March Migrants

Double-crested Cormorant. Photo by Bob Abraham

Recent sightings of migrating birds in the New River Valley include Double-crested Cormorants and Bonaparte's Gulls, both common spring migrants in this part of Virginia. Early to mid April is the best time to see Bonaparte's Gulls, while mid March through mid May is great for seeing sometimes large numbers of cormorants. My favorite place to observe them is at Riverview Park in Radford.

Most of the "Bonies" seen right now are dressed in basic or winter plumage, but in a couple of weeks many of them should be decked out in their breeding season plumage.

Winter plumaged Bonaparte's Gull feasting on an earthworm. Photo by Bob Abraham

River Otters This Winter

Since late November, it has been the winter of River Otters here in the Radford stretch of the New River. I have found them a lot of mornings just before daybreak. They'd be foraging for crayfish, or small carp and other fish.

Most times I encounter a group of four, swimming near shore or lounging on a nearly submerged willow. Only once this winter have I seen one alone, and that one was shoving pieces of ice towards the boat landing two weeks ago. I don't know what that behavior was about. But once it saw me, it started making a strange raspy call that I heard for the first time about five months ago. I think it is a very agitated distress call of some sort.

I have learned to imitate that call, and it sometimes makes the otters swim towards me and utter this vocalization even more frequently and louder. It sounds like someone saying the word "otter" while gargling. And it sounds a bit like Golem mouthing his name "golem" several times in the Lord of the Rings movie, though not nearly as harsh a sound.

The loner two weeks ago made this sound, and I would say this sound back (or at least my rudimentary approximation of the vocal). I'm sure the otter considered it a poor voicing of something important. Anyway this one conversation lasted about five minutes before the otter swam away.

Early this morning (7 February) there were two groups of otters. One group of three swam down stream, swerving and gliding in and out of the water, much like dolphins. The other group was a pair of otters that swam near the far shore and headed upstream. The pair took a brief detour and swam quickly at a Horned Grebe which dived and disappeared. The pair then continued upstream.

I wonder if one of the group of four had left and found a mate.

Two local critter names

Over the past few mornings, I have met fishermen and waterfowl hunters at the boat landing in Riverview Park in Radford. We talk about most anything, weather, crowds, work situations, and eventually about the kinds of birds, fish, and other animals we have recently seen along the New River.

One waterfowl hunter was checking the area for Canada Geese. We watched one long skein of geese fly by us. The geese honked a little and circled towards a farm field. We talked about geese, and he mentioned that he had seen speckled bellies a couple of times between Radford and Parrott on the river. I asked him to describe the geese, and I realized that he was talking about Greater White-fronted Geese, a species quite rare in this part of Virginia.

Another morning a fishermen asked me what I was looking at...I was just watching a few tree swallows perched on the electric line that crosses the river near the boat landing. I told him that earlier in the day I had seen an otter. He mentioned that he saw otters frequently and sometimes river weasels. The latter was his name for mink.

For me it is a blessing to learn local names of plants and animals. In the past week, I have learned two:

Speckled Belly
River Weasel