Summer Delehanty's Portfolio

Once I’d settled into my new apartment and my family boarded their flight back to California, it was time to start exploring my new stomping grounds. Although I’d lived in this same city for a few months the previous summer, albeit on the other end, there was one key difference from the last time I was here—I now have a car. I’d been able to hit up most of the big urban birdwatching spots, but I was restricted by the oppressive heat and my need to take the metro everywhere, especially considering the metro doesn’t run until 7am on weekends (?!?). Naturally, my first order of business was checking out the birding spots I couldn’t reach by transit. 

After a late night catching up with friends and enjoying my first night fully moved in, my alarm went off way too early the next morning. Fighting lack of sleep, lack of coffee, and lack of food in my new place, I contemplated my life choices before dragging myself out of bed and hitting the road at 7. There wasn’t really a direct route from my apartment to the hotspot I’d been eyeing. Google Maps helped me navigate literally the most confusing web of roads I’ve ever driven on (not exaggerating) to arrive at Huntley Meadows at around 7:45. I was pleasantly surprised by the cool breeze and low humidity, my only other experience a series of July and August heat waves that were unbearable after 8am. 

I hadn’t researched the location, so I was half-expecting a series of soccer fields and recreational areas mixed with open spaces, much like Marymoor Park outside Seattle. Instead, I was greeted by a well-maintained trail system through forest, wetland, and open meadow. Awesome! I started out towards the boardwalks.

The forested trail was great practice for identifying calls of all the major mid-Atlantic species I hadn’t encountered much since last summer—cardinals, Blue Jays, Carolina Wrens, Carolina Chickadees, and Tufted Titmice. By the time I reached the boardwalk, they’d all started to come back to me. 

The trails were shockingly busy for 8am on a Friday. I was only there on a weekday because I don’t start work until next Monday, but I didn’t expect there to be at least six other birders on the same stretch of boardwalk. Some of them recognized each other and were chit-chatting while we all watched a large number of songbirds flock on the edge of the marsh. I was excited to see a Veery in a small tree right off the trail, plus a gigantic snapping turtle in the murky water that I first mistook for a log (who knew they were that big?). 

I’d forgotten how hard it was to birdwatch in such dense greenery. I probably found the same Blue-gray Gnatcatcher ten different times, as well as countless cardinals, wrens, Gray Catbirds, Carolina Chickadees, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, and Red-eyed Vireos. There were a couple other drab warblers mixed in there that I was forced to leave unidentified, unable to get a good look or photo. The only one I got a picture of I managed to immediately delete, somehow. Behind me, Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds chased each other through the shrubbery.

After chatting with a woman about caterpillars and watching a Green Heron hunt for a bit, I made my way to an observation tower. I unsuccessfully tried to spot the singing White-eyed Vireo, but only got eyes on it as it flew off over the trees. Typical. I put it on my life list, but made a mental note that I wanted a better look at one later. From the tower, I had a great view of most of the area. The marsh was full of Great Blue Herons and a small white bird, which I marked as a “Snowy Egret” without really thinking, and later received an email from the eBird regional reviewer asking if it was actually a juvenile Little Blue Heron. It was, in fact, a Little Blue Heron, and I learned that I need to review the “obvious” birds a little more closely until I get the hang of East Coast birding. 

After I got off the boardwalk and back on the trail, I was passed by a woman who cheerfully said “Good morning!”, which I didn’t reply to, because clearly she was talking to the frog that had just hopped across the path in front of us. About two minutes later, while watching a hummingbird pollinate some flowers, I realized she was definitely talking to me and not the frog. My bad.

It wasn’t long before I came across a traffic jam—people spread out across the entire path, and I mean literally the entire path, because several of them were laying on their stomachs with cameras pointed at the trees. As I got closer, one of them was nice enough to point out the Barred Owl they were all staring at. He was about eye-level, and every time his head swiveled in our direction, you could hear the rapid-fire of multiple camera shutters. Whatever your opinion on the Barred Owl vs. Spotted Owl debate, Barred Owls were still a familiar species to me back west, so it was nice to get a little taste of home. 

With owls on my mind, my next social blunder of the day consisted of me asking a random photographer if a knot in a tree was actually a screech owl (it was not). I got a good look and some blurry pictures of a lifer Magnolia Warbler, which took a bit of deliberation with its non-breeding plumage. I also saw a pair of Solitary Sandpipers, who confusingly were spotted and not solitary, unlike the single not-spotted Spotted Sandpiper I saw earlier. While watching the sandpipers, I learned from a man that there are tons of little green frogs all over the sides of the boardwalk, and some mutant blue frogs where the boardwalk was falling apart. While I didn’t see any, I took his word for it, because that seems like a strange thing to lie about.

On my way back to my car, I checked out the visitor center, and added a couple of birding walks to my calendar to hopefully make some friends in the next few months. Sleep-deprived but satisfied with my new hotspot discovery, I made my way home.