February 2018

The SISKIN: Newsletter of the Northern Virginia Bird Club
Vol. 63, No. 1 — February 2018
Inside
Calendar of NVBC field trips, February 7 – May 5, 2018
New Web Site: Monticello Park
Program: Evolution’s Subtle Signs in Marsh Wrens
Cape May Trip Report
Youth Birding Scholarship – Deadline February 1, 2018
Call for Photographs for the NVBC Web Site
Grand Canyon Trip Report
To see the newsletter photographs in color, go to www.nvabc.org and click on The Siskin icon
A reminder to pay your 2018 dues
If not paid, this will be the last issue you receive. The Siskin mailing label shows the year through which your dues are current or “CO” for complimentary. Thanks!

Chincoteague Spring Weekend Trip
The Chincoteague Spring Weekend club trip is scheduled for May 18-20 (Friday-Sunday). The trip is limited to 28 people and usually fills up very fast. NVBC membership is required. Registration will open on March 28, 2018. To sign up for this trip, email Elton Morel at eltonlmorel@verizon.net on that date. When signing up, please indicate whether you are interested in the boat trip (fee) on Sunday morning and a Saturday evening group dinner. If the trip is full, your name can be put on a waiting list.
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. Most trips tally about 100 species including such Eastern Shore specialties as Black-necked Stilts, American Oystercatchers, Piping Plovers, Whimbrels, Marbled Godwits, Little Blue Herons, Tricolored Herons, Cattle Egrets, Glossy Ibis, Least, Royal, Gull-billed and Common Terns, Black Skimmers, Clapper Rails, Seaside Sparrows, Chuck-will’s-widows, 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 will also visit the Queens Sound Flats, the Chincoteague City mudflats and Mariner’s Point. On Sunday morning, we will board a boat and travel along Chincoteague Inlet and Tom’s Cove looking mostly for shorebirds along the mudflats. The cost of the boat trip will be about $35 per person. The trip concludes at noon on Sunday.
We have obtained a special rate of $89.00 per night, including tax, 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 20 to get this special group rate. Participants should make their 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 pm on Friday, May 18, and a 48-hour cancellation notice is required. Chincoteague NWR is a U.S. fee area. —Elton Morel

NVBC GENERAL MEETING — WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 8 PM
Checking in with Virginia’s Breeding Birds Thirty Years Later
Speaker: Dr. Ashley Peele
In the mid- to late-1980s, Virginia conducted its first breeding bird atlas (BBA) project to assess the status and distribution of breeding bird populations. This year (2018), we will dive into the third year of the second Virginia BBA project. Since the inception of the second BBA project, the Virginia birding community has contributed thousands of birding hours. The resulting data has already provided a revealing look into how breeding bird populations have changed over the last thirty years. State Atlas Coordinator, Dr. Ashley Peele, will highlight some of these changes, share interesting species and volunteer highlights, and discuss important needs for the remaining three years of this project. Join us to learn more about this exciting conservation project and how you can get involved.
Dr. Peele is an avian ecologist, who became interested in studying wildlife biology after a childhood spent running around the biodiverse lakes and swamps of Florida. Her mentor at Ohio Wesleyan University introduced her to the world of field ornithology and she learned to mist-net, band, and sample the plumage of wild birds. This experience set her on a lifelong path of study and research on avian ecology and conservation. In 2015, she completed her doctorate in avian ecology, after spending five years studying population dynamics of Neotropical migratory songbirds in Jamaica. She currently is State Director of the Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas Project and a research associate at Virginia Tech’s Conservation Management Institute.

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 Peenting
I am writing this during the holiday season and I thought this would be a nice opportunity to thank everyone who makes the Northern Virginia Bird Club a fun and educational organization to be a part of. Field trips are the heart of what we do and Elton Morel does an extraordinary job in arranging field trips, including to some new places, and finding leaders for them. Jean Tatalias is our treasurer and does a professional job of keeping our finances organized and also projecting into the future. David Farner arranges our programs and does a stellar job of finding interesting speakers who might be anyone from ornithologists sharing important research to club members who have been on exciting trips. Diane Marton, our secretary, keeps comprehensive minutes and also hosts our board meetings. Ghazali Raheem is also on the board and runs the website and the youth scholarship program. Joanna Taylor, another board member, is a repository of the club’s institutional knowledge. Phil Silas and Tom Nardone are new board members who have really stepped up as leaders of our field trips. Elizabeth Fenton is our membership person and also has been invaluable in helping out with editing. Pat Gause, along with her husband Neal, does a fine job with The Siskin. Allie Guidry ably administers our Facebook page. I also want to thank the mailing crew and everyone who leads walks, writes articles and contributes photographs. Finally, I want to show my appreciation for everyone who is an NVBC member. I am constantly learning from all of you and I hope we can keep this thing going for a long time to come. —Larry Meade

Introducing New Web Site: Monticello Park
MPNature.com is a new website created by Ashley Bradford and Bill Young to provide information about the natural history of Monticello Park in Alexandria. Monticello is one of the best places in the Washington Metro Area to see migrating songbirds during the spring. The site will feature detailed species accounts of the birds and plants at the park. It will also include a virtual tour of Monticello, lists of resources in more than a dozen subject areas, natural history articles by Eric Dinerstein, and more. A unique feature will be daily bird checklists for April and May, showing which species you are likely to see on each date. The site is scheduled to go online during the first quarter of 2018, and Bill will give a brief presentation to introduce you to it at our February meeting.

