Category: In the Field

At the park: 126

First report for April:

First hatch! Box #7 hatched out. Photographers reported ducklings leaving the box at about 8:30 Sunday morning; estimate was 14 ducklings. I revised some of the previous notes. Box #7 must have been the box that was already started on 27 February.

Meanwhile, box #6 continues to incubate, along with several others. Box #4 has turned into a dump nest, with 24 eggs. Let’s hope for the best.

I had planned to patch the roof of #67, but a drake was standing guard atop the box, so I will postpone maintenance work until this box hatches.

Does anyone have notes for box #13?

* * *

Danke schoen!

At the park: 125

The weekly report:

And still more new nests! We have 12 boxes with at least one egg.

I repainted the number on #67, but my plywood patch on the roof has flaked off. The foam crack filler is still holding. Let’s hope for the best, because we have a Wood Duck incubating in this box.

Also new nests in #3 and #4, and a couple boxes with one or two eggs.

Box #6 may be ready to hatch by next Sunday.

* * *

Weather cooperating, we’ll work 3 April, 17 April, and 1 May.

Merci beaucoup!

At the park: 124

A much warmer and more successful morning.

More nests started, and five are incubating! Eight boxes are active. Our first Wood Duck box is #1, in the pool by the tower.

patchedWe repaired the hardware cloth on box #68. Access to #84 remains a problem: as mounted, the lid won’t open sufficiently. Next week we plan to repaint the number for box #67 and clean up trash around the tower.

Some splashes of Spring Beauty, with most buds tightly closed in the mid-morning.

Until next week! Arigatoo!

At the park: 123

Small disaster. Last week’s cold snap and snow left the ponds iced over on Sunday. Ordinarily, we can break through the ice with our sticks, but the ice was just thick enough that instead, I tried following C’s footsteps out to box #2, the first box off the boardwalk— walking in an area that I didn’t know very well. Almost immediately, I lost my balance and caught some serious mud from the wetland. As a result, we cut the work day short. We’ll get ’em next week.

muddy jacket 1muddy jacket 2Fortunately, I had my chest waders on. My jacket got the worst of it.

At the park: 122

Another Sunday’s report:

Nests continue to develop. Box #68 added 7 eggs, just as if the hen was reading the calendar. My notes say that we have 4 eggs in #7 and 4 eggs in #77 — I will double check. And the 14 eggs in #6 are now incubating. It’s a little difficult to get a good count for this box.

We screwed together boxes #7 and #77. We also tried to adjust box #84, but in the process, the pole snapped off. It had rusted at the former waterline. So we did what we could, but the box is now low to the ground and a little wobbly.

K and C will leave some hardware cloth in the shed so that we can patch the duckling ladder in box #68.

I was responding to a query from a Friend of Little Hunting Creek: that group is looking to install some nest boxes, and I was sharing some of our experiences. And I realized that I didn’t have a previous blog post to direct them to on the subject of raccoon-resistant box closures. In fact, I couldn’t remember the name of one of the pieces of hardware that we use. So let’s rectify that missing information.

hook-and-eyeIn some cases, a hook-and-eye on a spring has been sufficient.

hasp and quick linkFor the more tenacious critters, we’ve gone to a hasp closed with a quick link. Links come in various sizes, so make sure you have one to fit the hasp. The link looks something like a carabiner, but it doesn’t squeeze open. Rather, you have to twist the hexagonal part. After a few years in the elements, you will need to give the link a bit of lubricating oil.

At the park: 121

Water levels are very high in the main wetland and down Barnyard Run. Where there was once a discernible channel is now just flat water. From my e-mail report to the team and staff:

Our merganser friends continue get the jump on us: we have 14 eggs in box #7 and one egg in box #68.

Small problems: the roof is loose on #77, and the back of #7 is held on with a latch. I’ll bring a power screwdriver and we’ll see whether we can tack them back together.

Larger problems: the soil around box #4 has washed away, so we can’t access the box effectively. Stilts, maybe? New box #84 (thank you box makers!) has a roof opening, but because of the way it’s mounted, we can’t access the box interior.

Bonus observations: multiple Red-shouldered Hawks (Buteo lineatus), including a pair being mobbed by American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) in the main wetland and a juvenile seen at close range, feeding on perhaps an Eastern Ratsnake.

Great Backyard Bird Count 2022

I didn’t go out until the weather cleared and warmed up. I visited my usual patch along the Glade, plus I visited a new-to-me patch in Great Falls called Lexington Estates Park. This park is in my Christmas Count sector, but we did not visit it in 2021. There are no amenities, not even any signs, just a bit of shoulder to park on. Part of the property is mapped as a school site. A single unmarked trail more or less connecting two cul-de-sacs running along some bottomland; a small impounded pound that turned up two Mallard pairs, a Wood Duck pair, and an Eastern Phoebe. The space is big enough to support Red-shouldered Hawk and Pileated Woodpecker, so that’s good. On the downside, the biggest individuals of Leatherleaf Mahonia (Berberis bealei) that I’ve ever seen. Combining the two sites, I had a nice species count of 27, for 2:35 of birding time.

My year in hikes and field trips, 2021

5 downI earned my next pin for Virginia’s Trail Quest project, so there’s that.


We did get in a full season of nest box monitoring at Huntley Meadows Park, Fairfax County, Va.

For another year, the Mason and Bailey Club did not meet, alas. I scouted Potomac Overlook Regional Park, Arlington County, Va.; Turkey Run Park, Fairfax County, Va.; Carderock, C&O Canal National Historic Park, Montgomery County, Md.; the Boundary Bridge area of Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C. Maybe next year we can do Boundary Bridge, and I really want to show off Huntley Meadows.

