Photos of the Week

This weekend I participated in the Union County BioBlitz, which covered a cluster of three small suburban parks: Nomahegan, Lenape and Echo Lake Parks. The parks follow the course of the Rahway River and one of its tributaries. The habitats are mostly riparian woodland, with some open fields (both mown and unmown) and freshwater ponds. Saturday was my first time attending this event, but it has been held every year since 2005 and rotates among parks in Union County. A bioblitz is similar to a big day in its duration, but all taxa are eligible and the idea is to make as complete a census as possible of the living things at a particular site. Teams cooperate and share information, and there is usually an educational component.

The bird team came up with 70 species, which is very good for Central Jersey in June. Their sightings included a lingering Magnolia Warbler (which I missed). I came up with a little more than half that, but I was primarily working on insects. I am still sorting through my insect photos to identify and post them. So far I have 27 insect species on my list, with a lot more to identify. I know the total insect list from bioblitz will run into the hundreds.

My weekend included two lepidopteran lifers. One is the Banded Hairstreak shown above; the other is the Eight-spotted Forester shown below. Banded Hairstreak uses oaks, walnuts, and hickories as larval hosts and flies in late spring and summer. Eight-spotted Forester is hosted on vines, particularly grapes and Virginia creeper. While butterflies and moths feed on plants during their larval stages, as adults they drink nectar from flowers, and in the process pollinate many plants, which is necessary for the plants to reproduce. Both of these are fairly common species, so the fact that I had not seen either yet might seem surprising. However, insect lives are very short, and few of them migrate. Many butterflies and moths only fly for a few weeks, so if you are not in the right habitat at the right time, you will probably not see them.

If you would like to learn more about the moth diversity in your area, consider participating in National Moth Week, which is coming up very soon. This year the event runs from July 20-28.  Visit the link to learn more about how to participate.

Rock Creek Park Bioblitz on the Blogs

Here is some coverage of last weekend's bioblitz at Rock Creek Park.

Cyndy at FieldMarking reports on the findings of her herp survey team. Her post includes photographs of a spotted salamander and a lovely slime mold. See also her post on the identification challenges posed by many of the specimens and the technology used to record them.

Flickr user Odephoto has photos from the bioblitz here and here.

NWF's Arctic Promise blog describes hunting for insects along the creek.

Eastern Screech Owl
Photo by Mark Christmas / ©2007 National Geographic

The organizers of the bioblitz were liveblogging during the event. If you did not catch the posts, you can find them all here. A special highlight is a photograph of an eastern screech owl that we found on the second shift. The photo is reproduced above. As of the last post, the species count was at 666.

I wrote my own post on the search for nocturnal birds and my warbler watching the next morning. I also have a second post specifically about the owl prowl published on the DC Audubon website.

See also the coverage in the Washington Post. That article focuses on the educational aspects of the event.

Rock Creek Park Bioblitz

For the first shift, the fifteen volunteers who registered multiplied into between forty and fifty participants when the shift started. For that shift we checked four locations, and confirmed barred owl at two, screech owl at one, woodcock at one, and nighthawk at one. In the second shift, we found 2-3 additional barred owls and one additional screech owl. In neither shift were we successful in rousing a great horned owl, despite efforts at several stops.

The basic method for finding owls involves playing recordings of the species being sought and waiting for a response. For great horned owls, the recordings include a distressed rabbit, which has a disturbing sound. Barred owls make the most varied set of responses, which include screams, barks, cackling laughter, and other weird noises. The barred owl at the last stop started its response with a wail. (Under most circumstances, searching for owls by night in Rock Creek Park requires special permission from the Park Service, which is only available to people or groups conducting legitimate research.)

After napping for a couple hours at the Nature Center, I woke up to the sound of birds singing. Red-eyed vireos, wood thrushes, robins, and some blackpoll warblers were all in full song when I headed out for some early morning birding. As I walked down to the Maintenance Yard, I saw a veery and heard many Swainson's thrushes, which seemed to be almost as common as robins last night and this morning.

According to radar maps there was barely any migration along the east coast last night. The overcast skies in the early night must have discouraged migrants. Despite the lack of movement overnight, it was one of the best warbler mornings I have ever had. The only comparable morning that comes to mind is a walk along Cockpit Point Road in Virginia last spring. I saw and heard about eighteen species of warblers in and around the Maintenance Yard in the course of about three hours.

