Birds, Bats, and Blossoms

This evening I made my obligatory visit to see the famous cherry trees and do a little birding. The blooming of the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin is one of the annual markers of spring in Washington, DC. The plantings here originated as a gift of 3,020 trees from the City of Tokyo in 1912. The trees are mostly of the Yoshino cherry variety, with several other types mixed in as well. In their peak blooming period, the trees look like they support a delicate snowfall.

The walkways of the Tidal Basin become packed with pedestrians during the trees' peak blooming period. Even on a weekday evening - generally off-peak for visitors - it was still pretty crowded in places. Since the walkways have no guardrails, this necessitates paying close attention to where the water is and where other people are. This is not good for anyone with a bad sense of balance or with fear of heights. I am surprised that there are not more stories of people falling into the water here.

But, onto the birds.... I started off my birding by mistaking a great black-backed gull for a bald eagle. I saw the dark wings and white head and tail of the distant bird, and my mind leapt to a more desirable conclusion. My mistaken first impression was soon corrected when I looked at it through my bionculars.

One American coot still lingers on the Washington Channel, and a few lesser scaup were in the Potomac. I did not see any of the grebes or other waterbirds that have been reported from this area for the past few weeks. But the spring birds are arriving. Double-crested cormorants continue to pass through in small flocks. At least one osprey was working on the nest on the railroad bridge; I expect a pair will breed there again this year.

Near the DC WWI memorial, I saw several bats swooping in and out of the tree canopy. It was still light enough to get a look with my binoculars. Bats are very hard to track with binoculars - even harder than swifts and swallows because they fly so fast and so erratically. I think these were probably big brown bats. (An inventory of bats on the National Mall in 2003 found big brown bats to be in the vast majority.)

SPECIES SEEN: 17

Double-crested Cormorant
Canada Goose
Mallard
Lesser Scaup
Osprey
American Coot
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Downy Woodpecker
American Robin
American Crow
European Starling
House Sparrow
Common Grackle

---

If, like me, you have a distaste for walking in heavy crowds, here are some suggestions for alternate times and locations for seeing cherry trees in the area. Some of them are good birding spots, too.

In the last week or so, a lot of people have come here looking for a "cherry blossom webcam," or something of that sort. If you have come here looking for one, try visiting the National Park Service, which has its own Cherry Blossom Web Camera. There is also a series time-lapse photographs of the flowers blooming provided by the Washington Post.

Tags:

• Birding
• National Mall
• Cherry Blossoms

I and the Bird #20

This week, I and the Bird completes its second decade with a new installment. It is hosted at bootstrap analysis, one of the better bird blogs around, so if you are visiting there for the first time, take a look around the archives as well as visiting the linked posts.

There are a lot of blank spots in the upcoming hosting schedule for I and the Bird. Participating in a blog carnival is a great way to build an audience for your blog; hosting one is even better. If you have participated before and would like to try hosting, contact Mike and set up a week to do it.

Tags:

• Blog carnivals

Loose Feathers #36

News and links about birds, birding, and the environment.

• New Jersey's Department of Fish and Wildlife has a webcam of a peregrine falcon nestbox in Jersey City. As of Monday, no eggs had been laid, but there is a pair actively preparing for nesting.
• MapMuse.com now has a page devoted to birding clubs. It looks like it may be useful for travelling birders or new residents in an area.
• The National Park Service has released species lists for the Blue Ridge Parkway, including one bird list for the entire parkway and several for smaller sections of it. There are also checklists for amphibians, reptiles, fish, and mammals.
• A week ago, I mentioned that the DC Circulator was adding a new route around the National Mall; a map of that route has now been posted online.
• American robins are common in this country, but one found in London is causing a stir.
• The recovery program for Kirtland's warblers in Michigan includes gathering cones from jack pines at a state-run nursery for reforestation projects around the state. Cones from jack pines normally only open after a forest fire, but this program opens them mechanically and seeds them in a greenhouse.

Tags:

• Bird News

America's Most Endangered Birds

The National Audubon Society this week published online its list of the Top 10 Most Endangered Birds in North America. The list was published as a way to draw attention to recent proposals in Congress to weaken the Endangered Species Act. Here is the list (pdf):

1. Ivory-billed Woodpecker
2. California Condor
3. Whooping Crane
4. Gunnison Sage-Grouse
5. Kirtland’s Warbler
6. Piping Plover
7. Florida Scrub-Jay
8. Ashy Storm-Petrel
9. Golden-cheeked Warbler
10. Kittlitz’s Murrelet

Audubon's presentation highlights species across a range of bird families and with different habitat needs, showing the array of threats to birds and challenges to conservationists. The report includes a separate section listing the most endangered birds of Hawaii.

Like nuthatch, I wondered about the wisdom of leading the list with the ivory-billed woodpecker given the continuing controversy over the validity of the CLO's findings in Arkansas. But this list was prepared at some point last year; I received a pamphlet from NAS during the fall that had this list with the same species on it. I wonder why it took them so long to release this on their website.

Tags:

• Conservation

Birds of the Mid-Atlantic #4: Unusual Mallards

Among the many challenges faced by a beginning birder is how to handle birds that do not look quite right. Most birds look more or less like the pictures in the field guides; others show a range of variation, but are close enough to identify with a minimum of difficulty. Yet others can differ quite substantially, particularly in plumage. In some cases this is due to albinism or leucism, variations in which a bird is extraordinary white-colored. In other cases, melanism - extreme darkness - is the cause. Hybridization is another frequent cause of variation.

Some bird groups are more prone to these than others. Rock pigeons, for one, are well-known for occurring in many different color morphs, probably thanks to selective breeding of domesticated pigeons. Waterfowl, especially the common mallards, are also highly variable.

On a recent walk I ran into this odd pair.

The two ducks pictured above are both mallards, a male and a female. They seemed to be a pair since they stuck close by each other for the whole time I observed them. I have seen these two before at the same location, and each time they appeared to be together.

What appears so unusual about these two is that the female is extremely light, and the male is extremely dark. Unfortunately, because the light was not ideal, the contrast does not come through completely in these photographs.