Evolution’s Subtle Signs in Marsh Wrens
Dr. Sarah Luttrell will talk about her work on evolution and speciation in the marsh wren (Cistothorus palustris) on February 25, 2 pm, Mount Vernon Governmental Center, 2511 Parkers Lane, Alexandria 22306. The basic processes of evolution are happening in every species but they are almost impossible to observe. They are typically slow and subtle. Dr. Luttrell studies how evolution works by studying subspecies of birds. She will examine how comparing multiple traits like plumage color, size and shape, vocal behavior, and genetics in marsh wrens has revealed an exciting pattern of evolution in this bird.
This program is sponsored by the Friends of Dyke Marsh, Audubon Society of Northern Virginia, the Audubon Society of the District of Columbia, the Northern Virginia Bird Club, and the Virginia Society of Ornithology.

Cape May Fall Weekend Trip
Our 2017 truncated Cape May Fall weekend trip was attended by over 25 members. For several of us, the trip started with the 11:15 am ferry ride from Lewes to Cape May. This year’s crossing was pleasant (aka not too choppy) and we saw several Parasitic Jaegers, Bonaparte’s Gulls, as well as Common, Forster’s and Royal Terns. As we arrived early, some of the group went for a beach walk and were delighted by a large group of Black Skimmers and Forster’s Terns on the beach. A few Sanderlings were observed running around as well.
Our official first trip stop was Cape May State Park and the hawk watch platform. Migration was slow, but we did see a late Osprey and a Northern Harrier. Ducks were present, and we got nice views of American Black Ducks, Green-winged Teals, Northern Pintails and a few Pied-billed Grebes. Next up was The Meadows, a Nature Conservancy property. It was rumored that Sora and Black Rail were in the area, so we set out to find these birds. After some searching, the Sora came out of the reeds and showed itself nicely to the group. Many photos were taken of this cooperative bird.
On Saturday morning we went to Higbee Beach and the Morning Flight area. Morning Flight was a tad slow, but we still saw several good birds including Bald Eagles, Northern Gannets, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Tree Swallows, Brown Thrashers, Eastern Towhees and Swamp Sparrows. Overall, Higbee was somewhat quiet this year. After lunch and a few logistical challenges, we stopped at 2-mile Marina and found three Ospreys and a large group of Double-crested Cormorants showing off their synchronized swimming capabilities. At Hereford Lighthouse several of the group found a Red-breasted Nuthatch, both Kinglets, Blackpoll, Palm and Pine Warblers as well as a female Purple Finch.
Our beach walk was truly excellent with many shorebirds still present. Along Stone Harbor Inlet we found a sandbar with lots of birds including Black Skimmers, Black-backed Gulls, Black-bellied Plover and Western Sandpipers. Our last stop of the day was Stone Point Harbor. This was likely our best stop. With the sun to our backs, we were able to easily scan the ocean and beach. On the beach we found several American Oystercatchers, Sanderlings and Ruddy Turnstones. The true show, however, was on the water, or just above it. Many hundreds, if not thousands, of Scoters flew by in long strings. In flight it was easy to see the difference between the species, but we only saw a few White-winged Scoters among the multitude of Black and Surf. Yet another Parasitic Jaeger was seen as well as a few Common and Red-throated Loons. Further out, the bright white Northern Gannets were easy to spot.
Our Sunday morning walk from the hotel to the pavilion on the beach was quiet and we did not add any new species to our list. With the incoming rain, most of us left early. The ferry ride back yielded more Northern Gannets, a few Black Scoters and the fifth or sixth Parasitic Jaeger of the trip. We ended up with 97 species which is a bit below our normal tally for this fall trip. —Gerco Hoogeweg and Larry Meade

Youth Birding Scholarship Opportunity
Deadline: February 1, 2018
Please help spread the word about the Val Kitchens Memorial Young Birder Scholarship for 2018. The Club is seeking applicants from 13 to 18 years of age for a grant of up to $500 to attend a birding activity. See all the information for applying on the website. For more information, contact David Farner at 443-643-6141 or Ghazali Raheem at 703-563-3810 or go to http://www.nvabc.org/youth-birding-scholarship-opportunity. —Ghazali Raheem

Photographs for the Club Image Gallery
We are working on improving the club’s image galleries, so here is a chance for you to display your bird photographs. We invite all photographers—members and nonmembers—to send us recent photographs of birds taken in Virginia over the last two or three years. For guidelines click on the Birds by Type link.