Life bird: Roseate Spoonbill!

More often than not, whenever there is a rare bird alert in this area, I miss out on it, or so it seems. Yesterday, however, I got lucky. A Roseate Spoonbill was sighted across from the Waynesboro Nursery in Lyndhurst earlier in the week, and on Wednesday afternoon I headed out that way in hopes of seeing it. At about 4:00 I arrived at the indicated location on Shalom Road, just across the South River bridge, and after a few minutes of scanning the fields with my binoculars, sure enough, there was the Spoonbill standing in a big mud puddle about 300 yards away. Absolutely incredible! There is no listing for that species in Birds of Augusta County,* so this must be the first one ever confirmed in this area. So, I started walking along a dirt track next to a corn field that soon got very muddy, and eventually I got to within about 100 yards of the bird. It was at least close enough to get a good look at the strange shaped bill, which is apparently useful in probing for food. Adult Spoonbills are deep reddish pink, whereas the young ones such as the one I saw are much paler. While I was there, Thelma Dalmas and another birder from the Lynchburg area arrived. We talked about the Calliope hummingbird that I saw west of Lynchburg back in January.

Just as we were leaving, a Cooper's hawk flew over, scaring the Indigo buntings, Bluebirds, etc. into hiding.

Later on, I stopped at Bell's Lane and was rewarded by the prompt appearance of a male Baltimore Oriole. Also seen: Grasshopper sparrows, Kestrel, and Willow flycatcher.

The Roseate Spoonbill was life bird # 384, my fourth new bird of the year. And so, I have updated my life bird list page.

* Coincidentally, the editor of that reference book, YuLee Larner, had a column about rare bird sightings in the Wednesday News Leader, and she mentioned my name with regard to the Scissor-tailed flycatcher I saw on May 28; see blog post of June 3.

I didn't expect to get very close to the Spoonbill, so I didn't bother to bring any camera, but Brenda Tekin had better luck today, as you can see at birdsofvirginia.com.

Hummer is back

We have been sad that almost no hummingbirds have come to our feeder since the early June, but two days ago, one showed up (a female), and to our delight is now making regular appearances several times a day.

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 19 Jun 2009, 12: 37 AM .

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My blog practices

My general practice is to make no more than one blog post per day on any one category. For this reason, some blog posts may address more than one specific issue, as indicated by separate headings. If something important happens during the day after I make a blog post, I may add an updated paragraph or section to it, using the word "UPDATE" and sometimes a horizontal rule to distinguish the new material from the original material. For each successive day, blog posts are listed on the central blog page (which brings together all topics) from top to bottom in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the order in which the posts were originally made:

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* part of "Macintosh & Miscellanous" until Feb. 2007

The date of each blog post refers to when the bulk of it was written, in the Eastern Time Zone. For each blog post, the time and date of the original posting (or the last update or comment thereupon) is displayed on the individual archival blog post page that appears (just before the comments section) when you click the [LINK / comments] link next to the date. Non-trivial corrections and clarifications to original blog entries are indicated by the use of [brackets] and/or ~~strikethroughs~~, as appropriate so as to accurately convey both the factual truth and my original representation of it. Nobody's perfect, but I strive for continual improvement. That is also why some of the nature photos that appear on the archive pages may differ from the (inferior) ones that were originally posted.

The current "home made" blog organization system that I created, featuring real permalinks, was instituted on November 1, 2004. Prior to that date, blog posts were handled inconsistently, and for that reason the pre-2005 archives pages are something of a mess. Furthermore, my blogging prior to June 1, 2004 was often sporadic in terms of frequency.

Blog errata
(preliminary)

April 4, 2008: "Andy Ashby" should be "Andy Jones"

April 3, 2010: "Mike Morgan" should be "Nyjer Morgan"

: "" should be ""

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