While most female mallards are a medium-brown, this bird was a very light brown, almost sandy-colored. The contrast between light and dark patches on her body was much stronger than on a normal mallard.

Her apparent consort was, in turn, far darker than normal male mallards. The head was dark green, as on most males. His breast was duller than the chestnut that characterizes mallards. But the contrast was most noticeable on the wings and flanks. These parts on a normal male are generally pale to medium gray. On this bird, both wings and flanks were a very dark gray-brown.

Both of these birds are clearly mallards, but appear much different from other members of their species. So, how does one make this identification with confidence? In a case like this, shape and behavior hold the key. These two birds were associating closely with a large flock of mallards, and engaging in the same sorts of activities as the rest: combing through the grass while on the shore, and dabbling for food while in the water. The close association with mallards allowed me to compare the relative size and bill shape with the other mallards in the area. All shape and size characteristics matched well. These are not the best photographs, but even from these, you can see that the underlying plumage patterns match those of mallards.

I think that these two are not hybrids. Usually hybrids show elements of both species involved. The most common mallard hybrid is a cross with a black duck. Some keys for identifying this cross are found here. Photographic examples can be found here.

Cross-posted at Blue Ridge Gazette.

Tags:

• Birds
• Mallards

Weird Searches

Among other features, Site Meter has a tool that allows a website owner to see what keywords people use to find a blog. Most people who come across my blog via a search come here with keywords like "birding" or similarly on-topic expressions. Other ones are rather off-topic, sometimes to the point of making me wonder whether people were seriously searching for those keywords or how those words led someone to my site.

So, what sorts of things are people looking for?

• northern flicker, how they affect human
• where would the nile river end if it started in washington dc
• What does it mean when a bird is in your house
• columbia carolinensis reproduced from the elephant
• birds of eastern canada namely doves
• sex pictures blogs
• Geoffrey Chaucer Hath A Blog
• danger hazard sparrow excrement
• presidents with bad eyesight
• penguins native to New Jersey
• imports
• Big cat sightings in Ohio - 2006
• Brooklyn Parrots attacking people
• cartoon beaver
• james audubon print red throated driver
• "and otherwise"
• guantanamo bay fishing regulations
• Buying Land on the Raystown
• the color green
  

I think someone at Guantanamo Bay would have more to worry about than fishing regulations.

And from my other blog:

• ulysses s grant and the beer
• cheney girlfriend blog
  

That's all for now. I am sure I will have more in the future. For the time being, see bootstrap analysis for much funnier ones.

10,000

This evening A DC Birding Blog had its 10,000th visitor! Apparently my blog has international appeal, because this visitor came from Victoria, Australia at 5:04 pm EST (8:04 am on March 26 in Australian time). This is one of my very few readers from Australia. The vast majority of visitors are from the United States.

Thanks to everyone who has visited in the last nine months.

Searching Questions

As I have mentioned before, the SiteMeter reports for my blog include information about internet searches that led people here. Sometimes these tend towards the silly, and believe me, I have some more of those coming up soon. But more often than not, the searches reflect information that people want to find. So in this post I will attempt to answer some of them.

How did wood warblers get their name?

This question is difficult to answer, because I am not sure if this person wanted information about the name of the entire family, or names of individual species. I will assume the former, since the latter would take too long to answer. "Warbler" is used to refer to two types of birds, Old World Warblers (Family Sylviidae) and New World, or Wood, Warblers (Family Parulidae). Very few Old World Warblers breed in the Americas; the only representative is the Arctic Warbler. Wood Warblers, on the other hand, are widespread throughout North and South America. There are 116 species overall, with 53 occurring in North America. Wood warblers do not really warble, which means singing with clear trills and sustained notes; their calls tend to be more buzzy and repetitive. The name "warbler" was most likely attached to the American species due to superficial resemblance to their Old World cousins, and "wood" is attached as a modifier to distinguish the two distinct families.

What types of animals are in Jamaica Bay?

There are, in fact, many types of animals in Jamaica Bay, New York. One place to start would be the Jamaica Bay Unit of the Gateway National Recreation Area. There you can find a list of the bird species recorded in Jamaica Bay (link opens pdf). That does not answer for all animals, but it is a start.

How dangerous is a hurricane?

It depends on the strength of the storm. See the NOAA website for an explanation of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale and what sort of damage can be expected. Hurricane Katrina (pdf) was a Category 3 storm when it made landfall on the Louisiana-Mississippi border in 2005.

Does wind effect woodcock display?

The USFWS seems to think that wind may suppress woodcock activity, since it schedules woodcock counts on days without wind or other adverse weather conditions.

Why do my pigeons lose their feathers?

All birds molt every feather at least once a year. Feathers wear down from exposure to the weather and use in flight. Molting keeps them fresh and suitable for flight and insulation. Some captive birds engage in feather-plucking, in which the bird deliberately chews or plucks its feathers, much like we bite our fingernails. Sometimes this is the result of disease and other times it may be the result of boredom or frustration.

When do Washington, D.C., robins migrate?

Many robins have become nonmigratory in recent years due to two reasons. One is that winters have become warmer, making it easier to find worms and other invertebrates for food. Robins have also benefited from the surge in backyard bird feeding, which provides an alternate source of food during subfreezing snaps. There are, however, migratory movements of robins. Northward migration in this area starts in March, and southward migration peaks in September and October. For more information, see bootstrap analysis and the DC Audubon webpage.

Tags:

• Birds
• Warblers
• Jamaica Bay
• Hurricane
• Woodcock
• Feathers
• Robins

Blue Crabs on the Rise?

The blue crab population in the Chesapeake appears to be coming back after a decade of being in desperate straits.

The estimate of 487 million crabs in the bay last year does not approach the roughly 751 million of a decade ago. On Hoopers Island alone, several crab-picking houses have closed in recent years. Of the 6,000 licensed crabbers in Maryland, about 1,500 are earning a living from their catch. Other watermen have taken up jobs driving trucks or fishing for scallops in the Atlantic.

By the late 1990s, the dwindling of the crab population had begun to cause real alarm.

