Crazy Coots L to R: Lewis Barnett, Wes Teets, Abby Walter, Eileen Geller, Kim Harrell. Not pictured: Jack Esworthy, who was taking care of his wife after her wisdom teeth came out. Photo by Canon self-timer.
The Crazy Coots participated in the Richmond Audubon Society fund raising Bird-a-thon for the sixth year. Funds raised through this event support the conservation, education and advocacy programs of the society – for information on how you can support the Coots and Richmond Audubon, including a handy “Donate” button, visit http://www.richmondaudubon.org/birdathon/coots.html.
The Coots welcomed two new members this year, Abby Walter and Wes Teets, complementing continuing members Eileen Geller, Kim Harrell, Jack Esworthy and Lewis Barnett. Abby and Wes brought great birding skills and Big Day experience to the mix. We also benefitted from founding member Kim Harrell’s intensified focus as she pursues an impromptu (or perhaps promptu, I’m not sure) Virginia Big Year. Wes attacked planning for our big day with great gusto, spending many hours along with Abby and Kim scouting locations in many different parts of the state. This paid off in a big way, as will become clear. Heretofore, the Coots have been a fairly casual outfit – we have always focused on sunup to sundown big days, but it was clear that this year the will was there for some outside the box thinking and extended effort. By the time May 14 rolled around, we had an itinerary timed down to the minute and a lot of confidence that we could best our team record of 139 species from the 2014 campaign by a substantial margin.
We kicked off the day at 10: 26 AM searching for Mississippi Kites in a Virginia Beach neighborhood where they had often been seen. The Kites were absent, but a little over fifteen minutes in the neighborhood turned up 21 typical suburban species. One of them was the only Carolina Chickadee we encountered in our 24 hours. We did a little yard-sale browsing next, and picked up a Cooper’s Hawk.
The next planned stop was at Pleasure House Point, a nice preserve near Lynnhaven Inlet. Here we got our first swallows (Northern Rough-winged, Barn, Purple Martin), gulls (Laughing, Herring), Tern (Royal), waders (Great Blue Heron, Great Egret), shorebirds (Greater Yellowlegs, Semipalmated Plover), and our only rail of the day, a calling Clapper. Just outside the preserve in a pond visible from Shore Drive, we found our only Green Heron. The first hour of birding produced 43 species.
The last stop before venturing across the bay to the Eastern Shore was Island #1 on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. This spot has been reliable for Ruddy Turnstone and Purple Sandpiper, and this year was no different. We also got Red-breasted Merganser for the second year in a row at this stop. We were pleased to get four other sandpipers on the rocks (Least, Semipalmated, Spotted and Sanderling) as well as a couple of American Oystercatchers. We set out across the bay with 52 species.
Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge kicked up six new species, including our only Gadwall and Northern Harrier, but the memory of the place is of Indigo Buntings serenading us all along the roadsides. Magotha Road coughed up several Eurasian Collared Doves, Grasshopper Sparrow, Summer Tanager and Orchard Oriole. That stop netted 6 new species. We pulled in to the Cheriton sanitary landfill hoping to refind Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks that had been there the day before. That didn’t pan out (we later learned that the ducks had moved to a farm pond a few miles north of the dump), but we did nab lingering Brant, American Wigeon, Bufflehead and Hooded Merganser there. A Black-Crowned Night-heron at this location made up for a miss at Pleasure House Point. In all, the landfill gave us six new species. A bathroom break (well, Porta-Potty, actually) at Willis Wharf gave us our target species, Whimbrel, before we even got out of the car, along with five other new species, including Yellow-throated Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Snowy Egret and Dunlin. We finished up there at 1:30 with 85 species, and headed straight for Chincoteague.
We made one stop on the causeway, at the boat landing on Queen Anne Sound. There we picked up Common Loon, Tricolored Heron, Black-necked Stilt, Willet, Black Skimmer and Common Tern.
Coots scoping Terns at Queen Anne Flats boat landing.
Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, as expected, gave our total a substantial boost, including Piping Plover, unlikely to be found anywhere else on our travels. We heard rumors of a Red Knot from other birders, but sadly, did not have the time to track it down. After some serious searching, we found a Lesser Yellowlegs to go along with Greater, Short-billed Dowitcher, and Black-bellied Plover. We rounded out our wading birds with Cattle Egret and Little Blue Heron, and got our last tern, fittingly a Least. Finally, we heard Brown-headed Nuthatches squeaking away in several pine trees. Our total stood at a nice round 100 species as we left the refuge.
We fueled up on Famous Pizza in town and kicked in the afterburners to make it down to Piney Grove at dusk. As we cruised back down, Route 13, sharp eyes picked out our only Wild Turkey and Ring-billed Gulls of the day. We pushed through thunderstorms to reach the Piney Grove area on schedule. There was time for a swing by Harrell’s Pond, where we picked up singing Prothonotary Warbler and Yellow-throated Vireo. From there, we staked out a spot on the road near where scouting suggested there might be active nest cavities of the Piney Grove population of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers. These birds are very predictable in their bed-time routine, but apparently the cavities we picked weren’t in active use. Because the habitat was so different, the stop was still very productive – we found Bobwhite, Pileated Woodpecker, Pewee, Acadian Flycatcher and Yellow-breasted Chat as we waited. After giving up hope on the Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, we cruised the roads listening for Chuck-wills-widow and Eastern Whippoorwill. We were able to find both, and had a thrilling moment as we left the area, finding two Chucks sitting on the road. After we got the car stopped, they posed calmly for a moment before flying off into the brush to let us pass.
Though it was well past dark, we had one more birding stop: The Diamond. The Richmond Flying Squirrels were wrapping up a night game as we passed back through Richmond, and the quickest stop of the day yielded our 116th species – Common Nighthawks feeding on the insects attracted by the stadium lights.
If you put your hands up and cover the stadium lights, you can see the Common Nighthawks. At the Diamond, Richmond, VA. Photo by Kim Harrell
It had been all pretty much fun and games to this point – now came the hard part. We pushed on to Staunton to nab a bare two hours of sleep before a 4:12 AM departure for Highland County. We made a strategic error of not filling up the tank upon reaching Staunton, which caused us some anxiety as Sunday progressed. The biggest surprise of the day was pushing through a late season snow as we headed for our first stop of the day, Locust Springs in George Washington National Forest. We arrived just after sunrise. After Saturday spent birding in shirt sleeves on the coast, we had to switch back to flannel-lined pants and down jackets for a morning of birding where the temperature hovered just above freezing and we were occasionally pelted with those little pellets that aren’t quite hard enough to be sleet, but aren’t quite fluffy enough to be snow either.
May in Highland County, Virginia. Photo by Kim Harrell.
Locust Springs is a beautiful upland glade with a mixture of deciduous and coniferous trees and a nice marshy meadow. The target here was all the birds that had left Richmond to head for their higher-altitude breeding grounds, and we found them. We were greeted when we tumbled out of the car by a singing Brown Creeper. We added 22 new birds to the total, ranging from the drab (Least Flycatcher) to the dazzling (Blackburnian Warbler). We started filling in the gaps of our woodpeckers with Hairy Woodpecker, and picked up Red-breasted Nuthatch, Blue-headed Vireo, Pine Siskin, Purple Finch, Golden-crowned Kinglet, and several new warblers, leaving us one shy of the team record at 138 species.
From there, it was mostly car birding along National Forest roads winding back down into Blue Grass Valley. There were Hermit Thrushes seemingly around every bend, with the occasional Veery and Swainson’s Thrush thrown in just for variety. The best bird of this stretch was a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, a bird that we knew was possible, but that was by no means certain.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Photo by Lewis Barnett.
On Laurel Fork Road, we found both Mourning Warbler and Canada Warbler near locations that Wes had scouted the previous week. Perhaps the most remarkable few minutes of birding of the day happened as we descended from the mountainside into Blue Grass Valley and pulled up alongside a tiny (maybe 50 feet long) farm pond that was playing temporary home to four Short-billed Dowitchers, a Spotted Sandpiper, four species of Swallow including our only Cliff of the day, and a lone Hooded Merganser, nearly invisible hunkered down in some aquatic vegetation. This stretch also turned up our only Bald Eagle, White-breasted Nuthatch, and Flicker, plus a swarm of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds on a feeder in the town of Blue Grass. This stretch of road shattered our former team best, leaving us with 155 species.
