It may not be spring yet...

Posted by: Allen Canfield on Tue, 18 March 2003 02:08:59 (714 Reads)

But the birds that we have missed so much this winter are finally returning to the mountain state. My wife and I have been members of the Brooks Bird Club for a few years now and find birding to be a most enjoyable addition to our picnics and other outings to the lakes and forests around us.

A few days ago we spent two days traveling to Teter Lake, Pleasant Creek and Stonewall Jackson Lake.

This was our first trip to Teter Lake and although the lake was still rather frozen over, we found it to be a pleasant little area that we will definitely return to and maybe camp a night or two. While we were there, we did get to see a wood thrush, two mallards and several crows.

We continued over to Pleasant Creek WMA and hit pay dirt when we turned off at the smaller ponds and swampy area just before the access road for the campgrounds. We found around 20 mallards, 40 canada geese, 2 buffleheads, 6 hooded mergansers, a pied-billed grebe, a great egret, 50 + ring-necked ducks, 5 Scaup, 4 wood ducks and 2 American black ducks. I had to kick myself for not having a t-mount to put the camera on our spotting scope; the Buffleheads and Hooded Mergansers were absolutely gorgeous!

We decided to call it a day as we watched a thunderstorm roll in over the hills. We had added five new birds to our life lists and our only regrets were no pictures! So I'm now in the doghouse until I find a t-mount.

The next day, we headed out to Stonewall Jackson Lake around one o'clock in the afternoon. We decided to go to the main park entrance and buy a year's pass (we travel to the park so often that it is much cheaper to pay $15.90 for the pass than it is to pay the normal entrance fees). As we pulled up to the main gate we had a Red-tailed Hawk fly right in front of our van. It was absolutely wonderful at the marina. The sun was just warm enough and nobody else was around, so we lounged on the benches at the bait house and watched a Pileated Woodpecker working over a tree on the far bank. As many holes that were bored into the trees on that shore, I am sure he will be there for most of the summer just waiting for his picture to be taken! At the boat launch, we saw around 40 Canada geese (a large number have taken up residence at the park), a Scaup and a Red-necked Grebe (another life list bird!). We drove into the campgrounds and pulled into an empty spot that looks over the inlet towards the resort and spent an hour watching a Horned Grebe, 2 Ring-necked Ducks and Scaup swimming around a group of 20 Canada geese. In the small trees near the water we saw two song sparrows, a northern mockingbird chasing a pair of European Starlings and a Blue Grey Gnatcatcher (that drove my wife crazy trying to identify, the sun made it look much lighter then it actually was). The highlight of our trip waited until we were headed home. As we drove back through Little Skin Creek Road, we stopped to look at a very large nest in a dead tree out in the water. We have been waiting to verify what had built this nest for several weeks now and finally got our answer. As we were watching, we heard a most familiar set of cries above us. We craned our necks in time to see that the Osprey we watched all last summer have finally returned! So far we have only seen one pair, but we plan to go back in the coming weeks to look for the other pair and hopefully the three babies that I helped band will return. My summer is decidedly complete now that I know I will be able to watch these delightful birds again.