"It got to the point where 2000 rolled around, and there was just a lot of concern about whether this fishery would stay alive," Fegley said. "We decided we needed to decrease the rate of removal by 15 percent to make the population sustainable."

A stronger population of crabs should help all aspects of the bay's ecology, including the birds that feed on crabs. It should also help the region's economy, since a growing crab population will maintain the industry that depends on a stable source of crabs. Restrictions now will pay off in the future.

Friday Scaup Blogging

One waterfowl species that is characteristic of winter in the Mid-Atlantic region is the lesser scaup. Like the greater scaup of the same genus, the lesser scaup is a species of bays and open water. Unlike mallards and other dabbling ducks, scaup do not tip over to find food underwater. Rather they dive for short periods of time to snatch aquatic invertebrates and plants.

Lesser scaup and greater scaup can be difficult to separate. The best way to identify the two is by the shape of the head and bill. Lesser scaup have a peaked crown at the back of their heads, while greater scaup have a more rounded head. Greater scaup also have a wider bill with a bigger nail. Some sources suggest that lesser scaup have duller, grayer colors, and more purplish heads; greater scaup have brighter colors and greener heads. The field marks based on coloration are generally less reliable, as colors can appear differently under different light conditions.

Large flocks of scaup congregate on the Potomac River and in the Washington Channel during January and February.

Carnivals

• For more animals, see The Modulator's Friday Ark.

Tags:

• Birds
• Lesser Scaup

Loose Feathers #35

News and links about birds, birding, and the environment.

• Readers in New York might be interested in visiting the New York Historical Society, which is exhibiting 40 of John James Audubon's watercolors. The exhibit, called "Audubon's Aviary," includes bird song recordings that play as one approaches the paintings, and a reproduction of Audubon's mounting boards. The exhibit runs through May 7, 2006.
• For Washingtonians, this will be the last weekend to see Audubon's Dream Realized: Selections from "The Birds of America" at the National Gallery of Art. If you have not seen it already, go see it now; it is well worth a couple hours. For my take on the exhibit, see my Birds at the National Gallery.
  
• The British Library has gathered examples of bird mimicry onto a CD. The sounds include a blackbird imitating a computer modem and a bowerbird mimicking construction noises. Visit the link for some sound samples.
• Conservation groups are suing to get endangered species status for the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse.
• A settlement in Washington puts most spotted owl territory on state lands off-limits to logging.
  
• A coyote in Central Park caused a great stir in New York City, and the city went to great pains to track it down and ship it out of town. There seemed to be much puzzlement over how it ended up in the city. My guess is that there are actually many more coyotes in New York City, and possibly even in Central Park. This is rapidly becoming an urban species.
• Geologists are looking for evidence of a meteorite collision in the Chesapeake Bay.

Local birding

• The official report for DC Audubon's field trip to Hughes Hollow is now online, with pictures!

Transportation news

• The Intercounty Connector, which will link Interstates 270 and 95, is about to be approved. This project will cost millions to allow commuters to move easily between the two corridors. I think that the priority for transportation money at this point really ought to be improving the public transit system, and then projects like this after the other needs have been met. For example, there has long been talk of a Metro "Purple Line" to run a circle linking the outer suburbs. This would be a much more efficient, and more environmentally sound, way of accomplishing the same transportation goals.

Carnivals

• The latest Animalcules is up at Science and Politics.
• The next I and the Bird will be hosted at Bootstrap Analysis. Make sure to send Nuthatch your submissions by Tuesday evening.
  

DC Conservation Strategy

Among its many departments the DC government has an Environmental Health Administration, which in turn includes a Fisheries and Wildlife Division. (Many people seem surprised to learn of the existence of these programs.) In recent years the DC government has stepped up its attempts to restore and improve the remaining habitats within the District, particularly along the Anacostia River.

To guide that restoration process, the biologists of the Fisheries and Wildlife Division have prepared a Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy for Washington, D.C., as required by the federal government. Similar strategies are being drafted by all the other states.

The document identifies species of concern, what sorts of habitats they require, and current threats to those habitats or to the species' survival. This includes an inventory of thirteen habitat types present in Washington. Thirty-five bird species have been identified as being of special conservation concern. (A list can be found here, with conservation actions here.) I must note that this blog's mascot, the cerulean warbler, is among those species, due to its overall decline across eastern North America and because it requires mature riparian forest for breeding.

The document is well worth a read for birders and others interested in the ecology of Washington, D.C.

Tags:

• Birds
• Environment
• Conservation

Bird Flu News

Some recent research has shed light on the reasons why the H5N1 virus has spread much more easily among birds than among humans. Apparently this virus has a harder time infecting the nose and throat of humans and needs to penetrate all the way into the lower respiratory tract. This also makes it more dangerous when it does manage to infect a human.

Virologists have known for years that human flu viruses attach through a sugar "linkage" designated alpha 2,6. The vast family of avian flu viruses favors a linkage with a different shape, designated alpha 2,3.

A research team led by Kyoko Shinya at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Tokyo looked at what cells in the human respiratory tract contain which linkage. They found that alpha 2,6 -- the receptor for human flu -- predominated in the nose and down the airways to the microscopic passageways that lead to the air sacs, or alveoli. At that point, cells with the alpha 2,3 linkage -- the receptor for bird viruses -- become common. Human viruses attached to the upper airways, while avian viruses attached to cells deep in the lungs.

The Japanese researchers, who published their findings in Nature, also tested an H5N1 virus taken from a person who died of bird flu in Hong Kong in 2003. That microbe's hemagglutinin recognized both the human and bird linkages, and it attached to cells from nose to lung. Most H5N1 samples isolated from people do not generally follow that pattern. The ability to bind to alpha 2,6 human receptors is one of several features that would have to become dominant for the H5N1 virus to become easily transmitted from human to human.

Let's hope that H5N1's sugar linkages do not change to alpha 2,3.

Tags:

• Bird Flu

Ducks, Grebes, and Spring Along the Potomac

Late this afternoon I took a walk around Hains Point and the Tidal Basin to look for any water birds that might be passing through. Unfortunately the strong northwest winds continue to stall northbound migrants, but there were still some good birds around.