By this time, we were nearing our 24-hour cutoff, so we tried our best to quickly fill in some gaps. Forks of Water gave us two target species, Warbling Vireo and Yellow Warbler, to push the total to 157. A run up Wimer Mountain Road did produce a singing Golden-winged Warbler, but it was sadly on the West Virginia slope.
We did a final run down Blue Grass Valley Road and Dug Bank Road to see if we could pick up enough new species to make it worth giving up an early stop or two from Saturday. We did get a Kestrel that way, but that would not have helped our total with the birds we would have had to give up from Virginia Beach. We coasted into Monterey with a hair over one gallon of gas left in the tank.
We had a wildly successful 24 hours thanks to great planning by Wes, an iron fist on the stopwatch to keep us on schedule by Abby, and sharp eyes and ears by the whole team. For all that, we reckon there were 18 species that we could reasonably count as misses given the time of year and where we birded, with the most glaring being Red-headed Woodpecker. We feel like luck and perhaps adjusting time spent in a few places could produce an even better total in coming years.
Here is the complete species list for our 24 hours of birding, in taxonomic order. This includes one species, American Kestrel, that was sighted after our 24 hours had expired.
1. Brant, Cheriton Landfill
2. Canada Goose, Cheriton Landfill
3. Gadwall, Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR
4. American Wigeon, Cheriton Landfill
5. Mallard, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
6. Bufflehead, Cheriton Landfill
7. Hooded Merganser, Cheriton Landfill
8. Red-breasted Merganser, CBBT–South Thimble Island (#1)
9. Northern Bobwhite, Piney Grove Preserve
10. Wild Turkey, US 13–Accomack County
11. Common Loon, Queen Sound Flats
12. Double-crested Cormorant, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
13. Brown Pelican, Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (Northampton Co.)
14. Great Blue Heron, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
15. Great Egret, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
16. Snowy Egret, Willis Wharf
17. Little Blue Heron, Chincoteague NWR
18. Tricolored Heron, Queen Sound Flats
19. Cattle Egret, Chincoteague NWR
20. Green Heron, US 60 @ Wolfsnare Creek
21. Black-crowned Night-Heron, Cheriton Landfill
22. White Ibis, Cheriton Landfill
23. Glossy Ibis, Chincoteague NWR
24. Black Vulture, Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (Northampton Co.)
25. Turkey Vulture, Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (Northampton Co.)
26. Osprey, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
27. Northern Harrier, Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR
28. Cooper’s Hawk, First Ct Rd
29. Bald Eagle, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
30. Red-shouldered Hawk, US 13–Virginia Beach
31. Red-tailed Hawk, Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR
32. Clapper Rail, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
33. Black-necked Stilt, Queen Sound Flats
34. American Oystercatcher, CBBT–South Thimble Island (#1)
35. Black-bellied Plover, Chincoteague NWR
36. Semipalmated Plover, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
37. Piping Plover, Chincoteague NWR
38. Killdeer, Townsend
39. Spotted Sandpiper, CBBT–South Thimble Island (#1)
40. Solitary Sandpiper, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
41. Greater Yellowlegs, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
42. Willet, Queen Sound Flats
43. Lesser Yellowlegs, Chincoteague NWR
44. Whimbrel, Willis Wharf
45. Ruddy Turnstone, CBBT–South Thimble Island (#1)
46. Sanderling, CBBT–South Thimble Island (#1)
47. Dunlin, Willis Wharf
48. Purple Sandpiper, CBBT–South Thimble Island (#1)
49. Least Sandpiper, CBBT–South Thimble Island (#1)
50. Semipalmated Sandpiper, CBBT–South Thimble Island (#1)
51. Short-billed Dowitcher, Chincoteague NWR
52. Laughing Gull, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
53. Ring-billed Gull, US 13–Accomack County
54. Herring Gull, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
55. Great Black-backed Gull, Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (Northampton Co.)
56. Least Tern, Chincoteague NWR
57. Common Tern, Queen Sound Flats
58. Forster’s Tern, Willis Wharf
59. Royal Tern, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
60. Black Skimmer, Queen Sound Flats
61. Rock Pigeon, CBBT–South Thimble Island (#1)
62. Eurasian Collared-Dove, Townsend
63. Mourning Dove, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
64. Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
65. Common Nighthawk, The Diamond
66. Chuck-will’s-widow, Piney Grove Preserve
67. Eastern Whip-poor-will, Piney Grove Preserve
68. Chimney Swift, Thoroughgood
69. Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
70. Red-bellied Woodpecker, Thoroughgood
71. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Allegheny Road