When I first arrived at the Yard, I was alone with the birds. I quickly saw a scarlet tanager near the entrance, heard a Baltimore oriole, and then saw yellow, chestnut-sided, hooded, ovenbird, and redstart near the ravine. A female Cape May warbler foraged for a few minutes in one of the locust trees. As other birders slowly trickled into the Yard, more warblers appeared - magnolia, Canada, blackburnian, black-throated blue, black-throated green, bay-breasted, and northern parula. About an hour after I saw the female Cape May, a male appeared in the same tree and gave great looks to all of the assembled birders. A Louisiana waterthrush sang a few times from the bottom of the ravine, and a prairie warbler perched and sang in the meadow behind us. Of all those birds, the chestnut-sided, magnolia, and black-throated blue warblers seemed to be present in the greatest numbers, and the female blackburnian kept reappearing at the edge of the vines.

Once the warbler action slowed, I made my way back to the Nature Center so that I could catch the bus to go home. The last bird was a gray-cheeked thrush on the trail leading back to the horse center. It stood out from the numerous Swainson's thrushes because of its gray face with no eye-ring. It was a great way to close out the morning.

BIRD SPECIES: 58

Red-shouldered Hawk
American Woodcock
Mourning Dove
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Eastern Screech-Owl
Barred Owl
Common Nighthawk
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Acadian Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Great Crested Flycatcher
House Wren
Gray Catbird
Eastern Bluebird
Veery
Gray-cheeked Thrush
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
European Starling
White-eyed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Northern Parula
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Louisiana Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Hooded Warbler
Canada Warbler
Scarlet Tanager
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Indigo Bunting
Common Grackle
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Rock Creek Park BioBlitz Next Weekend

Next weekend, May 18-19, Rock Creek Park will host a bioblitz. The National Geographic Society and the National Park Service are organizing the event. The Rock Creek Park BioBlitz is the first of ten bioblitzes that will be conducted at National Parks over the next decade in honor of the service's upcoming centennial.

A bioblitz aims to record as many living species as possible within a 24-hour period. The Rock Creek Park BioBlitz will run from noon on Friday to noon on Saturday to include both diurnal and nocturnal species. Teams of scientists and volunteers will spread out through the park to find and identify organisms. All specialties are needed; the bioblitz aims to document vertebrate and invertebrate animals, plants, fungi, and microbes.

This is the third recent bioblitz in the DC area. One bioblitz occurred last June in the Potomac Gorge and another was held in 1996 in Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. Results are available at those links. In an urban park, such as Rock Creek or Kenilworth, a bioblitz highlights the tremendous diversity of life within our cities.

To participate in this year's count, please register here: http://www.ngbioblitz.org/. Participants may register on-site, but pre-registration helps the coordinators with event planning.

Sparrows and Bitterns at Poplar Point

Last week, someone reported a seaside sparrow - a highly unlikely species in DC - at Poplar Point, a small peninsula that juts into the Anacostia River. Then yesterday, while I was at Bird Fest, other birders reported a slew of other unusual bird species at the same location. So this morning I went over to Poplar Point to see if any of the reported birds were still there.

The walk started out well with a female kestrel and some first-of-the-spring songsters. A Baltimore oriole flew out from one of the locust trees as I walked along the tree line. It was the first of several for today. Just inside the tree line, a gray catbird was mewing, and yellow warblers, chestnut-sided warblers, and common yellowthroats were singing. In a few other spots I could hear house wrens singing. I thought I heard an orchard oriole, but I could not could confirm that with a sight identification.

I failed to find any of the reported grasshopper sparrows, unfortunately. However, the grassy areas were not lacking for sparrows. In addition to the usual suspects, I saw two savannah sparrows, two field sparrows (one singing), and a swamp sparrow. My search for the grasshopper sparrows took me deeper into the meadows than I normally venture, and in the course of my search I flushed two Wilson's snipe in short succession.

Deeper into the meadow, there are some marshy areas, where I flushed a least bittern and then an American bittern. Both stayed airborne long enough for me to get identifying looks at them. The least bittern - a tiny brown bird with a black cap - flushed from reeds near me and landed just out sight behind a tree and some other reeds. The American bittern flushed from a position farther from me and then stayed in the air longer as it flew farther into the swamp. This was my first look at either species. As I turned to leave, I saw a wild turkey walking in and out of the tall grass. It did not seem to be disturbed by my presence.

Leaving the meadow, I made my way along the river from Poplar Point towards Anacostia Park proper. A bobolink flushed from the taller grass near the side of the road, perched in the shrubs, and started singing. It had a fascinating song - not necessarily a pleasing song, but a complex one with a lot of squeaks and gurgles. As I walked further, I checked the mudflats on the river. There were about seven caspian terns among the masses of ring-billed gulls. A few herring and great black-backed gulls are still around. Two osprey were hunting over the river. I later saw one carrying a stick to an unknown destination.