The Washington Channel had a pied-billed grebe and a few American coots in addition to the normal masses of ring-billed gulls and mallards. Gull numbers have been way down in the last few weeks. A couple of odd-looking mallards have started hanging around the channel. (I will post a few pictures of them later.) One is extremely dark and the other is very light; they seem to be a pair.

On the river side, there continue to be large flocks of lesser scaup, though not quite as many as a couple weeks ago. Near the bridges I spotted a couple of horned grebes among the lesser scaup, my first of the year for DC. A bad picture of the two grebes (along with some lesser scaup) is at right.

Some ducks continue to use the Tidal Basin, at least at times when the paddle boats are docked. A small flock of waterbirds near the western end of the basin included hooded mergansers, lesser scaup, and rakish red-breasted mergansers.

At the same time as migrants are passing through and departing, some newly-arrived birds are settling in and preparing to breed. Ospreys have returned, and they are busy repairing their usual nest at the western end of the 14th Street railroad bridge.

The trees along the Tidal Basin and the Potomac waterfront are breaking into blossoms. The famous cherry trees, like the one pictured at right, are still not quite in bloom. But the walkways along the river are now clothed with vibrant greens, reds, whites, and other colors. The photograph below is looking north along the Potomac River, with a cherry tree in the foreground, and weeping willows in the background.


SPECIES SEEN: 34

Pied-billed Grebe
Horned Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Canada Goose
Mallard
Lesser Scaup
Hooded Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Osprey
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Coot
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
American Herring Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Downy Woodpecker
Carolina Wren
American Robin
Carolina Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
American Crow
Fish Crow
European Starling
House Sparrow
House Finch
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle

Tags:

• Birding
• Hains Point

Anyone Lose a Fish?

Carnival of the Vanities #183

Blogger Idol is hosting the 183rd Carnival of the Vanities. This week's edition includes my post on American woodcocks. Wander over there for that and other superior blogging.

Tags:

• Carnivals

Loose Feathers #34

News and links about birds, birding, and the environment.

• A survey by the British Trust for Ornithology and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds shows that many species of long-distance migrants have decreased in numbers up to 70-90%. Leading the way was the lesser redpoll, down 88.9%. Many species of old world warblers showed similar declines. A few species such as the coal, blue, and great tits have increased over 25%.
• Double-crested cormorants are getting the blame for brown trout declines on the Great Lakes. The USDA and Michigan DNR are preparing to reduce cormorant numbers.
• Here is a webcam for bald eagles nesting in Maine.
• The Detroit Free Press urges the federal government to restore funds for cowbird control in areas where Kirtland's warblers breed: "But endangered species work is out of favor in Washington, where anti-government activists famously talk about tax cuts as a tool for 'starving the beast.' Too bad, apparently, if that also includesstarving baby warblers."
• On Long Island, New York, the nesting needs of piping plovers are coming into contact with large colonies of feral cats - and the people who care for them.
• Researchers have found frogs in China that can sing like birds.
• This should come as no surprise: American companies lag behind those in Europe and Asia when it comes to reducing their contributions to global warming.
• A study published in the Journal of Avian Biology has found that Australian whipbirds have regional variations in the songs sung by females (but not by males). (Link via DL)

Non-birds

• What is the deal with the Washington Post hiring a conservative blogger - Ben Domenech - to provide "balance" to their website? It is not so much his conservative views that I object to, as his propensity for pure partisanship and online flamewars regardless of reason; these should have no place in a serious publication with pretensions to objectivity. He has already started the usual conservative bashing of the "mainstream media," seeming not to realize that he is now a part of it. Among other things he is a creationist, and he has connections to Jack Abramoff. As FireDogLake says, "Fly, little wingnut, fly."

Inuit and Global Warming

Climate change is changing the way of life in the Arctic Circle.

The global warming felt by wildlife and increasingly documented by scientists is hitting first and hardest here, in the Arctic where the Inuit people make their home. The hardy Inuit -- described by one of their leaders as "sentries for the rest of the world" -- say this winter was the worst in a series of warm winters, replete with alarms of the quickening transformation that many scientists believe will spread from the north to the rest of the globe.

The Inuit -- with homelands in Alaska, Canada, Greenland and northern Russia -- saw the signs of change everywhere. Metuq hauled his fishing shack onto the ice of Cumberland Sound last month, as he has every winter, confident it would stay there for three months. Three days later, he was astonished to see the ice break up, sweeping away his shack and $6,000 of turbot fishing gear.

Tags:

• Global Warming

Forests for Sale

Somehow I missed this story in my earlier postings... Tens of millions of acres of forests are being sold to private developers or being cut for timber.

A recent U.S. Forest Service study predicted that more than 44 million acres of private forest land, an area twice the size of Maine, will be sold over the next 25 years. The consulting firm U.S. Forest Capital estimates that half of all U.S. timberland has changed hands in the past decade. The Bush administration also wants to sell off forest land, by auctioning more than 300,000 acres of national forest to fund a rural school program.

In many cases, the private ownership is being driven to sell by changes in the lumber industry that make operations less profitable or by pressures for development.

Conservation groups are trying to stem the tide, but non-profit organizations can only buy so much land. The Conservation Fund, for example, will raise and spend $48 million to protect 16,000 acres. Actions like this are important, but a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of acres that may be up for sale.

Tags:

• Environment
• Conservation

Loose Feathers #33

News and links about birds, birding, and the environment.

• Pharyngula has a post up about a fossilized penguin that shows signs of being remarkably old, old enough that its discoverers are pushing back the date for when modern birds split off from dinosaurs.
• BP's safety and maintenance practices are being investigated by the Department of Transportation as the result of the recent oil spill from a pipeline maintained by BP on Alaska's North Slope.
• One blogger is making regular updates on the hummingbirds nesting in her backyard in Las Vegas.
• Jim Hansen carried his message about global warming to 60 Minutes this week. (Link via DailyKos.) Crooks and Liars has the video.
• The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has filed a petition asking the Dorchester County Circuit Court to review the proposed development near Blackwater NWR.
• Christie Whitman's legacy in New Jersey: parks and open space with no funding for basic maintenance.
• Meanwhile, national parks are having trouble managing wildlife diseases.
• Speaking of diseases, the Interior, Agriculture, and HHS departments have announced plans to test up to 100,000 wild birds this year for H5N1. There was little word in the article about whether domestic poultry - the source of influenza's spread - would receive similarly thorough treatment.
  

