Snippets of Late Summer

 

By the time I returned from Indonesia it was August, which is sort of the nadir of the birding months in the DC area. It's hot, sticky, and uncomfortable, migration has fully completed, and even the few birds with low enough standards to stick around to breed are done singing and busy feeding their chicks. We still forced ourselves outside though, even if it was slim pickings bird-wise.

One of the unexpected highlights was a pair of Mississippi Kites that showed up in a random neighborhood of DC and started making a nest. It was a great find by a local teen birder, and I was happy to see that they were still around by the time I got back to the country. I'd only seen Mississippi Kites a few times before and never in DC, so even on an uncomfortably hot and sunny morning it was well worth the twitch. I made a quick stop by my local patch at 4 Mile Run and was happy to see a couple Wood Ducks in with the usual mallards, and Nikki and I went to Kenilworth Park with the usual birding crew where there were lots of cool bugs and very few birds. 

Wood Duck

Common Green June Beetle (Cotinis nitida)

Zabulon Skipper (Lon zabulon)

Northern Flatid Planthopper (Flatormenis proxima)

Hibiscus Turret Bee (Ptilothrix bombiformis)

Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posita)

Slaty Skimmer (Libellula incesta)

Needham's Skimmer (Libellula needhami)

Some sort of little weevils on a Swamp Mallow flower

Another surprise was a Wood Stork that showed up in late August in the Virginia suburbs about a 40-minute drive from where we live. Nikki, Vikas and I headed out one late afternoon to twitch it and were treated to extended views of it as it hunted for crayfish in a muddy stream. This was actually a US lifer for me, as I'd only ever seen them in Costa Rica. 

Wood Stork

The last weekend in August I visited the Arboretum for a morning birding outing along with Vikas, Cassie, Will, and George. Fall migration was just starting up, and we were treated to impressive numbers of warblers and other migrants moving through the canopy including Chestnut-sided Warblers, Blue-winged Warblers, Black-and-white Warblers, Nashville Warblers, Tennessee Warblers, and Bay-breasted Warblers along with Veery, Red-eyed Vireos, Blue Grosbeaks, and Eastern Kingbirds. My best non-bird find of August was a spectacular Polyphemus Moth that I found by my local metro stop of all places–one of the few saturniid moths in the US, and one I'd hoped to luck into for a long time. 

Fledgling Blue Grosbeak

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Red-eyed Vireo

Silver-spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus)

Huron Sachem (Atalopedes huron)

Polyphemus Moth (Antheraea polyphemus)

On Labor Day the same group plus Nikki and Atima headed to Huntley Meadows, a little closer to our neck of the woods. There were fewer migrants around but we did have great looks at a roosting Barred Owl some other birders tipped us off to, as well as an Osprey and a Pileated Woodpecker sharing the same tree. We also saw a Mud Turtle hanging around just off the boardwalk, which was a herp lifer for me. 

Barred Owl

Red-eyed Vireo

Osprey and Pileated Woodpecker–not a species pair I'm used to seeing in the same binocular view

Osprey

Green Frog

Mud Turtle

American Bullfrog tadpole hanging out waiting to eat an Eastern Mosquitofish

Common Five-lined Skink

Early September was still stupidly hot, so on September 6 George, Atima, Vikas, Nikki and I piled into a car and headed out to coastal Delaware for some fresher air. We first visited the beach at Cape Henlopen State Park, which was absolutely packed with people but still had some nice water birds like Great and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Laughing Gulls, Forster's Terns, Common Terns, Caspian Terns, Royal Terns plus fly-bys from shorebirds including Grey Plovers, Sanderlings, Red Knots, Ruddy Turnstones, and (Hudsonian) Whimbrels. I also got my first Brown-headed Nuthatch of the year hanging out in some pine trees next to the beach. The real highlight of the trip though was, to be honest, the oysters we had for lunch in Cape Henlopen. 

Great Black-backed Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Sanderling

Laughing Gull

Grey Plover

Common Tern

Forster's Tern

Eastern Fence Lizard (Sceloporus undulatus) pointed out to us by some random guy in the parking lot

Common Buckeye (Junonia coenia)

Red-femured Spotted Orbweaver (Neoscona domiciliorum)

Large Milkweed Bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus)

The beach in Delaware

Southern Moon Jelly (Aurelia marginalis) on the beach

Nikki's mom came to visit us from the Philippines in September and October, after having spent some time with her sister in Ohio. We had lots of fun showing her around DC, and it was great having another person around to share in cooking and to keep Rio company when Nikki and I were at work. At the end of September we decided to head over to Shenandoah National Park so that she could see some fall colors for the first time. The first stop, however, was the Capitol Reflecting Pool in downtown DC. Not for the architecture or history this time, but because a Red Phalarope had decided that there, of all places, was where it wanted to spend a couple of days instead of in the Arctic tundra or out in the middle of the ocean where it was supposed to be. It's difficult for me to get a new bird on my DC list these days, and almost impossible to get a proper lifer, but a lifer this was–one of only a handful this year. 

Finding it was surprisingly tough (phalaropes are way smaller than you think they are), but I finally spotted it hanging out on the side of a pool. Similar to last year's Green-tailed Towhee it was stupidly tame and let people get practically within arm's length of it, and it only flushed into the water when a random tourist lady decided to wade across the pool. It was definitely one of my more surreal birding experiences of 2025.

Red Phalarope!

wack

It was late afternoon by the time we got to Shenandoah, and we had a lovely drive along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains along Skyline Drive. Purists will say that the only proper way to enjoy mountain landscapes is by hiking up there on your own, and that driving up to the top of the mountain is cheating. I say that I just saved like 8 hours of hiking, saw the same thing, and was home again by dinnertime. Unfortunately the higher elevations of the ridge were completely encased in a fog bank, but there were still some good views to be had lower down. We did a little hike on one of the side trails, and while there wasn't a view I did enjoy the breeding Wood Thrushes and a gorgeous male Hooded Warbler. 

Scenes from Skyline Drive

Hooded Warbler

Oval Ambersnail (Novisuccinea ovalis)

Speckled Harvestman (Hadrobunus maculosus)

White-lip Globe Snail (Mesodon thyroidus)

Small White Grass-Veneer

At the end of September, I drove up to Michigan (along with Rio) for my mom's birthday. Unfortunately Nikki wasn't able to get the time off from work to be able to join, but it had been long enough since I'd been home that I wanted to make the trip anyway. Late September is properly fall that far north, and the migratory birds were of the late fall/early winter type: White-crowned Sparrows, Rusty Blackbirds, and of course about a million Yellow-rumped Warblers competing to see who could have the rattiest fall plumage. A nice surprise was a flock of American Pipits feeding in an open field near my house–the first new species for my county list since 2023. There were also some fun late summer insects and plants still around, enjoying a last burst of activity before the cold weather really set it.

American Pipit

Pretty fall foliage, and also some random bird I guess

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Black-capped Chickadee

White-crowned Sparrow

Broad-winged Hawk

Common Eastern Bumble Bee

Spined Assassin Bug (Sinea diadema)

Eastern Chipmunk having a good time

Saffron-winged Meadowhawk (Sympetrum costiferum)

New England Aster (Symphyotrichum noae-angliae)

Spotted Spreadwing (Lestes congener)

Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans)

I headed back to DC in early October, and then almost immediately left on a work trip to the Philippines. But that will be material for the next blog post.