For the Birds!

With this post, I've caught up my four fairly recent hikes.  And actually, this hike is only a few days old, as I went back to Dutch Gap Conservation Area last Thursday for a mellow five miles and some birding.  Dutch Gap is one of my go to areas when I need a nature fix but can't spend all day getting there and back.  It's only about a 35 minute drive.  It's an old oxbow that used to be part of the main channel of the James River but is now cut off from the river itself.  It is a haven for various wildlife, as well as being next to a huge industrial site that pollutes the river.  There is a new plan underway to clean it up by removing an almost unimaginable amount of coal ash.

Here is the track of my hike, a kind of lollipop starting and ending at the upper right and hiking counter clockwise around the oxbow.

The focus of this hike was to go slowly and look for birds, and record them on eBird when I encountered them.  I accounted for 26 species and got photos of some of them.

Ring-billed gull:

Ring-necked duck:

Great blue heron:

Red-bellied woodpecker:

Red-headed woodpecker:

Canada goose:

Double-crested cormorants:

Northern mockingbird:

I also saw a rookery of great blue herons getting underway out on a small island.

And while I didn't see the masked bandit himself, these raccoon tracks show that they are here for sure:

I had not been here in a while, but plan to return soon, and often.  It's a great place to explore and observe nature.