Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

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Foxes are great backyard wildlife that play an excellent role in our ecosystem. They live in urban, suburban as well as wooded habitats so its quite likely that there are foxes around you. Sneaky, huh.

January is the breeding season for foxes so in this podcast we talk about their breeding behaviors, use of dens, life cycle and foods that they enjoy as well as what to do if you are so lucky as to have a fox den in your neighborhood.

To listen to this episode, click the play button at the top of this post and it will play now or Right Click Here to Download (select “Save as Target”).

Sixteen people showed up for our Saturday (1/10) morning bird walk at the Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve.

The highlights of the 40 species were a couple of BROWN CREEPERS and a WINTER WREN.

Birds seen:
Canada Goose, Wood Duck, American Black Duck, Mallard, Hooded Merganser (actually in pond on Evergreen Mill Rd across from The Woods Rd), Great Blue Heron, Turkey Vulture, Bald Eagle (1), Red-shouldered Hawk (2),Red-tailed Hawk (2), Mourning Dove (8), Belted Kingfisher (1), Red-bellied Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Pileated Woodpecker, Blue Jay, American Crow, Fish Crow, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper (2), Carolina Wren, Winter Wren, Golden-crowned Kinglet (1), Ruby-crowned Kinglet (1), Eastern Bluebird, Northern Mockingbird, European Starling, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Field Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Northern Cardinal, American Goldfinch

Information on Banshee Reeks which is now open every weekend from 8 am to 4 pm can be found at http://www.bansheereeks.org, and be sure to check our website for upcoming nature programs and field trips around Loudoun county.

Here’s a nice remembrance for Aldo Leopold. This was posted on the VA Bird list by Harry Glasgow from The Friends of Huntley Meadows. If you haven’t read the Sand County Almanac, it’s well worth putting on your reading list and its not very long: 

January 11 is the 122nd anniversary of the birth of Aldo Leopold.  Leopold was a conservationist, an educator, a writer, and is considered by many to be the father of wildlife management and of the United States wilderness system. 

A year after his death in April, 1948, his collection of essays entitled the Sand County Almanac was published. In this and other writings, Leopold developed and rendered the ideas that have become the spirit of conservation and environmental stewardship, and the basis of today’s land use ethics. 

With over two million copies sold, this book ranks among the seminal works in this nation’s bibliography of conservation and nature writings.  As one reviewer at the time put it, Sand County Almanac belongs on the same shelf as the writings of Thoreau and John Muir.

Well you won’t see deer showing up at the Loudoun lost and found in search of their antlers but they are starting to drop them now so it’s a good time to be on the look out as you walk along a trail.

Last year, looking out towards our birdfeeder area from my indoor window perch, I spotted something new on the ground….it looked like a stick of sorts but it also looked a little different. So, out I went to check it out. Upon inspection I discovered it was a deer antler.  After all these years of seeing deer through our yard, I often wondered where all the antlers were and why I hadn’t stumbled across one. I thought it was a neat nature memento and brought it inside. I like knowing that this antler is from one of the deer that calls our yard home and I still have it today, sitting on a side table in our study.

We had a nice little article in the Habitat Herald about deer and their antlers a few years ago that tells about how deer grow antlers and what happens to them out in the environment. Here’s a fun fact from that article: “The younger the deer, the longer it keeps its antlers. A deer with a full rack of antlers in May is much younger than a deer that lost its antlers in January.” It’s a pretty interesting article, worth clicking on the link above for a quick read.

Last weekend, January 4th, was the Calmes Neck Christmas Bird Count, which includes some wild nature spots in western Loudoun. Joe Coleman was one of the sector leads and he sent over a report (below) of some of the cool birds they saw that day. Overall, looks like another great birding adventure in and around Loudoun:

Seven of us covered Sector 10 of the Calmes Neck CBC on Sunday, Jan. 4. This sector covers western Loudoun Co from Snickersville Turnpike where it intersects with Rte 7 in Bluemont to a couple miles east of Airmont & south to Bloomfield.  While one of the team reports is still outstanding we observed at least 58 species, including a LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE, the highlight of the day.
 
The LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE, seen late in the afternoon, was on the northern edge of Great Country Farms near Bluemont, VA and about a 100 feet east of Foggy Bottom Rd, Rte 626, and about a half mile south of Rte 734, Snickersville Tpk.  Interestingly enough this is very close to where they nested up until five years ago.
 
We also found numerous owls, most in the couple of hours before dawn.  Many of them were vocalizing without the encouragement of any kind of audio-lure.  In fact, when I walked out to get my newspaper at 3:45 am,  I heard two different GREAT HORNED OWLS and a single BARRED OWL.  Those of us who arrived early at our meeting place heard our first of several EASTERN SCREECH OWLS and by the end of the day we had, conservatively, ticked off at least 10 screechers, 3 GREAT HORNED OWLS, 2 BARN OWLS, and 5 BARRED OWL.  We actually saw twp screech owls, one BARN OWL, and two BARRED OWLS.  We also had permission to check several of the silos in the sector and while we saw only one BARN OWL in them, it was clear several of them had been recently used by Barn Owls.
 
What was fascinating was how well we did on owls this week esp. when compared to the previous Sunday when the Central Loudoun CBC prob. had its worst day ever owling.  Int’g what a difference a week and weather conditions make for nocturnal birding.
 
We also found at least a dozen RED-HEADED WOODPECKERS, three of whom were first-year birds; ten of them were on were on Legacy Farm, mostly on the back side where they aren’t visible from the road.
 
