The past few days have been full of excitement here at Kiptopeke Hawkwatch!
The excitement began yesterday evening when Lynn Davidson and others noticed a single hummingbird coming to the feeders at the platform. As our last Ruby-throats were seen over a week ago, this attracted some attention - and it's a good thing it did, as this little guy turned out to be none other than a Black-chinned Hummingbird! These birds are very rare in the East, so those who got to see him were lucky. We even had a few folks from across the Bay who arrived this morning with hopes of seeing the Black-chinned, which had been re-sighted at least three times this morning.
The Black-chinned was only one of several delights this morning. A visitor came to the platform around 10:00 this morning saying that she had seen something very peculiar in the women's bathroom near the hawkwatch - a Virginia Rail! This, of course, caused everyone - even the assiduously dedicated Karl - to abandon the platform and fast-walk our way to the bathroom. Sure enough, a small Virginia Rail was found crouching in the corner when we arrived! Thankfully, the bird was completely uninjured and did not appear to be in any distress. Aided by a net from the park's storage shed, Lynn Davidson and Hal Wierenga performed an excellent rescue mission. They securely netted the bird and immediately transported it to the National Wildlife Refuge for release in the salt marsh. It's anyone's guess as to how a rail ended up in the women's bathroom, but it sure did make for an interesting Friday morning!
And for those who keep close tabs on our Hawkwatch or Dunkadoo data, you may have been surprised to see a…ahem…very unexpected avian visitor logged on Karl's morning data yesterday. Brian Taber e-mailed Karl sometime yesterday morning to note his surprise at seeing - yes, it's true - 6 Passenger Pigeons recorded just before 8:00 a.m. Of course, while we'd all love a world in which that could be true, it was all due to a strange Dunkadoo quirk, in which typing in "Pine Siskin" also brings up "Passenger Pigeon" as an option on the drop-down menu, which Karl accidentally selected. Why on earth Dunkadoo decided to have a bird in the system that's been extinct for over 100 years, we may never know - but it has provided more than a few good laughs today on the platform, so I'd say it's all worth it!
