October 27, 2007 Bird Report

BIRDING THE BLUE RIDGE CENTER - On the fourth Saturday of each month (except December) the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy leads a bird walk at the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship (BRCES). This beautiful 900-acre preserve is located on Harpers Ferry Road, Rt. 671, in northwestern Loudoun County. Only a few miles south of Harpers Ferry and the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, the property includes meadows in the valley and heavily forested slopes on the Blue Ridge. We'll meet at the Neersville Volunteer Fire Station on Rt. 671 at 8:00 a.m. the morning of the walk.Questions: contact Joe Coleman, 540-554-2542, [email protected]

Next walk scheduled for Saturday, November 24, 2007.

Here's what Joe reports from the walk on October 27 - On the morning's walk at the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship in northwestern Loudoun County, we had a pretty good fall day and found a fair number of birds including an AMERICAN WOODCOCK, lots of PALM WARBLERS, both eastern and western, 9 sparrow species, as well as several flocks, some pretty large, of CEDAR WAXWINGS, and a CATBIRD. While the morning started out overcast (one couldn't tell there were mountains on both sides of us) it cleared within an hour or so and turned into a beautiful day.

The AMERICAN WOODCOCK, was seen on the Birds of a Feather Trail, not far from the Visitor's Center. It flushed into the woods where it sat for a fair amount of time before walking away. We spent most of our time in the unmowed meadows and edge habitat near the Visitor Center where most of the sparrows and PALM WARBLERS were. The wood pile immediately to the south of the Visitor's Center was very productive for sparrows and PALM WARBLERS. There were at least 4 LINCOLN'S SPARROWS and about the same number of SAVANNAH SPARROWS, 15-20 WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS and easily 15 PALM WARBLERS, including three westerns, in various different spots.

While the trails at BRCES are usually open to the public 7 days aweek from dawn to dusk, it will be closed a lot for controlled deer hunts this Fall — check the BRCES website for those dates and times and to make sure that nothing special is going on that would limit access to some part of the Center.

Information on the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy can be found at www.loudounwildlife.org.

We observed:
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
American Kestrel
AMERICAN WOODCOCK
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe (3)
Blue Jay
American Crow
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Carolina Wren
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Gray Catbird
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
PALM WARBLER 15-20
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
LINCOLN'S SPARROW
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
House Finch
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow