Two birds - uncommon to area - are spotted feet apart

Coastal Journal is overwhelmed with great Close Encounter reports and photos these days - what with baby birds fledging, baby foxes frolicking, insects emerging, turtles laying eggs and more.

But one of the most unusual close encounters to come along really had nothing to do with the season.

Steve and Julie Coari got a tip from a fellow member of the Virginia Beach Audubon Society that an unusual bird called a dickcissel was frequenting a telephone wire on Homestead Road near some Chesapeake wetlands.

A dickcissel, a small sparrow-type bird, is out of its Midwestern range here, though it has been known to stray east on occasion. Seeing the male bird with its yellowish breast would be a first for the Coaris.

"Sure enough, there he was singing on the wire at 4:30 in the afternoon," Steve Coari reported. "His song was just like we had heard online, and we started getting good looks and photos in harsh light."

But the Coaris did a double take when they looked at the wire again. Then they also saw a larger, darker bird nearby that looked a little like an eastern kingbird but not!

"A closer look revealed a very long forked tail and a really cool looking black head," Coari said.

The bird was a fork-tailed flycatcher, also out of its range. The flycatcher is a tropical bird that is sometimes seen here in winter.

"Two birds, uncommon for the area on the same wire within feet of each other, was really a treat and a surprise," Coari said.

Maybe even more uncommon was the fact that the dickcissel flew down in the grass and flew back up with a similar drabber bird, almost assuredly a female dickcissel. They flew off together, Coari said. Could there even be a dickcissel nest nearby?

Coari, who will be in charge of planning field trips for the Virginia Beach Audubon Society next year, will be hard- pressed to come up with a trip quite like the one he took to Chesapeake!

Now that Carolyn Caywood has retired as the Bayside Library librarian, she is blogging about her Bayside backyard. Documenting what goes on through the seasons can be more than a diary. Over the years it can be a scientific record. See Caywood's blog at http://clubmallard.blogspot.com.

Jane Brumley on Knotts Island reports that the Hindu lotus along the causeway near the Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge office are coming into bloom. The yellow lotus on Sandbridge Road at the Lotus Garden also are in bloom.

Glen Caldwell sent a photo of a copperhead snake nestled under a day lily in the Mill Dam area.

More woodpecker stories: Barbara Seales sent a photo of a parent and young red-bellied in Emerald Green. Marty Spurrier photographed another red-bellied that has been feeding young in Lamplight Manor. Rhonda Fleming photographed a pileated working over a tree in Etheridge Manor South in Chesapeake; and Cinda MClaren snapped a pair of pileateds on a tree in Gardenwood Park.

Nicole Maxino sent a cute photo, taken by Mickey Pellino, of a parent fox with three babies frolicking in a front yard in Chic's Beach. Nancy Zapata photographed a handsome gray fox traveling through the wooded area behind her home in the Lynnhaven area; and Renee Mixner in Larkspur saw the "resident mama fox with its kit following behind it - the kit was no larger than a kitten." Chuck Hudson in Princess Anne Hills wrote, "My fox is napping on my garage roof. How Bizarre!" The fox was all curled up only 20 feet away from Hudson.

David Greer reports that there have been several coyote sightings over the past few years in North Shore Point and Algonquin Park in Norfolk.

Robert Brown sent photos of young ibis in the marsh at First Landing State Park; and Robert Jeffers snapped a young eagle perched on a Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge sign.

Jean Broughton in Morgan's Walke photographed her cat on the inside of a window watching a broadhead skink crawl on the screen outside; and Kim Riley snapped a big green anole, out of its territory in Shadowlawn, climbing on her front door screen. See the anole, probably an escaped pet, on my blog.

Celia Calderon said she had a great morning birding at Stumpy Lake. "I saw prothonotary warblers, yellow rumps, a flock of goldfinches, chipping sparrows, red-bellied and downy woodpeckers, tufted titmouse, Carolina wrens, plus an abundance of robins and the usual, though always gorgeous, cardinals."

Charles Brewer photographed a box turtle laying her eggs in his Foxfire backyard. Look for the photo in Thursday's Close Encounters. Amine Tayloe at the North End has a box turtle that drinks regularly from a dish of water she puts out for it.

Margaret Kruse has had two males and a female indigo bunting in her Holland Pines West yard.

Robyn Acker in Stratford Chase sent a photo of baby Carolina wrens in a nest built in the facemask of a tin replica of a knight on her front porch. And Debbie Everling sent a photo of a robin fledgling perched on a bird feeder in their North End yard waiting to be fed.

Michael Adamchuk photographed nine ducklings, many of them nestled under mom's outstretched wing to get out of the sun in his West Neck yard. Laura Stanulis sent a photo of a Canada goose eating at a bird feeder on a stump that her neighbor Ted Cremer in Larkspur has turned into a dining table for the critters.

See a photo of an oystercatcher pair and their eggs on the Lynnhaven River, taken by Peter Dunthorn, on my blog.

Peggy Miltier in Green Lakes in Portsmouth sent photos of a bluebird family that she has been feeding. Sharon White reports that one little ruddy duck has stayed behind on Lake Christopher.

Cindi Fitzgerald sent a photo of a ghost crab walking around in a Lakewood back yard, 1/2 mile from the ocean.