72. Downy Woodpecker, Thoroughgood
73. Hairy Woodpecker, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
74. Northern Flicker, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
75. Pileated Woodpecker, Piney Grove Preserve
76. American Kestrel, Dug Bank Road
77. Eastern Wood-Pewee, Piney Grove Preserve
78. Acadian Flycatcher, Piney Grove Preserve
79. Least Flycatcher, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
80. Eastern Phoebe, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
81. Great Crested Flycatcher, Thoroughgood
82. Eastern Kingbird, Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR
83. White-eyed Vireo, Piney Grove Preserve
84. Yellow-throated Vireo, “Harrells Pond
85. Blue-headed Vireo, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
86. Warbling Vireo, Forks of Water
87. Red-eyed Vireo, Thoroughgood
88. Blue Jay, Thoroughgood
89. American Crow, Thoroughgood
90. Fish Crow, Thoroughgood
91. Common Raven, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
92. Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
93. Purple Martin, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
94. Tree Swallow, Townsend
95. Barn Swallow, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
96. Cliff Swallow, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
97. Carolina Chickadee, Thoroughgood
98. Black-capped Chickadee, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
99. Tufted Titmouse, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
100. Red-breasted Nuthatch, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
101. White-breasted Nuthatch, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
102. Brown-headed Nuthatch, Chincoteague NWR
103. Brown Creeper, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
104. House Wren, Thoroughgood
105. Carolina Wren, Thoroughgood
106. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Thoroughgood
107. Golden-crowned Kinglet, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
108. Eastern Bluebird, Thoroughgood
109. Veery, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
110. Swainson’s Thrush, Allegheny Road
111. Hermit Thrush, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
112. Wood Thrush, Piney Grove Preserve
113. American Robin, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
114. Gray Catbird, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
115. Brown Thrasher, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
116. Northern Mockingbird, Thoroughgood
117. European Starling, Thoroughgood
118. Ovenbird, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
119. Prothonotary Warbler, “Harrells Pond
120. Mourning Warbler, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
121. Common Yellowthroat, Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR
122. American Redstart, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
123. Magnolia Warbler, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
124. Blackburnian Warbler, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
125. Yellow Warbler, Forks of Water
126. Chestnut-sided Warbler, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
127. Blackpoll Warbler, Thoroughgood
128. Black-throated Blue Warbler, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
129. Pine Warbler, Thoroughgood
130. Yellow-rumped Warbler, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
131. Yellow-throated Warbler, Willis Wharf
132. Prairie Warbler, Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR
133. Black-throated Green Warbler, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
134. Canada Warbler, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
135. Yellow-breasted Chat, Piney Grove Preserve
136. Grasshopper Sparrow, Townsend
137. Chipping Sparrow, Willis Wharf
138. Field Sparrow, Piney Grove Preserve
139. Dark-eyed Junco, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
140. Song Sparrow, Thoroughgood
141. Eastern Towhee, Thoroughgood
142. Summer Tanager, Townsend
143. Scarlet Tanager, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
144. Northern Cardinal, Thoroughgood
145. Blue Grosbeak, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
146. Indigo Bunting, Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR
147. Bobolink, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
148. Red-winged Blackbird, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
149. Eastern Meadowlark, Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (Northampton Co.)
150. Common Grackle, Townsend
151. Boat-tailed Grackle, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
152. Brown-headed Cowbird, Townsend
153. Orchard Oriole, Townsend
154. House Finch, Pleasure House Point Natural Area
155. Purple Finch, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
156. Pine Siskin, George Washington NF–Locust Springs
157. American Goldfinch, Route 642 – Laurel Fork Rd.
158. House Sparrow, Thoroughgood
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