We also saw two EASTERN PHOEBES, a couple of AMERICAN TREE SPARROWS along Ebenezer Church Rd, Rte 779, and over 20 WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS in a variety of locations.
 
However, we did very poorly on waterfowl (all still water was totally frozen) and the only icterids we found were 12 EASTERN MEADOWLARKS.
 
We had six diurnal raptor species including a NORTHERN HARRIER (rather hard to find in Loudoun County this year), 13 RED-SHOULDERED HAWKS, 7 RED-TAILED HAWKS, and a couple of AMERICAN KESTRELS.
 
Joe Coleman, near Bluemont, Loudoun Co

We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all of our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.

- T.S. Elliot

The results from our Central Loudoun Christmas Bird Count, conducted last Sunday, are still being tallied but here’s a preliminary report from Joe Coleman who organizes this amazing event for us each year:

The Twelfth Annual Central Loudoun Christmas Bird Count

The 12th annual Central Loudoun Christmas Bird Count was held on Sunday, December 28.  While the number of participants, 110, was much higher than ever, the number of bird species seen, about 95 including the count week, was average. 

While all the reports aren’t in yet, there were some especially nice count week birds on Saturday including a GLAUCOUS GULL that Bob Abrams found at the county landfill and a dozen REDHEADS at Beaverdam Reservoir. A SHORT-EARED OWL was hunting at dusk at Mountain View Elementary School near Purcellville. 

The Glaucous Gull is especially rare as they do not normally come this far south and only one or two are reported annually in Virginia. A photo of this rare bird sighting is provided here, thanks to Bob Abrams.

During the count, itself, there were surprisingly few waterfowl and not many blackbirds, and this always impacts the overall count numbers

On the day of the count a MERLIN was found between Aldie and Philomont, a LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE was on private land off of rte 15 a little south of the Goose Creek, and HORNED LARKS were seen in several sectors.  A surprising first for the count because it hasn’t been found before were DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANTS which were found in two different sectors.  Also unusual were the high numbers of PINE SISKINS.  Most years we don’t find any Pine Siskins; this year there are a tremendous number of them around.

In spite of the extensive coverage of the circle the unseasonably warm weather is probably one of the more important reasons for the average nature of the count.  As many of us observe at our feeders, birds are both more active and visible when it is colder.

Thanks to all the birders for making the count another great success and to Rhonda Chocha and her team for coordinating the Tally Rally.  And a special thanks to the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and to the Bird Feeder in Reston for underwriting the Tally Rally.

When the leaves are gone and brown and a chill is in the air like today, Cardinals certainly do brighten our spirits.  They’re a wonderful year-round resident that readily comes to feeders across our Loudoun landscape. You’ve no doubt heard them too with their familiar calls which…according to field guides, and indeed I agree in this case… sound kind of like “pichew, pichew” or “woit woit woit”.

Try your knowledge of their behaviors in our Colorful Cardinal crossword and get some hints and tips for the answers by reading our article on Cardinals from the Habitat Herald.

More puzzles on Loudoun wildlife and nature can be found on our Educational Resources page. Coming soon….wordsearch puzzles.

Here’s something fun to do (for adults, kids, and everyone in between) ….. as you kick off 2009 create a journal for keeping track of the birds you see over the course of the year. Whether birding through your backyard, going on a nature walk or coming on one of our bird walks, this can be a fun way to not only keep your bird list for the year but also record other wildlife and nature encounters and fun facts you learn along the way.

Materials you need:
- small notebook
- photos (either your own or cut from a magazine) or stickers or other materials to decorate the front cover
- a Birds of Loudoun checklist 
- markers or colored pencils
- tape
- glue

1) Start by customizing your front cover. There are so many options here.  My drawing skills leave a bit to be desired so I glued a photo to the front cover and used a metallic gold pen to write “Birding Journal 2009″.

2) Prepare your Data Pages.  Data pages are the pages that you fill in after a nature walk or a birding walk (or sitting inside on a really cold day, watching your feeders) to record all the species you saw. I like to prepare these as I go since I often need more or less pages depending on the excursion. So, I generally start with the first data page to make sure I have the fields written down. Here are the key fields of information that you’ll want to include: Date, Time, Temperature, Weather, Location, Who you were with, # of Species, # of Individuals, and Comments. Below this I leave room to list all the species I saw during that day. It’s also fun to leave room for a photo or other memento that you can glue in as a reminder of the day.

3) Prepare your Species-specific Pages. Species-specific pages are pages that I’m adding this year. I’m leaving room for them in the back of my journal and I plan to use these as summary pages for observations that I’ve made about the bird, such as locations where I saw the bird as well as any special notes for identification.

4) Prepare your Location Pages. Towards the back of the notebook, I’m also leaving a few pages for locations.  It’s nice to have a summary of places you visited during the year all at a glance as well as any special information for places that you visit less frequently. 

5) Include the full Birds of Loudoun checklist. In the back of your journal (or in the front), tape in a copy of the Birds of Loudoun checklist.  You can get printed copies on any of our bird walks or download it through the link provided here. Throughout the year, check off species you’ve seen and then at the end of the year you can see at a glance all the species you encountered.

Here in Loudoun, we have well over 200 species of birds that winter, summer or migrate through. They’re fast as a hummingbird, thin as a rail, silly as a bittern, loud as a flock of big honkin’ geese, quiet as a mouse…oops, wrong species. Anyway, we have a great diversity of birds here in Loudoun of all colors and sizes. Every bird walk we do is an adventure as we never know what mother nature will show us. Keeping a journal is a fun way to keep track of the stories that nature shows us as well as a reminder of our great outdoor explorations.