September [2]*, 2009 [LINK / comment]
I took a detour through the bucolic hamlet of Piney River yesterday, and was rewarded with a fair number of migrating birds. I was hoping to see a Yellow-breasted Chat, like the last time I was there, in May. There is an old railroad station house that is now used for the rail-to-trail park that extends for several miles in southern Nelson County. I learned that the railroad was constructed during World War I for the express purpose of facilitating rapid culling of timber from the Chestnut forests that used to cover much of the Blue Ridge, but which were wiped out by the Chestnut blight. It was a "use it or lose it for all eternity situation," and they knew that the railroad would only be needed for about ten or twenty years. Quite a unique situation.
Anyway, here are the birds I saw:
Location: Blue Ridge Rail Trail - MSG05 Observation date: 9/1/09 Number of species: 12 Turkey Vulture 3 Yellow-billed Cuckoo 2 Red-eyed Vireo 2 American Crow 3 Carolina Chickadee 4 Tufted Titmouse 2 Carolina Wren 5 Nashville Warbler 1 Magnolia Warbler 1 Pine Warbler 1 American Redstart 3 American Goldfinch 1 This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
The Nashville Warbler was only a "probable," but I got a good view of the Magnolia Warbler. The presence of both of those species is a clear indication that fall migration is in full swing.
* Date corrected two days after the fact.