Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

Our Ruby-throated Hummingbirds should be showing up any day now! April 15th is usually our trigger for putting up the feeders (and softening the blow of tax time). Looking at the real-time migration maps available through Journey North, people have already reported sightings as far north a Massachusetts.

I haven’t seen them here at our feeder and haven’t seen any postings elsewhere yet for reports of their return to Loudoun but I’m keeping an eye out. 

In past years, I’ve seen them at our feeder on about April 21st, so we’ll see if they come on cue again this year. Please post a comment here and let us know when you have them back in your yard. It’ll be fun to see when and where they’re showing up.

And a quick refresher on the sugar solution: 1/4 cup white sugar to every 1 cup water.

Sixteen people joined us for our walk yesterday morning with John DeMary at Balls Bluff in Leesburg. John started out by making sure we all had the Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide and doing a practice run of “keying” a wildflower plant while we assembled in the parking area.  It was a nice refresher on how to use the book which is an excellent guide once you learn how to use it…..I’ll admit, I personally resisted for awhile, preferring picture guides, but I’m now one of the converts.

As we started out into the woods, the morning chill (about 55 degrees) kept many of the wildflowers in their closed night time slumber but within about 30 minutes, as soon as the sun started to hit them, the forest floor was carpeted with the tiny white flowers of Spring Beauties and others.

We saw 26 different wildflowers in bloom and many others getting ready to bloom soon.  The ones in bloom yesterday were: Jack-in-the-Pulpit, White troutlily, Yellow troutlily, Toad shade, Wild ginger, Pussytoes, Blue cohosh, Virginia bluebells, Garlic mustard, Smooth rockcress, Cutleaf toothwort, Star chickweed, Redbud, Squirrel-corn, Dutchman’s breeches, Wild geranium, Squaw-root, Spring beauty, Shooting star, Rue anemone, Bluets, Virginia saxifrage, Speedwell, Blue violet, Smooth yellow violet, and Small flower crowfoot.

The bluebells carpeted the floodplain area while Spring beauties carpeted the upland forest area. Troutlilies covered areas of the banks and the bluets were sprinkled in along the trail.  We did our part throughout the walk to pull the invasive garlic mustard but boy is there a lot of it there – choking out bluebells and others.

In addition to the wildflowers, we had great views of a Barred Owl that watched us as we learned the difference between stinging nettle and garlic mustard, Ruby-crowned kinglets that flitted through a scrubby area along the trail, painted turtles that basked in the sun along the river, gray tree frogs calling, a couple of huge centipedes, and mourning cloak butterflies. 

Oh, and did I mention the snakes (heh heh) – yea, it was *really cool* – a few of us went up to an area where black snakes live and saw three wonderful ones coiled around a branch, warming up, and perhaps selecting mates.  It was wonderful. We also saw a few garter snakes slipping through the leaf litter, no doubt in search of tasty earthworms or beetles for lunch.

We are just two weeks into the Loudoun County Bird Atlas project and we’ve already collected some great data!  Thirteen enthusiastic atlasers have spent 84 hours in the field documenting 1,168 sightings. They have recorded 87 species in 13 atlas blocks, with 11 of the recorded species having a confirmed nesting status.  This is a great start! 

Use the link below to view a summary of the species encountered and the best nesting evidence collected so far:
http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bba/index.cfm?fa=explore.ResultsAllSpeciesSummary&BBA_ID=VA-Lou2009. Some of the highlights include confirmed nesting in the Red-shouldered Hawk, Eastern Phoebe, and Eastern Bluebird as well as observations of the Pine Siskin, Rusty BlackBird, Horned Lark, Wild Turkey, and 3 owl species.

Atlasing offers a fun new twist to birdwatching.  Instead of checking a bird off a list and moving on, atlasing requires that you take a few minutes to observe the behavior of each bird you encounter to determine if they are nesting and, if so, what their nesting status is. We will use the data collected during this 5-year atlas to create a baseline of information that can be used to indicate important bird areas throughout Loudoun County, allowing LWC and other groups to design conservation strategies to protect these areas.

If you are interested in helping with this exciting project, please contact the Atlas Coordinator, Spring Ligi, at sligi@loudounwildlife.org. We still need volunteers to help with this project – roles range from region and block coordinators to helpers. If you’re interested in volunteering but want to check it out first, sign up as a helper and report birds seen in your backyard or neighborhood. Spring can help you get started.