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October 8, 2007

Kay Charter: Birding from the Capitol Limited

By Kay Charter

Late August found me again traveling on Amtrak, this time aboard the Capitol Limited bound for Washington, D.C.

Several invitations to present programs on bird conservation from nature centers in New England was the reason for the trip, and I used the opportunity to spend Labor Day Weekend in our nation's capital, where I was able to bird with Greg Butcher. Butcher is director of Bird Conservation for Audubon and his office is in the District, so he knows the hot spots.

The Capitol Limited pulled out of Chicago's Union Station precisely on time. It was late in the day, and I was in the dining car.

Ring-billed gulls circled over streets littered with fast-food containers and a flock of robins settled in a nearby tree. My entrée arrived -- a tasty braised beef -- just as hundreds of chimney swifts appeared over a neighborhood where old brick homes retain their original masonry chimneys, which offer roosting sites for these birds.

The swifts flitted and fluttered under the sun's fading rays, darting about on both sides of track, snatching airborne insects. I pointed out the engaging little birds to my mates at the table, who were fascinated by them. None had ever seen them before.

We lost time in Indiana, and I turned in before leaving the state. Dawn came in Pittsburgh under a leaden sky. From the city on three rivers, we began our climb over the Allegheny Mountains. The train twisted and turned, swaying gently as it glided over a road as smooth as silk. Mist-veiled ridges disappeared when we entered the first of several tunnels. We exited in a shallow gorge where waterfalls splashed down steep, stony sides. Maple and oak trees growing up those sides survived by clawing their roots into solid rock; today they struggle against invaders like tree-of-heaven and Oriental honeysuckle.

Unlike my trip from Tucson, Ariz., last winter, few birds appeared, in part because vegetation was so close to the train that there was no way to get a broad view.

But birding in the capital was terrific.

Butcher picked me up at my inn, a bed and breakfast in the popular Adams-Morgan District of the city where catbirds called from street-side trees and chimney swifts flew overhead. My friend took me to both of his favorite birding places. The first was Rock Creek Park, a heavily wooded 1,800-acre preserve on the northwest edge of the city.

We parked near the nature center and walked down an equestrian trail through the trees, past the maintenance yard to a shrubby clearing at the top of what is called Western Ridge.

It was the heart of fall migration; there were warblers and thrushes as well as residents like woodpeckers, titmice and wrens. An eastern towhee kicked through leaf litter beneath a bush and a least flycatcher called from the woods behind us. Ahead we watched an immature common yellowthroat forage through a small tree. Although there was a fair number of species, Butcher pronounced it "not as good as usual."

We departed Rock Creek for an aquatic garden on the opposite side of town. On our drive from the park to the garden, the spire of the Washington Monument could be seen rising above the city to our right. My favorite building in D.C., the exquisitely beautiful Library of Congress, was tucked out of sight behind the Capitol building.

The aquatic garden was full of Oriental lotus plants, many with gigantic blossoms nodding atop stems more than head high. They were beautiful, but worrisome, as this lovely plant has already moved outside the confines of the garden into area wetlands.

Still, along the muddy edges, migrating shorebirds tanked up on invertebrates and ducks dipped their heads into rising tidal waters. A great crested flycatcher hawked insects from high in a tree while scads of Canada geese slept below.

In spite of Butcher's apologies, I thought it a great day of birding, especially as it included one of my very favorites -- an eastern Phoebe, perched on a branch near the boardwalk, wagging its tail as it searched for the flying insects upon which it feeds.

Kay Charter is executive director of Saving Birds Thru Habitat, an organization that teaches people how to help migrating birds whose populations are declining.

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