I followed the phenology of a patch of Aralia spinosa near my house, down by the Ridge Heights Pool; we liberated a Honey Locust (Gleditsia triacanthos) from an overgrowth of non-native invasives at Idylwood Park; and all of us chased cicadas.

Walker Nature Center: North

Next weekend is spoken for, so my first day hike will have to be a Boxing Day walk at Walker Nature Center. It proved to be a rather birdy trip, with 15 species spotted in 75 minutes, including four Northern Flickers (Colaptes auratus) together in one tree and a Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) high in a White Oak.

The trails in the northern tract look messy on the map, but make more sense on the ground: a box around the property, and an stone dust inner loop, with some connectors between. And I found a footbridge (#37) over the Snakeden Run inlet to Lake Audubon that would make the property easily accessible from home on foot. The bridge wasn’t there the last time I looked, but it’s weathered, so perhaps it was temporarily removed while the stream was being rebuilt.

Christmas Bird Count 2021: Seneca: 2

On Sunday, my plucky team of eight braved winter winds and a brief period of sleet for the sector 14 count. We put up a respectable count of 40 species; next year I hope to squeeze out a bit more (maybe Rock Pigeon at Reston Town Center?). Avian highlight: an adult Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) being chased out of a Red-tailed Hawk’s (Buteo jamaicensis) airspace above the Gerry Connolly Cross County Trail at Leigh Mill Road. Mammalian highlight: two River Otters (Lutra canadensis) doing their otter thing in Lake Fairfax.

Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) numbers were down, perhaps reflecting the semi-mysterious illness afflicting songbirds in the mid-Atlantic this past summer.

I spent a lot of time scouting, but the team knowledge was perhaps more important, and a little liberating.

More takeaways:

  • Plan for a good 20 minutes of logistics conversations at the first meeting point as people trickle in, and especially if you’re going to split the team first off.
  • Exchange phone numbers ahead of time. One of my subparties got separated from one another on their way to their first stop.
  • Check your batteries for your camera, not just your phone and tablet.
  • Use your field notebook, not a copy of the tally sheet on a clipboard. Too easy for the sheet to slip off in a strong wind, and you’re stuck carrying the board all morning.
  • The boathouse at Lake Fairfax makes a tolerable windbreak.

Final results for the Seneca circle will be released by the compiler January-February.

Suitland Bog

Lynn Rust’s Microbial Ecology class field-tripped to Suitland Bog (a magnolia bog that’s actually a fen). The property was once mined for sand and gravel before M-NCPPC picked up some of the land, while allowing development on another parcel. (In the inexorable logic of new streets being named for what they replaced, Rock Quarry Terrace passes through one of the nearby townhouse subdivisions.)

pine sandy 2pine sandy 1In the successional upland accessed by ample parking at the community center, we found the rocky, sandy soil of the Coastal Plain. Virginia Pine (Pinus virginia) is waiting to be overtaken by the beeches and oaks, while Blackjack Oak (Quercus marilandica) hunkers in the understory. Thundering helicopters from nearby Joint Base Andrews are just something you have to deal with.

In the bog itself, we easily found Purple Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia purpurea). According to Lynn and the park ranger, this introduced species is outcompeting the sundews, and is subject to some culls. Yellowing leaves of Sweetbay Magnolia (Magnolia virginiana) were recognizable.

Bisected by a power line cut, the place definitely shows the marks of human influence, and could use some major trash pickup love. I don’t remember, but I reckon that my visit in 2013 was from the other entrance, from the south.

Mason Neck State Park 2021

clutchingHoliday weekend, and a chance to earn my next badge in the state parks Trail Quest challenge. Somewhat unintentionally, I followed the same trails that I walked last year in late spring. Much quieter this time of year, cloudy-cool and a bit drizzly—glad I brought my hoodie.

minimastThe understory of the woods (holly-oak-beech) is very open; I suspect deer browse pressure. The oaks have dropped an abundance of acorns.

I found a little patch of Strawberry Bush (Euonymus americanus) (a/k/a Hearts-a-burstin’), still in fruit, on a hummock in a very wet spot. And an orbweaver making short work of an unfortunate Eastern Pondhawk.

The thing to remember about the Meadow View Trail, pleasant enough as it is, is that it is a trail to a view of a meadow. You won’t see any meadow along the trail itself.

3:00 for the circuit again, with a lunch break.

Neabsco Boardwalk

Barbara Saffir led a workshop at Neabsco Boardwalk on using iNaturalist and ISO axanthic Green Treefrogs (Hyla cinarea). And we found some!

new boardwalkThe boardwalk trail is rather new—nicely accessible and wide, open to multiple use (jogging, dogs, scooters). While the upland path to the boardwalk could serve for a nonnative invasives workshop, the wetland itself is pretty clean, a major exception being a population of Japanese Knotweed (Reynoutria japonica).

Clifton Institute wildflowers

pond at HQthru the upland meadowA lovely morning walk through the upland meadows of the Clifton Institute for fall wildflowers, led by Bert Harris and staff. I got good photos of Field Thistle (Cirsium discolor) and found Hog Peanut (Amphicarpaea bracteata) in flower. The group met Slender Bush Clover (Lespedeza virginica), Trailing Lespedeza (L. procumbens), and Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridiflora)(called Green Antelopehorns by iNaturalist). Bert explained how to distinguish New York Ironweed from Upland Ironweed—this is the first time I really got it, with an example of the yellowish pappus of Upland in hand.