Gone Pishing Team’s Hits, Misses and the Unexpected

Three Gone Pishing members.
Photo by Bryan Henson

This year Gone Pishing (Allison Gallo, Bryan Henson and Jane Yocom) welcomed a fourth team member, Gerco Hoogeweg. Gerco, and his highly competitive team, have participated in the Birdathon for many years, but his team was unable to compete this year, and we were happy to have him join us.

Like most of our past Birdathons, this year offered up fun, camaraderie, exhaustion, some hits, some misses and a little something unexpected.

Spring migration was in full swing when we began our Birdathon at Algonkian Regional Park on Saturday, May 3 at 6:00 am. The weather forecast for the weekend did not look favorable, but it turned out better than expected. Other than a very brief period on Sunday morning, we saw little rain.

This year we visited many of our regular haunts; Algonkian Regional Park, Sweet Run State Park (previously the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship), Middlesex Drive pond, Dulles Airport Pond, Meadowbrook pond, our friend Sharon’s yard (always fabulous), Rust Nature Sanctuary and some quick stops at various other spots in hopes of picking up a species or two. We also visited a brand new location that Gerco introduced us to off Bald Hill Road, which we all enjoyed and will add to our roster of places to bird in Loudoun.

This Year’s Hits

Broad Winged Hawk: they are passing through, but you have to be in the right place at the right time and looking up.
Willow Flycatcher: they are around, but definitely not a guaranteed sighting.
Warblers! We started off at Algonkian with eight species. We had great luck in Sharon’s yard and picked up a few more scattered throughout the county. We ended the weekend with 21 warbler species. Highlights being a Hooded Warbler (which makes our Birdathon species list for the first time), Tennessee, Nashville and Kentucky warblers. We also had some really excellent looks at Cape May and Chestnut-sided Warblers.

This Year’s Misses

Cerulean and Blue-winged Warblers at Sweet Run State Park. In the past they have used the park for breeding, but over the past few years they have been harder and harder to find. We hope this year is simply an anomaly, and it doesn’t mean they will no longer be breeding in the park.
Thrushes: we missed Swainson’s, Hermit and Gray-cheeked Thrushes. Perhaps this wasn’t a big surprise. For some reason we frequently struggle with thrushes.

The Unexpected

Wild Turkey: we usually see Wild Turkey, but the unexpected part is where we see them. We never know for sure that we’re going to see them. We never see them in the same place, and we’re always excited when they show up.
Ring-necked Duck: we stopped at a location looking for the Northern Waterthrush, and instead we were very surprised to find two Ring-necked Ducks still hanging around.

The Truly Special – American Woodcock
We’ve had woodcocks multiple times during a Birdathon, but usually at night when they are calling and displaying. This time we found two wandering around in the woods at Sweet Run State Park. We got to watch them for several minutes, it was very cool and quite a surprise. You can watch a video of part of this cool encounter.

Bobolinks.
Photo by Bryan Henson

There are many reasons why we enjoy participating in Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy’s annual Birdathon, but ultimately the main goal of the event is to raise money to support the organization. Thanks to everyone who donated to support Gone Pishing, we have surpassed our fundraising goal! If you haven’t donated yet, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. We are always excited when we find more species than we expect during the Birdathon and we are equally as excited when we break our fundraising goal.

We greatly appreciate everyone who supported our team and Loudoun Wildlife’s mission to protect, preserve and restore wildlife habitat in Loudoun County.