Snow

Well, what do you know? It is snowing on the first full day of spring. It is kind of funny considering that we hardly got any throughout the winter. Fortunately for cherry blossom aficianados, it appears that snow and below-average temperatures should not have much impact on the cherry blossoms.

Tags:

• Weather

Koufax Awards Final Voting

The final round of voting for the 2005 Koufax Awards is now open. For those of you unfamiliar with this process, the Koufax Awards recognize outstanding liberal ("lefty") blogging. As difficult as it was to pick among the nominees in the semi-finals, it will be even harder to pick among the finalists. Rules for voting are here; visit the Wampum blog to vote in the comment threads for the various categories or send them an email.

Categories: Best blog, non-sponsored; Best blog community; Best blog, sponsored/professional; Best series; Best state or local blog; Best group blog; Best writing; Best new blog; Best blog commenter; Most humorous post; Best single issue blog; Best expert blog; Best post; Most humorous blog; Most deserving of wider recognition

Unfortunately it looks like none of my blog-pals who were nominated made it into the finals, but there are still quite a few that I read among the finalists. In any case, take a look through those links; plenty of worthy bloggers listed there.

Tags:

• Blogging
• Liberalism

Birds of the Mid-Atlantic #3: Tree Swallow

Within the past week our area has seen an influx of tree swallows. The numbers are not quite as high as they will be in another month. But the flocks we are seeing are more than a trickle; they represent the beginnings of a major northward push. I saw my first swallows here in DC on Saturday at the National Arboretum. I then saw a lot more of them on Sunday at Hughes Hollow in Montgomery County, Maryland. Other reports of tree swallows have been appearing on birding lists all over the region.

Photo by James C. Leupold / USFWS

Tree swallows are among the earliest songbirds to migrate north in the spring. They are typically the first swallows to arrive. Like eastern phoebes, they able to migrate early because their diet is varied enough to survive short cold snaps. Unlike other swallows, they will eat seeds and berries if insects are scarce or unavailable. Thus if it should happen to snow the day after spring begins, they have a backup plan.

These easily-recognizable birds are characteristic of wetlands, which provide the steady stream of insect food that these swallows need to raise broods. Identifying tree swallows is a matter first of learning to follow swiftly-moving airborne birds with binoculars. (This can be quite fun, if a bit dizzying.) Once that skill is mastered, one can distinguish tree swallows from the rest by their glossy blue top parts and their all-white undersides. Juvenile tree swallows have all-white undersides but brown upperparts. The juveniles can be tricky to separate from northern rough-winged swallows and bank swallows.

In the past half-century, tree swallows have greatly expanded their breeding range in Maryland, thanks to the placement of nest boxes in suitable habitat. Where once they were confined to the Eastern Shore, they can now be found throughout the state, including the western mountains.

Cross-posted at Blue Ridge Gazette

Tags:

• Birds
• Tree Swallow

Spring

Today is the first day of spring according to the solar calendar, but the weather does not seem to be paying much attention. We could get a minor snowstorm tomorrow:

Light snow should begin falling shortly after sunrise tomorrow, and it may not stop until midnight, National Weather Service meteorologist Nikole Listemaa said today. The largest accumulations are expected to the north and west of the District, she said.

"In the Washington area, we have a very, very slight chance of some snow tonight," Listemaa said. "By dawn, we think there's a 60 percent chance of precipitation, and we think it will turn to snow. We could have a changeover to snow and sleet in the afternoon. Then, after sunset, we expect a changeover to all snow. "

I doubt this will have much impact, but in Washington, you never know. It does seem appropriate that we begin spring with a snowstorm after a winter that rarely lived up to its name.

Tags:

• Weather
• Seasons

Global Warming and Riverine Ecosystems

Even a small degree of global warming will have large effects on ecosystems, and ultimately on us. Take, for example, the rivers in upstate New York and New England, where reduced ice cover is changing the life along the river.

Lilliputian wildflowers will soon line the Hudson's banks. In what are known as riverside ice meadows, an ancient cycle of ice formation and melting gives rise to swamp candles, ladies'-tresses, wood lilies and other rare, diminutive flowers.

In New York's Adirondack Mountains, ice that forms on the river in winter is pushed onto its banks in spring; there it scours the sloping cobble shores, keeping them free of shrubs and small trees and leaving space for wildflowers to sprout in fragile, arctic-like ice meadows.

But the future for these floral pixies, which depend on late-melting river ice, is bleak. The number of days of ice on northeastern rivers has declined significantly in recent winters, said hydrologist Glenn Hodgkins of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Maine Water Science Center in Augusta.

The trend could spell disaster for the ice meadows. It also signals trouble ahead for endangered Atlantic salmon and other fish, for wetlands plants and animals, and for Northern economies, all of which are sustained by winters with icy rivers.

If the pattern continues, say scientists, only in Currier and Ives prints will ice skaters twirl across frozen New England rivers.

"Northeastern rivers have 20 fewer days of ice cover each winter now than they did in 1936," said Hodgkins, who said the total now averages 92 days. "A lot of that decrease has occurred since the 1960s."

Like so many other environmental problems, changes due to global warming will have an impact on us.

"Lack of ice on rivers severely affects fish, especially anadromous fish like endangered Atlantic salmon," said Trial, a biologist at the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission in Bangor. "Ice cover insulates rivers and streams, protecting young salmon from cold. Without that cover, the salmon are also more susceptible to predators." Bald eagles, for example, are able to snare their piscine prey only from open water.

