Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

Charity Corkey from the Washington Post joined up with one of our count teams last Sunday to see what exactly we do during this great butterfly count.  Her report of the event, with quotes from our participants, can be found here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/05/AR2008080503808.html

Charity tells us it will come out in the print version, in the Loudoun Extra section, later this week and they may do a follow-up article as well. We really appreciate the spotlight being shined on this event and the value of citizen science!

While we had to postpone our annual butterfly count by a day due to the weather, it was definitely for the better!  48 people came out to help count butterflies on Sunday, August 3rd from 9:00 in the morning to about 4:30 in the afternoon.

We identified 2,903 individual butterflies and 55 species!  This is the highest number of different species that we’ve identified in our 12 years of counting and some of the species were real rarities like the Clouded skipper, which was a first for our count, the Giant Swallowtail, which we only see every few years, the American Snout (shown above) and the high number of Juniper Hairstreaks.  Two species that were noticeably down in numbers include the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail and the Red-spotted Purple.  We’ve posted a Full Report for the day as well as a Summary of the Data for all 12 years - click on over to find out more about what we saw. 

Many thanks to everyone who came out to spot and count butterflies and to our leaders (Jon Little, Cliff Fairweather, Mona Miller, Bob Blakney, Larry Meade, Dirck Harris, Phil Daley, and Nicole Hamilton) who made this possible!

You may see them flying over head, often at top speeds, dashing and turning as they chitter away. With their cigar-shaped bodies, these amazing birds are fast agile fliers and really a joy to watch.

As summer draws to a close and the swifts have finished raising their young, these fascinating aerial acrobats begin to congregate in communal roosts prior to their migration in the fall. Some roosts may consist of an extended family group of a half a dozen birds or so, but the larger sites can host hundreds or even thousands of swifts!

Help us locate some of these roosts - keep an eye to the sky and an aware ear for that telltale chittering and let us know where you see them. We’re hoping to find some last great places where large numbers of swifts congregate and fly in formation. We encourage you to involve your local scout groups and neighbors in this exhilarating spectacle.

Here is how it works: Keep your eyes to the skies at dusk and watch for areas where swifts are feeding. Look for a tall shaft, chimney, church steeples or similar structure to locate where Chimney Swifts go to roost in your area. In times gone by, there had been reports of hundreds of swifts flying in tornado-like form as they drop into their chimney or other roost. We don’t expect to see these numbers in this day and age but even seeing 10-20 in this aerobatic display is amazing!

On one night over the weekend of August 8, 9, 10, and / or September 12, 13, 14 observe the roost starting about 30 minutes before dusk and estimate the number of swifts that enter. When you have your number, contact us with your results. That’s all there is to it!

We’ll compile the information we receive and report it to Driftwood Wildlife Association which keeps track of Chimney Swift populations and research nation-wide.  To learn more about these fascinating birds, visit their website at Chimneyswift.org.

The Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William & Mary still needs volunteers to adopt Nightjar Survey routes in Loudoun County. The first survey window closed May 28th but the second window is June 10-June 26.

Nightjars include the Whip-poor-will and Chuck-will’s-widow - some pretty cool but secretive birds.

The Nightjar Survey Network relies on volunteer participation by conservation-minded citizens, biologists, and other like-minded groups to adopt and conduct survey routes. Nightjar Surveys are easy to perform and take about two hours to complete.

Volunteers conduct roadside counts at night, during specific time windows when the moon is > 50 % illuminated, by driving and stopping at 10 points along a predetermined 9-mile route. At each point, without using audio lures, the observer counts all Nightjars seen or heard during a 6-minute period. Visit the United States Nightjar Survey Website for more details including location of routes, instructions, and results; www.ccb-wm.org/nightjars.htm. At this time the only active route in Loudoun County runs from Clarks Gap to Taylorstown and was surveyed by Joe Coleman and Laura Weidner last year. LWC would like to develop three additional routes in the county – if you think you might be interested in helping with a new route or take over the Taylorstown route, please let Mike Wilson know (mdwils@wm.edu) or contact Joe Coleman at jcoleman@loudounwildife.org or 540-554-2542.