A Decently-sized Day

Those who have gone birding with me (and many who haven't but who have made the mistake of talking to me about birds) know that I'm a zealous devotee of eBird– it's an incredibly useful tool for me in terms of recording birds I've seen and keeping track of my life list. One extra bonus to eBird is the Global Big Day event held every year in May, where birders the world over try to see as many species of bird as possible in the space of a single day. I was first place in the Philippines last year, mainly because the Philippines is dreadfully under-birded, and even more under-eBirded. 

In 2018, eBird decided that one Big Day per year wasn't enough, so they decided to add an extra one on October 6, I presume to get some more data on (Northern Hemisphere) fall migration. I initially didn't have any big plans for the day, as I was stuck in boring DC with no car. However, it turned out that my new birding friend Larry Chen was heading down to Virginia from Cornell with some other birders. Since it was a long weekend, and it had been a long time since I'd had a proper birding adventure, I decided to rent a car and tag along. 

Tagging along meant waking up at 5 in the morning to pick up my rental car, then an hour's drive south to Aquia Landing Park in Stafford County where I met the others at sunrise. The early morning birding itself was mostly fairly quiet, though we ended up with a decent list mostly because the other people were far better birders than me. It took me a solid year and a half of practice before I could identify most birds in the Philippines by call, and I have no idea how much longer it will take me to be any good at US birds; I remain impressed by those who can ID a Pectoral Sandpiper simply by a 2-second flyover.

Annoyingly, the best birds of the park were only heard- a King Rail and an Eastern Screech Owl. I still haven't decided whether or not I'm willing to consider heard-only birds as lifers, but it was disappointing not to get a glimpse of those either way. There were some late-staying warblers, including a Common Yellowthroat, Myrtle Warbler, and both subspecies of Palm Warbler, plus a Yellow-billed Cuckoo that gave unusually good views for a bird that's mostly heard only.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

We also stopped by the Crow's Nest Natural Area Preserve just up the road from Aquia landing, in hopes of some other forest birds. That was mostly uneventful, with the most interesting birds being a very, very distant pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers and a flock of warblers just as we were leaving. Along with the usual things like American Redstart and Black-throated Green Warbler, it included a late-migrating Yellow-throated Warbler, which was a lifer for me. I was only able to get a terrible record shot, but that turned out to be a good thing, as it tripped a rarity alert on eBird.

My horrid first-ever picture of Yellow-throated Warbler

Six-spotted Fishing Spider 

Arrowhead Orbweaver

Our next stop was Northwest River Park, a small riverside park in Chesapeake County in the far southeast corner of Virginia. There wasn't much bird-wise except for a friendly Carolina Wren, but the main target was actually insects, as one of the people in the group was also doing some bug collection. It was hard for me to find any fellow birders at all in the Philippines, let alone any who are also into butterflies, dragonflies and other non-bird kinds of wildlife, so I very much enjoyed the company of people I can geek out about nature in general with. It was also nice to be in the US, where there are enough field biology experts that most insects and plants can be IDed down to species level.

Carolina Wren

Seven-spotted Ladybug

Black-sided Pygmy Grasshopper

Eastern Carpenter Ant

Tan Jumping Spider 

Blue Dasher

Citrine Forktail

Fragile Forktail

Ochthera sp., a fly that definitely didn't skip leg day

The real afternoon birding destination, however, was Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia Beach, which ended up being my first exposure to the legendary birding of Coastal Virginia. We started out in the boardwalk area, which held... almost no birds at all, but for a single Blackpoll Warbler. Thankfully, there was enough non-avian wildlife to keep it interesting, my favorite of which was a very cute Green Tree Frog.

The Back Bay landscape

Green Tree Frog

Cattail Toothpick Grasshopper, an extremely cool grasshopper.

Lucerne Moth

Four-toothed Mason Wasp

Common Slider

Bur-marigold

The beach, thankfully, was where the action was at. Shorebirds were running around in the sand incredibly close to us, mostly Sanderlings, but also a few Semipalmated Sandpipers and a Dunlin, which was another lifer. I used to get a semi-masochistic joy out of looking at shorebirds in the Philippines, as waders there are skittish and usually found in the middle of a stinky mudflat in the punishingly hot sun. In the US it's a completely different experience- the birds practically climb on top of you, and the weather is better to boot. It's too bad I now live in a place where there's none of that to be found. 

Sanderlings

Dunlin

Semipalmated Sandpipers

There were lots of gulls in the distance, mostly Great Black-backed Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, the latter of which was a lifer for me, as well as Caspian Terns and Royal Terns. Flying over the water were Northern Pintails, Black Scoters, and Brown Pelicans- for someone living away from the coast, any day with pelicans is a good day.

Juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gull

Adult and immature Lesser Black-backed Gulls

Herring Gull

Brown Pelicans

Caspian Tern

A sad note on the way back was a young Sora (the first time I'd ever managed a picture of one) that had a grievously broken wing. It kept attempting to preen the broken wing, and didn't seem nearly as afraid of people as normal rails are- both probably signs it would fall victim to a predator of some sort before too long. Nature is always beautiful, but often very, very harsh as well.

A very crippled Sora

I parted ways with the others at that point- they continued southwards to North Carolina, while I had to return to DC for a prior engagement that night. Naturally, on the next birding stop I missed out on, everyone else managed to see something like 8 birds that would have been lifers for me, but I prefer not to dwell on that. I did make one final stop on my own, to Piney Grove Preserve in Sussex County. It was a spot that occasionally has Red-cockaded Woodpecker and Brown-headed Nuthatch, two USA endemics that are very high on my list of targets, but I didn't see much there other than a Yellow-billed Cuckoo and some cool spiders. 

Marbled Orbweaver

Sunset in Piney Grove

My first US Big Day went well, if not spectacularly- well enough at least to get us into the top 10 for Virginia, a far cry from my Philippines first-place finishes but very good regardless. It was also a great opportunity to meet other young birders and be reminded of the birds outside my boring bubble in the DC area- and enough to motivate me to keep exploring in the area where I live.