Atlantic salmon are in peril for several reasons, but scientists Terry Prowse and Joseph Culp of the National Hydrology Research Center of Environment Canada in Saskatoon, say lack of river ice has the potential to kill large numbers of salmon eggs, as well as juvenile and adult fish.

The most difficult winter situation for salmon and other fish, biologists say, is on-again, off-again ice cover: rivers that freeze over one week and then are open the next.

If the salmon population dies off - along with reductions of other fish populations - there is going to be a lot less for people to eat.

Photo of Ladies Tresses Orchid by Gary M. Stolz / USFWS.

Tags:

• Global Warming
• Environment

Hughes Hollow

This morning I attended DC Audubon's field trip to Hughes Hollow. Located in Montgomery County, MD, near the C&O Canal, Hughes Hollow is a wildlife management area that consists of manmade lakes and wetlands, forests, and fields. The diverse habitats draw a diverse array of wildlife, including many bird species that are more difficult to find in the District.

Tree swallows were back, and somehow managed to find food despite the subfreezing overnight temperatures. Actually the cold spell has not been all that bad, since afternoon temperatures have consistently risen into the 50s. It was warm enough for at least one butterfly - one of the commas - to fly today. If butterflies are flying, I am sure that many smaller insects were flying today as well.

The first dike that leads into the refuge turned out to have some of our best sightings for the day. Rusty blackbirds were croaking from the bushes along the dike, along with the more common red-winged blackbirds. The impoundment on the east side held ring-necked ducks, northern shovelers, and Wilson's snipe, while the ones to the west held wood ducks, green-winged teal, and blue-winged teal. It was a joy to see the two teal species because I rarely see either of those around town.

Back in the forest and meadow areas we turned up various songbirds, including red-breasted nuthatch, brown creeper, and eastern bluebird. The refuge was very good for hawks - including two bald eagles flying together - and for woodpeckers, including pileated and sapsucker. A birding couple alerted us to the presence of a hermit thrush.

Because it is part of the McKee-Beshers wildlife management area, Hughes Hollow is open for hunting from fall through spring. Therefore it is advisable for non-hunting visitors to go there on a Sunday, or find out ahead of time what might be happening on other days of the week. This year, turkey hunting season extends well into May. Even today, when there was nominally no hunting, there was a dog-training session going on, which forced us to modify our birding route.


SPECIES SEEN: 50

Pied-billed Grebe
Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
American Wigeon
Green-winged Teal
Mallard
American Black Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Shoveler
Ring-necked Duck
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Bald Eagle
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Wilson's Snipe
Ring-billed Gull
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Tree Swallow
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Carolina Wren
Northern Mockingbird
Eastern Bluebird
Hermit Thrush
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Blue Jay
American Crow
European Starling
Purple Finch
American Goldfinch
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Rusty Blackbird
Common Grackle

Tags:

• Birding
• Hughes Hollow

New Bus Service Around the Mall

The DC Circulator, the alternative bus service to Metrobus, is adding a third route around the National Mall.

The Circulator buses will operate a continuous loop on the streets bordering the Mall, stopping at each of the Smithsonian museums as well as the two National Gallery buildings. Like the two current Circulator routes -- one runs east-west and the other north-south -- the new loop's buses will run every five to 10 minutes and cost $1 a ride, making the fare the cheapest public transportation available downtown. Metrobus is $1.25; Metrorail is $1.35.

The new route will officially begin Tuesday, just days before the March 25 start of the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, which District officials predict will draw about 1 million people to the city. The Circulator plans to begin providing public service on the new route today as a test.

This seems to me like a useful service, since my impression has always been that the Circulator is designed to appeal more to tourists and locals visiting the museums and monuments than to tourists. The bus routes that do criss-cross the Mall do not seem to be particularly well-designed for the casual visitor, but instead serve people passing through on their ways to work. And the Tourmobile complaints cited in the article are irrelevant; people should not be forced to pay $20 to get a ride from one spot on the Mall to another.

Unfortunately a map of the new route is not yet available. I will keep an eye out for it and post it when it comes online.

Tags:

• National Mall

ANWR Back in the News

The Republican-controlled Senate was able to pass a budget bill with the ANWR drilling provision thanks to a shifted vote by Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

A last-minute deal to secure the vote of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) on a $2.8 trillion budget plan has given new life to the Republican drive to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

The budget blueprint for fiscal 2007, which will begin in October, includes a $10 billion Gulf Coast restoration fund that would be financed from the leasing of arctic refuge drilling rights, revenue from new drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf of the Gulf of Mexico and further sales of the broadcast spectrum. With that provision in hand, Landrieu cast the only Democratic vote for the budget resolution, which squeaked through Thursday night, 51 to 49.

"It's not easy being alone on anything. I don't relish this position," Landrieu said. "But, at times, it's necessary."

Republicans, who have been trying to open up the refuge for well over a decade, hope that by explicitly linking oil drilling to Gulf Coast restoration, they can prompt some Democrats to drop their opposition. Under the Senate plan, the funds from oil leases could be used for coastal restoration projects in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama that have long been sought by environmentalists. The fund could also be tapped to rebuild levees damaged last year by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Tying ANWR drilling - a naked handout to oil tycoons - to assistance for victims of one of the worst disasters in American history shows that our current leadership has no shame and will stop at nothing to enrich themselves and their friends.

Tags:

• ANWR
• Environment

Birds at the Arboretum

I made a short birding trip to the Arboretum today to see if anything new had moved into the area. Well, something new had moved in. I was treated to the sight of a half dozen tree swallows catching insects over Beech Spring Pond. It was fun to see that again, even if it was only a few. Soon there will be many of them, at the Arboretum and everywhere else in DC.

The rest of the birds were pretty much the same as last Sunday, with the addition of a great blue heron at Heart Pond. Unfortunately I missed the red-headed woodpecker this time; my guess is that it was still there, but uncooperative. I heard the pine warbler on Hickey Hill but not in the state tree area.

A small flotilla of hooded mergansers was on Heart Pond when I visited that location. They postured a bit with the mallards in the same pond, but for the most part, the two groups stayed separate. The mergansers very noticeably tried to stay on the opposite side of the pond from me. As I made my way around, they kept on the move away from me.

