Saturday was one of the first “nice” winter mornings of the year. No brutal wind, no biting cold, and just a bit of light rain at times. I decided to make a trip over to Kenilworth, my favorite birding spot in DC, and when I arrived I wasn’t too surprised to see that the gate to the road into Kenilworth Park was closed. That road (Deane Ave) is notoriously neglected in terms of maintenance, and in this case, it hadn’t been cleared of snow/ice so it was the right call for it to be closed. Instead of my usual parking spot, I parked along the street and walked in. It turned out that not only was the road iced over, but the bike path—usually travelled at least by a few intrepid bikers in the morning—was also covered in ice (including lots of black ice) and there was nobody at all in the park. Kenilworth Park is usually quiet in the early morning, but today was different. I didn’t encounter a single person the entire time I walked through Kenilworth Park and along the Anacostia River Trail to the aquatic gardens. This made for an incredibly peaceful walk. A few large flocks of Canada geese (at least 300 individuals) had set up in the KP fields, undisturbed by any human or K-9 presence. Several white-tailed deer were scattered around as well.
In terms of bird life, KP was relatively quiet. There was a distant belted kingfisher along the river, as well as a sharp-shinned hawk that gave me nice views as it perched in a bare tree. I don’t usually see fox sparrows along the river, but today there were two that were quite active at the field edge.
The highlights for me today were the ducks. As I left KP and walked along the river trail, I took a short spur to check the river and this yielded two American black ducks, two gadwall, a single bufflehead, and several common and hooded mergansers to go along with the usual mallards. The hooded mergansers in particular gave nice views, especially one particular male with its hood standing. This same male eventually flew and gave nice in-flight looks as well.
After continuing along the river trail and seeing my FOY brown thrasher and several hermit thrushes, I continued into Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. At KAG, I first encountered a singing rusty blackbird along the river spur trail (first of the year!), and later on fellow birder Rob alerted me to a perched peregrine falcon out on the lagoon. This falcon has been around regularly over the last several months, so it’s always good to be on the lookout for it. Also right at the lagoon lookout was an orange-crowned warbler which gave fantastic looks and also a winter wren, another year bird for me. As I walked back toward the entrance to KAG, there were some loud vocalizations from across the tidal marsh and it turned out to be three raccoons—two presumed males fighting over a female. It only took a few moments for one of the males to be pushed off to the ground and the remaining two individuals retreated into a tree cavity.
All in all, it was a great day at Kenilworth. A 50 species day and so nice and quiet. It was also one of the first times since New Years Day that I’ve had the time for a full morning of birding.
Sunday was rainy, cold, and the forecast was for another snowstorm. I hadn’t planned to bird but an alert came in for an American tree sparrow at Fletcher’s Cove which was originally reported the day before. It had been re-found, so Janet and I made a go for it ahead of the storm. American tree sparrows are rare but regular visitors when temperatures get below normal and especially if there has been a snowstorm. There was another individual that was seen on—and-off near RFK stadium across town, but the Fletcher’s bird was far more convenient from a chase perspective so that was the bird we went for. We knew there would be other sparrows to sort through, but when we got to the spot where the bird was seen there were dozens of other sparrows around. Fortunately, Janet has a knack for finding tough to re-locate birds, and tracked a group of juncos into the canal a few hundred yards south of Fletcher’s. Fellow birder Ed arrive and helped scan, and in quick order spotted the tree sparrow foraging in the canal marsh, right where we had been looking. We felt great having found the bird without having to linger too long in the deteriorating weather, and by the time we got home the sleet from the incoming storm had begun.
You can find the checklist for this outing here: https://ebird.org/checklist/S209775280.
