Andrew Clem home
Andrew Clem banner

Blog post


Monthly archives
(all categories)


October 24, 2009 [LINK / comment]

The birds of October

As far as birding goes, all I've had time to do over the past month is some occasional brief forays, no extended field trips. The highlight this fall has been life bird #399: three Dunlins (a rather chunky species of sandpiper), at Leonard's Pond (north of Weyer's Cave) on October 16. (Conveniently, that sighting coincided with the Green Valley Book Fair!) Also seen there were a Green-winged teal (first of season), some Killdeers, and a graceful Common tern, which showed up just as I was about to leave.

Today was the annual Augusta Bird Club bird seed sale pickup day, in Verona, and on the way home I stopped along Bell's Lane, where I saw:

I also heard a Catbird in the bushes. I have also seen Phoebes and Brown thrashers there lately. Other sightings of note from earlier this month, mostly first-of-seasons:

The birds of late September

On September 21, I stopped at the Rockfish Gap, where Vic Laubach was standing (or sitting) vigil as part of the hawk watch. Nancy Davidson arrived just after I did, and we picked a good time. I was fortunate to spot an adult Peregrine Falcon passing along the east side of the Blue Ridge. I was pretty sure about the the identification, but Vic confirmed it. About 15 minutes later I spotted a dark raptor flying right past us at eve level. It turned out to be an immature Merlin, only the second I have ever seen. Later another adult Peregrine Falcon passed overhead, circled a couple times, and then resumed its southbound journey. Ironically, we didn't see any of the much more common falcon species, the Kestrel.

On September 24, I was driving home along the Blue Ridge Parkway (scenic route), but didn't see much of interest until I spotted a Chestnut-sided warbler at the Rockfish Valley overlook. Also seen that day were an Ovenbird and a Hummingbird.

On September 27, I walked along the trail behind the Staunton-Augusta Rescue Squad for the first time in several months. It was a pretty good day, with several neotropical migrants:

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 25 Oct 2009, 12: 29 AM

(unformatted URL)
      .



This post is over a week old, so comments are closed.


© Andrew G. Clem. All rights reserved. Your use of this material signifies your acceptance of the Terms of use.


Hits on this page (single blog post) since July 2, 2007:

Category archives:
(all years)



This (or that) year's
blog highlights

Blog highlights have been compiled for the years 2010-2012 thus far, and eventually will be compiled for earlier years, back to 2002.


Explanation

The "home made" blog organization system that I created was instituted on November 1, 2004, followed by several functional enhancements in subsequent years. I make no more than one blog post per day on any one category, so some posts may cover multiple news items or issues. Blog posts appear in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the chronological order in which the posts were originally made:

  1. Wild birds (LAST)
  2. War
  3. Science & Technology
  4. Politics
  5. Latin America
  6. Culture & Travel
  7. Canaries ("Home birds")
  8. Baseball (FIRST)