Blue Ridge Young Birders Club
Educating and Inspiring the Future of Conservation
in the Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley of Virginia
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Rockfish Valley Trail Field Trip Report

11/5/2018

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Picture
Purple Finch, photo by Ezra Staengl
On October 14th I lead a trip for the Blue Ridge Young Birders Club to the Rockfish Valley Trail, a local birding hotspot in Nelson County.  I had high hopes for the trip, as the Rockfish Valley Trail tends to be a very productive place for finding uncommon and rare migrants in the fall, with Philadelphia vireo and Lincoln's sparrows often present.  Only a few weeks previously I'd had one of the best mornings of birding in my life there, finding Philadelphia vireo and blue-winged, Connecticut and mourning warblers.  Around this time of year last year, my brother and I had two marsh wrens.  Six young birders attended the trip.

We walked under Route 151, doing our best to avoid getting our feet wet in the water overflowing from the South Fork of the Rockfish River.  The day was cool and cloudy but not unpleasantly so.  We encountered a large flock of song sparrows in a dense tangle of pokeweed and began scanning them for Lincoln's.   We didn't find any Lincoln's in that flock but saw a few swamp sparrows.  As we were walking along a mowed path through a dense, brushy field, a tiny, bright yellow bird dropped out of a tree and into the grass.  Curious about what this could be so late in the year, we went to investigate.  The bird popped up onto a low branch of a black walnut tree for a few seconds, and I saw it was a Wilson's warbler.

We continued around the loop towards the back of the field, where we encountered more sparrows.  I put my binoculars up to one and saw that it had a yellowish malar, gray supercilium and a yellowish breast covered in super fine, dark streaks --- a Lincoln's sparrow.  I think everyone got on the bird, although it soon hopped back down into the brush.

A flock of purple finches flew over and landed in the branches of a leafless oak.  We soon began hearing more purple finch calls, and several other flocks joined the first.  By the end of the day we counted 34 in small flyover and foraging flocks.  It was still early in the year for purple finches and seeing them in these numbers was encouraging for a good winter for them in our area.

As we rounded the bend in the path a flock of birds flew up into a tree.  One appeared to be a Catharus thrush, which my brother got on and said looked like a gray-cheeked.  We slowly crept to the other side of the tree so as not to scare the thrush again and saw that it was indeed a gray-cheeked thrush.  We re-found the Wilson's warbler and a late Eastern wood-pewee nearby.

Once we got back to the top of the loop where we first saw the Wilson's warbler, we paused for a bit to listen.  I heard a yellowthroat chipping in a large patch of common mugwort, so I went to investigate.  I found the yellowthroat and a couple of palm warblers, and I was just about to return to the group when Baxter called that he thought he had a Connecticut warbler.  The group assembled behind him and we slowly advanced towards the bird, which was entirely obscured by the dense mugwort.  I got a brief glimpse of the bird through the vegetation and saw a large warbler with a pale gray hood and a thin eye ring.  Suddenly the bird lifted off and flew to the end of the mugwort patch, followed a second later by a similar looking bird.  There were two of them!  Chaos ensued as everyone tried to see the birds while we debated their ID's.  Eventually we cornered the two birds in a corner of the mugwort patch, and everyone got a decent look.  Their eye rings, although fairly extensive, were not complete, making them mourning warblers, not Connecticuts.  Finding two of them was still extremely exciting, and it was a Nelson County high count.  We photographed a beautiful blue-headed vireo in a willow along the river on our way back towards the cars.

The next location for the trip was State Route 610, a quiet mountain road that can sometimes have good migrants.  When we arrived the area was totally quiet.  We had to walk down the road for five minutes before we even heard a bird, which was a pileated woodpecker.  I did not give up hope, as I'd birded up here many times before when it first appeared very slow but then incredible bird activity occurred in explosive bursts.  Sure enough, a few minutes later the forest suddenly rang with a cacophony of warbler chips, and birds could be seen moving in every tree.  The vast majority of the warblers were blackpoll, but we also found several other species including Tennessee, Cape May, bay-breasted, pine and black-throated green.  Kinglets were also present in high numbers --- we had fifteen golden-crowned and five ruby-crowned on a small stretch of road.  I spotted a red-eyed vireo, which was beginning to get late, as well as another blue-headed vireo.

​Rockfish Valley Trail and State Route 610 did not let us down!

by Ezra Staengl
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Highland Retreat Saw-whet Owl Banding

11/4/2018

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The Blue Ridge Young Birders Club had a field trip to the Highland Retreat banding station in Broadway, Rockingham. This banding station focuses on Northern Saw-whet Owl, a small owl that migrates through Virginia in the winter. Traps are set up to catch a bird, and if these birds were caught then we would be able to see them being banded. We hoped many would be caught, since last year no owls were caught that night. We waited inside the building while someone went to check the traps. They came back a few minutes later with a tiny owl in a small bag. They put the owl into a small container and weighed it. The bird was big enough that we could tell it was a female. They took the owl out of the bag and we got to see it get banded.
The owls were pretty cooperative, and let the banders put the bands on their legs. This way, if they were caught again, they could tell it was the same owl. The banders had to tell the age of the owl for data, so they turned on an ultraviolet light and could tell that the bird was two years old from looking at the wings. We photographed the owls some, and then the banders took the owl back outside. They would soon be released back into the wild.After a little while, someone went to check the nets and came back with another Saw-whet Owl. We could not tell the gender of this bird, but could tell it was a one year old bird. We all photographed the owls and even got to hold them. After we held them, we went outside and saw the release of both owls. We took off the cover, and the owl sat on the table for a couple minutes before flying off. The second owl we had caught stayed on the table for a long time. We're not sure how long it stayed, because it was still on the table even when we left. We left the Highland Retreat banding station satisfied with the two owls we got to see. It was fun to see how the owls were banded. It was a successful trip to see Northern Saw-whet Owls!
Picture

by Ira Lianez
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November Club Meeting

11/4/2018

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​6 young birders came for the November meeting. We had asked experienced local birder Pete Myers to come and talk about photography. He taught us some tips for using cameras and showed us some of his amazing photographs. He showed us that we don't have to travel far to get good pictures of birds; most of his photos were taken in his backyard! He also showed us how he uses his camera. Thank you to Pete Myers for coming to meeting! We also planned some winter field trips, and after the meeting so of the birders stayed to photograph the many Purple Finches that were coming to the feeders at Ivy Creek.
Picture
The young birders with Pete Myers

​by Ira Lianez
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    Young Birder's Blog

    BRYBC members take turns sharing field trip reports, musings about their bird encounters, meeting highlights and club history.  

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