I had a great plan all worked out Friday night which should have taken me to the Occoquan NWR early Saturday morning. A great plan since I had all of Saturday off. Well, after ignoring my alarm clock for too long that plan went out the window and I headed to the closer Meadowside NC instead. Coming up the hill from the nature center I found plenty of bird activity with the best bird being a YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER - my first for MNR. Great start! The pine tree that I passed on the other side of the hill must have some kind of bird magnet - YELLOW-RUMPS, SONG SPARROWS, HERMIT THRUSH, TUFTED TITMICE and GOLDFINCH were all concentrated within the same tree.
Until getting close to Big Piney Trail, the number of sparrows was considerable low given the mid-week cold snap. Just as I was feeling sorry for myself for not seeing any exciting sparrow species a FOX SPARROW popped up from the bushes - another first for the site for me. On the way back I added a COOPER'S HAWK. As usual I checked Lake Needwood before heading home: as I scanned through the flock of 30 or so Ring-necked Ducks I picked out one female GREATER SCAUP. A new e-bird for the site and one not easy to find in Montgomery county I would think. Somewhat disappointing was the lack of any Long-tailed Ducks since sightings were reported from Black Hill and other sites around the area.
To round things up, 4 new species were added to the patch list which stands at 62 now.
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