The Least Bittern and Wild Turkey were #199 and #200 on my DC life list. I reached one of my birding goals for the year!

Birds observed: 50 species

Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Least Bittern
American Bittern
Canada Goose
Mallard
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Wild Turkey
Wilson's Snipe
Ring-billed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
American Herring Gull
Caspian Tern
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Chimney Swift
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Eastern Kingbird
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
American Robin
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Fish Crow
European Starling
House Sparrow
American Goldfinch
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Eastern Towhee
Field Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Bobolink
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole

Butterflies observed: 8 species

Cabbage White
Clouded Sulphur
American Copper
Gray Hairstreak
Eastern Tailed-Blue
Spring Azure
Mourning Cloak
Wild Indigo Duskywing

Anacostia Watershed Cleanup

Today I participated in an Earth Day cleanup, sponsored by the Anacostia Watershed Society and the Earth Conservation Corps. The cleanup was conducted throughout the Anacostia Watershed. I was among the 200 volunteers who worked on lower Kingman Island.
Kingman and Heritage Islands were both created from dredge spoil when the Anacostia River was dredged in the early twentieth century. In the late 1990s, residents stopped an attempt to build a large amusement park on the two islands. At that time, the District agreed to restore the islands as a nature preserve and build an environmental education center on lower Kingman. (See the master plan, tree groves project, and AWC Kingman Island page.)

At the end of the cleanup, ECC leaders announced that volunteers had collected 321 bags of trash. That figure probably did not include the corroded chairs, metal pipes, bricks, and various car parts that were lined up for removal. The contents of my two trash bags consisted mostly of styrofoam objects. They were a lot of coffee cups, with some fast food containers and plates. Then of course there were smaller helpings of bottles and aerosol cans. (A few areas had lots of plastic bottles, but I was not in one of them.)

One area where I worked was loaded with garlic mustard. In fact I came across several areas infested with the noxious stuff as I walked up and down the island. I was tempted to work on removing that instead of the trash, but there was far too much for one person - even in that relatively small area.

As I picked up trash and debris, I noted many birds around me. Northern cardinals, white-throated sparrows, and American goldfinches were singing with full voices up and down both islands. A Caspian tern flew upstream along the river at the beginning of the morning; as the cleanup ended, a common yellowthroat was singing near the bridge on lower Kingman. Being close to the ground made me more attentive to mollusks (or ex-mollusks), pictured at left. One snail shell in particular was quite beautiful. The table below shows the animals I noted in the course of the day.

SIGHTINGS

BIRDS:		29 species
Double-crested Cormorant		3
Great Blue Heron		1
Canada Goose		6
Mallard		4
Osprey		2
Bald Eagle		1
Killdeer		2
Ring-billed Gull		5
Caspian Tern		1
Rock Pigeon		10
Belted Kingfisher		1
Downy Woodpecker		1
Northern Flicker		1
Tree Swallow		5
Northern Rough-winged Swallow		2
Carolina Wren		2
American Robin		10
Carolina Chickadee		2
Fish Crow		1
European Starling		5
Common Yellowthroat		1
Chipping Sparrow		1
Song Sparrow		1
White-throated Sparrow		10
Northern Cardinal		10
Red-winged Blackbird		5
Common Grackle		15
American Goldfinch		20
House Sparrow		2
MAMMALS:		1 species
Beaver		1
INSECTS:		5 species
Cabbage White		1
Clouded Sulphur		1
Spring Azure		1
Mourning Cloak		1
Damselfly sp.		2
MOLLUSKS:		4 species
Gastropod sp. #1		1
Ventridens ligera (?) *		4
Bivalve sp.		1
Leopard Slug		1
REPTILES:		1 species
Eastern Painted Turtle		2

* Thanks to Aydin for suggesting an identification.

This weekend is the start of National Wildlife Week. Some bloggers are participating in the first annual Blogger BioBlitz and posting photos to the NWW Flickr Group in honor of the occasion.

Update: See the Washington Post for coverage of Saturday's cleanup at other locations. The article included this excerpt:

One crew from Washington Community Fellowship Church on Capitol Hill and the city's Cornell Club worked on a section of the river under the New York Avenue bridge. They found an old chair, plastic toys and a seemingly lifetime supply of 7-Eleven cups and McDonald's containers.

"The amount of Styrofoam was amazing," said Cornell Club member Cheryl Martson. "I will never use Styrofoam again."

I can understand that feeling.