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DVOC Field Trip Report
by Win Shafer

November 13, 2011
Kirkwood Preserve and Rushton Farm Field Trip Report

Eight stalwart birders joined Debbie Beer and me for the first field trip to the Willistown Trust’s preserves at Kirkwood and at Rushton Farms. The two preserves are only a few miles apart off of Goshen Road in Chester County. Both feature a nice mix of open fields and woods along streams. We began the morning at Kirkwood, walking through a large expanse of open meadow and saw a nice variety of field and forest birds highlighted by a Americal Kestrel just as we were about to leave. We also had great looks at a hunting Red Fox. After a nice walk through Kirkwood we headed to Rushton Farms where we walked through the farm fields, past the banding station and into the woods. A flock of several thousand Grackels that we had spotted in the air on our drive between the two preserves joined us at Rushton. The noise they can make and the sound of their wings as they took flight from drinking at the stream were quite impressive.

Our cumulative list of birds from the morning are as follows:
Canada Goose
Coopers Hawk
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Turkey Vulture
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downey Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Blue Jay
American Crow
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Eastern Bluebird
Northern Mockingbird
Cedar Waxwing
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
American Goldfinch