Twelve people showed up at the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship in northwestern Loudon for the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy’s regular (every 4th Saturday of the month) bird walk. After meeting at the Education Center on the north side we drove to the parking area at the end of Sawmill Rd. After walking there for a couple of hours about half of us drove over to where Arnold Rd crosses under the power lines to see if we could add a seventh woodpecker species to the six we’d already found. While we didn’t succeed we did see another American Kestrel, an Eastern Meadowlark, and a Red-tailed Hawk.
The highlights of the walk included two American Kestrels, five Ring-billed Gulls (unusual in western Loudoun County and generally only seen during migration), numerous flocks of between 150 and 200 Canada Geese flying north high in the sky for the first hour or so, and a single Eastern Meadowlark.
For a complete list of the birds see the eBird list below.
Information on the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship can be found at http://www.blueridgecenter.org. Information on the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and its many free activities can be found at www.loudounwildlife.org.
Joe Coleman & Del Sargent
Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship, Loudoun, Virginia, US Feb 25, 2017 7:45 AM – 10:45 AM
Protocol: Traveling
1.7 mile(s)
Comments: Regularly scheduled bird walk at BRCES; met at Education Center & drove down to the parking lot at the end of Sawmill. After walking there about 1/2 of us went over to Arnold Rd where it goes under the power line and had great views of open fields and saw another American Kestrel, an Eastern Meadowlark, a Red-tailed Hawk, and a few more species.
38 species
Canada Goose 800 — for the first hour or so observed several flocks of between a 150 and 200 geese each flock migrating north high in the sky
Black Vulture 10
Turkey Vulture 12
Red-shouldered Hawk 2
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Killdeer 8
Ring-billed Gull 5
Mourning Dove 4
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 2
Downy Woodpecker 4
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 2
Pileated Woodpecker 2
American Kestrel 2
Blue Jay 3
American Crow 20
Fish Crow 1
Carolina Chickadee 12
Tufted Titmouse 12
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
Carolina Wren 8
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Eastern Bluebird 8
American Robin 2
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 5
Field Sparrow 4
Fox Sparrow 1
White-throated Sparrow 8
Song Sparrow 8
Swamp Sparrow 2
Eastern Towhee 1
Northern Cardinal 5
Red-winged Blackbird 6
Eastern Meadowlark 1
Common Grackle 2
American Goldfinch 2
View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S34791563
This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)