SPECIES SEEN: 32

Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
Mallard
Hooded Merganser
Turkey Vulture
Red-shouldered Hawk
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Phoebe
Tree Swallow
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Carolina Wren
Northern Mockingbird
Eastern Bluebird
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Blue Jay
American Crow
European Starling
Pine Warbler
Eastern Towhee
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal

Tags:

• Birding
• National Arboretum

Loose Feathers #32

News and links about birds, birding, and the environment.

• The Driftwood Wildlife Association is asking birders to report their first sightings of chimney swifts this spring. Go to ChimneySwifts.org to report your sightings. Chimney Swifts are a species of concern because changes in the design of chimneys and other building features have deprived them of traditional nesting sites.
• Laura Erickson has a review of high-end spotting scopes.
• The NY Historical Society has connected several anonymous volumes of bird paintings with a Reformation-era painter and naturalist. Unfortunately neither the Washington Post nor the Historical Society show any examples of his work.
• A federal appeals court has ruled that EPA changes that allow power plants and factories to make changes without updating pollution controls violate the Clean Air Act.
• Bush's nominee for Secretary of the Interior, Dirk Kempthorne, appears to have a similar record to Gale Norton. His record shows a dedication to opening national forests to various forms of resource extraction.
• The Senate's budget bill - passed yesterday - included a provision for drilling in ANWR. It still requires approval from the Senate energy committee.
  

Local birding

• The Snowy Owl is still being seen at Dulles Airport as of yesterday. If you live near DC and still have not seen it, get out and visit before it is too late.
  

Blogging

• Site Meter has a new feature for tracking outbound links.
• Cerado.com has a quiz to see how many people can figure out the difference between Star Wars characters and the names of web 2.0 sites. I scored a 25, mainly by guessing.
  

Whitewash

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the gulls that winter along the Washington Channel make quite a mess of the sidewalk, which becomes quite white by March. Here is what I meant by that.

Tags:

• Birds
• Gulls

Preening at the Docks

As the afternoon draws to a close, the gulls in the Tidal Basin tend to settle down for the evening. One of their favorite afternoon roosts is along the docks at the paddle boat house on the north end of the Tidal Basin. A birder can frequently observe interesting behaviors here. The activity for this afternoon was preening.

A young gull preened on one of the paddle boats.

A few cherry trees in East Potomac Park have begun to bloom.

Check out other animals at this week's Friday Ark.

Tags:

• Birding
• Gulls

Spider Blogging

This spider was sitting on a logging at the National Arboretum on Sunday. I think this is a wolf spider, but I may be mistaken.

Tags:

• Spider

I and the Bird #19

It is time once again for I and the Bird, the blog carnival for wild bird lovers. The latest edition is hosted by Bora at Science and Politics. He includes over forty posts this week, including one of my own. If you like the subjects you read about on this blog, wander over there to read a whole lot more of it.

Tags:

• Blog Carnival

Bad Blogger

Blogger was down for about two hours yesterday, from about 11 am to 1 pm. That made it impossible to post or even to view blogs on the affected servers, the RSS feed still seemed to work on most blog*spot blogs. Is it just me, or has this been happening more frequently lately? I do not remember much trouble during last summer or fall.

Tags:

• Blogging

GBBC Final Results

The Birdchaser has a copy of the press release announcing the final results of the 2006 Great Backyard Bird Count. To view the data, visit the GBBC site. The count recorded a total of 623 species throughout the United States and Canada, and 60,616 checklists were submitted.

Birders in the District of Columbia reported 55 species over the four days of the count. Birds reported included northern harrier, peregrine falcon, yellow-bellied sapsucker, brown creeper, brown thrasher, American tree sparrow, chipping sparrow, fox sparrow, and purple finch.

Tags:

• GBBC
• Bird Counts

Tangled Bank #49

The latest issue of the Tangled Bank, the carnival of science and natural history blogging, is now up at Living the Scientific Life. Wander over there for some interesting reading. I am happy to say that one of my posts was included in this issue. Welcome to anyone coming here via that link.

Loose Feathers #31

News and links about birds, birding, and the environment.

• New Jersey hosted a record 194 wintering bald eagles this year, according to a statewide Midwinter Bald Eagle Survey.
• Parker River NWR is looking for volunteer plover wardens to look after the refuge's population of endangered piping plovers. To learn more about that kind of work, read the past posts from The Plover Warden Diaries.
• Three dozen dead snow geese were recently dumped in a playground in Columbia, MD. Investigators from the Department of Natural Resources decided that there was nothing for them to prosecute.
• The Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) is exhibiting birds killed from flying into skyscrapers during migration. The display is in the Royal Ontario Museum.
• New Jersey is taking monk parakeets off the state's list of dangerous species.
• A study of the end of the last Ice Age indicates that, with future global warming, Greenland's ice sheet is likely to disappear while Antarctica's may increase temporarily. A 1-2 foot increase in sea levels is likely within the next century, and 25 feet in the centuries beyond that.
• You can get the latest news on the Fifth Avenue red-tailed hawks at PaleMale.com.
• Hurricane Katrina altered or destroyed vital habitat for migrating songbirds along the Gulf Coast. Birders there worry about the effects this will have on birds.
  

Upcoming Field Trip

• This Sunday, the DC Audubon Society is running its annual field trip to Hughes Hollow, part of a WMA that mixes impoundments, marsh, and woodlands. See the DCAS webpage for more information and directions.
  

Birds of the Mid-Atlantic #2: American Woodcock

Many bird species have already begun moving north. It may not be immediately apparent to the casual observer, but if you start to look closely you may see some species declining in numbers and others increasing compared to a few weeks ago. One distinctive species that is on the move right now is the American Woodcock.

The American Woodcock belongs to the order Charadriiformes, commonly known as shorebirds. Woodcocks can be easily separated from most other shorebirds by its long bill, short neck and legs, and plump body. The one other shorebird that has a similar shape is the Wilson's Snipe. Unlike snipe, which have white bellies that contrast sharply with heavily streaked breasts, woodcocks have buffy bellies and breasts without significant striping. Woodcocks walk with a bouncing gait as they probe the ground for earthworms.

