A Weekend for Owls

For the second year in a row, I joined a team of birders on a trip to the Eastern Neck NWR for a Christmas Bird Count. The Lower Kent County CBC is a difficult one for DC birders, so relatively few make the trip. Participation is a full day commitment: leaving town around 5 am and returning after 7 pm. (The early start is a real challenge for night-owls like me.) This count also comes a day after the Washington CBC, in which most local birders participate. Yet Eastern Neck is worth the two-hour trip for its diversity of habitats and avifauna.

Yesterday our team started out on the bridge at the north end of the refuge and worked our way south. On the way we counted 81 bird species and 10,601 individual birds in the island's wetlands, meadows, agricultural fields, and pine forests. The action was a little slow at first, but bird activity really started to pick up around 9 am, once the sun had had time to warm the fields. Many sparrow species were represented. White-throated and song sparrows were the dominant ones, of course, but they included fox and American tree sparrows, both uncommon in this area. Chipping, field, savannah, and swamp sparrows also sent representatives, as did towhees and juncos. It became so warm that even the hermit thrushes started singing! A red-headed woodpecker rounded out a seven-woodpecker day.

The big surprise was the lack of waterbirds. Usually the bay waters around Eastern Neck teem with migrant waterfowl. Normally swans number in the thousands; yesterday we only recorded a little over 500. Normally there are great flocks of canvasbacks; this year only 15 were present. Most other waterfowl species were similarly underrepresented. I hope that waterfowl are simply slower to migrate this year, and that their absence does not signal deepening problems with the Chesapeake Bay's underwater ecosystem.

Near the end of the day, a couple of us had a long look at a great horned owl flying through an open grove of loblolly pines. Shortly after, another owl flushed and disappeared behind the tree line. It really turned out to be a great weekend for seeing owls.

Species	Number
Canada Goose	3800
Cackling Goose	2
Mute Swan	8
Tundra Swan	530
Gadwall	1
American Wigeon	1
American Black Duck	300
Mallard	270
Northern Pintail	23
Canvasback	15
Scaup, sp.	1500 (includes both Greater and Lesser)
Bufflehead	350
Common Goldeneye	25
Hooded Merganser	6
Common Merganser	20
Red-breasted Merganser	21
Ruddy Duck	312
Red-throated Loon	1
Common Loon	5
Pied-billed Grebe	1
Double-crested Cormorant	18
Great Blue Heron	11
Black Vulture	7
Turkey Vulture	10
Bald Eagle	6
Northern Harrier	2
Sharp-shinned Hawk	2
Red-shouldered Hawk	1
Red-tailed Hawk	4
Virginia Rail	5
Killdeer	1
American Woodcock	2
Ring-billed Gull	50
Herring Gull	350
Great Black-backed Gull	65
Mourning Dove	50
Eastern Screech-Owl	1
Great Horned Owl	6
Belted Kingfisher	4
Red-headed Woodpecker	1
Red-bellied Woodpecker	35
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	1
Downy Woodpecker	15
Hairy Woodpecker	6
Northern Flicker	10
Pileated Woodpecker	3
Blue Jay	100
American Crow	7
Horned Lark	15
Carolina Chickadee	40
Tufted Titmouse	14
White-breasted Nuthatch	3
Brown-headed Nuthatch	1
Carolina Wren	35
Golden-crowned Kinglet	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	10
Eastern Bluebird	20
Hermit Thrush	5
American Robin	97
Gray Catbird	1
Northern Mockingbird	15
Brown Thrasher	1
European Starling	300
Cedar Waxwing	25
Yellow-rumped Warbler	9
Eastern Towhee	12
American Tree Sparrow	1
Chipping Sparrow	7
Field Sparrow	15
Savannah Sparrow	8
Fox Sparrow	6
Song Sparrow	240
Swamp Sparrow	50
White-throated Sparrow	450
Dark-eyed Junco	40
Northern Cardinal	65
Red-winged Blackbird	780
Common Grackle	335
Brown-headed Cowbird	1
House Finch	14
American Goldfinch	15
Total Species	81
Total Individuals	10,601