-acre lake in Fairfax. The meeting place will be at the Lakeside Park parking lot at the Pommeroy Drive entrance. The park has a two-mile relatively flat loop along the lakeshore that will take about 3 hours to bird. Bikes are prohibited on the natural-surface trail. The woods, grassland, shore and lake should produce 30+ species. The timing of the walk, September 13, is in the midst of fall migration. —Phil Silas and Elton Morel

CLUB CONTACTS & NOTICES
President: Larry Meade, 703-206-9030
VP Programs: David Farner, 443-643-6141
VP Field Activities: Elton Morel, 703-553-4860
Secretary: Diane Marton, 703-527-7360
Treasurer: Jean Tatalias, 703-281-6099
Membership: Elizabeth Fenton, 703-533-0851
Webmaster: Ghazali Raheem

Next Board Meeting: Wednesday, September 6, 2017, 7:30 pm, at Diane Marton’s home. General Meeting Dates: September 20 and November 15, 2017. Deadline for next issue of The Siskin: October 1, 2017. Birder Discount: 10% discount for NVBC members at Birdwatchers Seed and Supply Company (Vienna). Mention the club at checkout.