Photo by Richard Baetsen / USFWS

Both woodcocks and snipe can be difficult to spot because of their cryptic feather patterns. You can walk right past one, or even run your binoculars right over one, without seeing it. If you are lucky, the bird will flush and give you a glimpse of itself. If you are really lucky, the bird will sit out in the open. My one sighting of a woodcock was highly unusual for such encounters. That particular woodcock did not seem to mind a dozen or so people looking at it intently with binoculars.

The best way to observe woodcocks is during their mating rituals. The show starts at dusk in open fields in spring and summer. Male woodcocks will first give a series of buzzy nasal peent calls and then fly high in the air, tracing a fluttering spiral down to the ground while twittering. The twittering sounds associated with this flight are a combination of chirping calls, given vocally, and fluttering sounds made by certain feathers on its wings.

Certain places are known as display grounds for woodcocks on a yearly basis. Near Washington, DC, the fields around Hughes Hollow and Sycamore Landing Road in Montgomery County, MD; and Huntley Meadows in Fairfax County, VA, have reputations as good places to observe the woodcock mating rituals. To find display grounds in your own area, consult local birding guides or email listserves.

See here for sounds and video of this species. This site (scroll down) also has recordings of a woodcock display.

Crossposted at Blue Ridge Gazette.

Tags:

• Birds
• Migration
• American Woodcock

Birds on the Mall

This evening I walked around the west end of the Mall for an hour or two. I started out to see if anything was new at Constitution Gardens. It turned out that only the common birds were there: large flocks of American robins, dark-eyed juncos, common grackles, red-winged blackbirds, and European starlings. The lake has been refilled, so the mallards and ring-billed gulls are back. A northern flicker called repeatedly from high in a tree. The gardens here have a reputation as a migrant trap, so the site bears frequent visitation.

As I walked, I could see small flocks of double-crested cormorants flying high overhead as they followed the course of the Potomac northwest. Later, when I rounded back along the river, there were few birds on it. A small flock of lesser scaup has returned to the Tidal Basin, along with the usual gull species.

This first-year ring-billed gull let out a big yawn as I took its picture. It needs to learn better manners.

Tags:

• Birding
• National Mall

DC Environmental Film Festival

The 14th Annual DC Environmental Film Festival is upon us. The festival begins this Thursday, March 16, and runs through Sunday, March 26. It highlights films that show the beauty of the natural world and that push for greater environmental responsibility.

Among its many other offerings, the festival offers two films of local interest:

• The Anacostia: Restoring the People's River is about the clean-up and revitalization of DC's "other" river, including the improvement of storm drains and habitat restoration. There are two viewings: March 17 at 12 noon at the National Museum of Natural History, and March 25 at 11 am at the Anacostia Museum Center for African American History and Culture.
• On the Edge: The Potomac River's Dyke Marsh looks at this important preserve located just outside the Beltway and threats to its well-being. One viewing: March 21 at 7 pm at the Kennedy Center.
  

Early Migrants at the National Arboretum

When I arrived at the Arboretum this morning and was greeted immediately by the calls and songs of common grackles, red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows, and northern mockingbirds, I knew that it was going to be a good day. A little while later, when I heard and then saw a great skein of tundra swans high overhead - numbering about 250 to 300 - I knew that it was going to be a great day for birding.

It seems that the southerly winds pushed through a load of migrants overnight. Flocks of sparrows were in numbers not seen for quite some time. On Beechwood Road there were several fox sparrows mixed with a flock of song sparrows and white-throated sparrows. In the same area, field sparrows were singing from the shrubs. I flushed a red-tailed hawk in the same area, and it flew away carrying a limp squirrel in its talons.

Pine warblers sang both on Hickey Hill and in the state tree grove. At the latter location, I managed to find the singer and watch it perform. It would cock its head back and sing, and then poke its bill under a flake of bark to pull out a grub of some sort. And then it would repeat the process, sometimes singing several times before probing again. It was fairly active, but not nearly as much as the frenetic ruby-crowned kinglet in the same pine.

Eastern phoebes must have made a major push this weekend as well. I had been seeing one fairly regularly throughout the winter, but today there were at least a dozen, spread all over the arboretum. Many of them were singing, making this the first time I have heard their song this year.

The red-headed woodpecker was near its usual spot, but this time in a tree across the road from the columns parking lot. I suspected it moved around a bit, but this was the first time I saw it anywhere but on the snags. It gave some great looks, too, and called a bit before I was distracted by a pair of red-tailed hawks wheeling about and screaming overhead. With the red-headed, I came within a hairy of a seven-woodpecker day.

A few other birds I saw included a yellow-rumped warbler near the Bonsai building a yellow-bellied sapsucker at the Asian Gardens, hooded mergansers in Beech Spring Pond, wood ducks in flight over the Anacostia, a winter wren calling on the other side of the river, and a brown creeper along the river trail. Red-breasted nuthatches were again on Hickey Hill, as was a hermit thrush. Eastern towhees were warming up their songs after a fall and winter of disuse.

Finally, I heard an eastern screech owl at the Arboretum today. It was just the type of day when one might hear an owl - overcast enough to give a crepuscular feeling even at mid-morning. It was giving its 'pinging' call rather than the 'scream' that gives the species its name. Even though the owl called repeatedly over a short period, I was unable to triangulate the sound well enough to spot it. (Read more about screech owls at Owlpages.)

SPECIES SEEN: 49

Tundra Swan
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
Mallard
Hooded Merganser
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Ring-billed Gull
American Herring Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Eastern Screech-Owl
Red-headed Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Carolina Wren
Winter Wren
Northern Mockingbird
Eastern Bluebird
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Blue Jay
American Crow
Fish Crow
European Starling
American Goldfinch
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Pine Warbler
Eastern Towhee
Field Sparrow
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle

BUTTERFLIES: 4

Cabbage White
Clouded Sulphur
Eastern Comma
Mourning Cloak

Tags:

• Birding
• Migration
• National Arboretum