Virginia Month Listing: January 2025

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Always a fascinating month worth diving deep into from a species observed perspective, January held some fun surprises, and what felt like a return to true winter weather. In total, 231 species produced accepted records in eBird for the state, 179 of which were species that had been recorded every January throughout the prior decade (2015-2024), and 52 of which were recorded less than annually over that span purely during the month of January. We ended up above the prior 10-year average value of 226 species recorded during Januarys (the prior 10-year median value was 227, for those who like to compare medians instead of averages). The prior decade of Januarys ranged from a low of 211 species in 2015 up to a high of 245 species in 2021. It is worth noting that no other Januarys came close to 2021, with the second highest mark being 233 in 2019. Clearly, any monthly iteration can vary depending on the weather, and a lot of other factors. Waders produced the highest total (12 species) for that group compared to the prior 10-year Januarys mark of 11 (Least Bittern, Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Little Blue Heron, Green Heron & Western Cattle-Egret all did their part, with that quintet not occurring in any of the prior ten Januarys). Shorebirds (23 species) did manage to tie the prior 10-year Januarys high mark. Other groups were all around average, with more discussion on Warblers, Sparrows, Gulls, etc. at the bottom of this posting.

To showcase some of the unusual species documented in the state this month, the following is a list of the species that were recorded to eBird in January 2025 that were recorded in less than ten of the prior ten Januarys. Clicking on a species name will load up the January 2025 map in eBird, so records can be easily viewed. Please note that this is solely based on eBird records, and this isn’t an analysis of what “should/shouldn’t” be present in the state during January. Subspecies, slashes & spuhs were not investigated. This is simply intended to be an enjoyable look at what was recorded this month across the state in comparison to prior Januarys; it’s not scientific, but it helps to showcase some of the unusual records based on time of year, and 39 total cities/counties are represented by records here as well. Please enjoy!

Species (2) observed in Jan 2025 that had been recorded to eBird in only 1 of the prior ten Januarys:

  • Western Meadowlark (Albemarle; 2021 was the only year out of the prior ten with a record, and the only other known, period)

  • Anhinga (Virginia Beach; 2024 was the only year out of the prior ten with a record)

Species (4) observed in Jan 2025 that had been recorded to eBird in 2 of the prior ten Januarys:

Species (4) observed in Jan 2025 that had been recorded to eBird in 3 of the prior ten Januarys:

Species (4) observed in Jan 2025 that had been recorded to eBird in 4 of the prior ten Januarys:

Species (5) observed in Jan 2025 that had been recorded to eBird in 5 of the prior ten Januarys:

Species (4) observed in Jan 2025 that had been recorded to eBird in 6 of the prior ten Januarys:

Species (6) observed in Jan 2025 that had been recorded to eBird in 7 of the prior ten Januarys:

Species (11) observed in Jan 2025 that had been recorded to eBird in 8 of the prior ten Januarys:

Species (12) observed in Jan 2025 that had been recorded to eBird in 9 of the prior ten Januarys:

  • Snow Bunting (Accomack, Middlesex & Rockingham; missed only in 2022)

  • Clay-colored Sparrow (Amherst & Fauquier; missed only in 2022)

  • Harlequin Duck (Northampton; missed only in 2021)

  • Lapland Longspur (Augusta, Buchanan, Fauquier, James City, Madison, Middlesex, Pulaski & Rockingham; missed only in 2020)

  • Western Tanager (Albemarle, Charlottesville, Isle of Wight, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth & Virginia Beach; missed only in 2020)

  • Least Sandpiper (King George, New Kent, Newport News, Portsmouth & Virginia Beach; missed only in 2019)

  • American Avocet (Accomack & Portsmouth; missed only in 2018)

  • Nelson’s Sparrow (Virginia Beach; missed only in 2018)

  • Common Yellowthroat (Chesapeake, Chesterfield, Fairfax, Hampton, Isle of Wight, Norfolk, Virginia Beach & York; missed only in 2018)

  • Lincoln’s Sparrow (Caroline, Clarke, Prince William, Rockingham & Virginia Beach; missed only in 2016)

  • Sandhill Crane (Amherst, Halifax, Loudoun, Prince William & Richmond; missed only in 2015 so will not be included next January even if recorded)

  • Little Blue Heron (Accomack, Hampton & Northampton; missed only in 2015 so will not be included next January even if recorded)

Of course, it is also fun to look at what species were missed for the month that had occurred in some of the prior ten Januarys (and to reminisce about when those birds were observed). 58 such species were not recorded in Virginia this month. Starting with the worst misses, here are the species (1) not recorded to eBird in Jan 2025 that had been recorded in 9 of the past 10 Januarys (clicking on the names below will open this month’s eBird map to showcase where the species actually did get recorded):

  • Saltmarsh Sparrow (missed in only 2018, which was a similar month in terms of temperatures and freeze conditions along the coast where they’d be found; Worcester, MD had the closest record to VA this month)

Species (2) not recorded to eBird in Jan 2025 that had been recorded in 8 of the past 10 Januarys:

  • Red-cockaded Woodpecker (missed in 2016 & 2017; Moore, NC had the closest record, though obviously they’re just laughing at us from Sussex)

  • Glaucous Gull (missed in 2023 & 2024, so our 3rd missed January in a row; Wicomico, MD had the closest record)

Species (1) not recorded to eBird in Jan 2025 that had been recorded in 7 of the past 10 Januarys:

  • Long-eared Owl (missed in 2015, 2023 & 2024; DE appears to have had the closest record though this is a sensitive species in eBird and therefore difficult to discern)

Species (1) not recorded to eBird in Jan 2025 that had been recorded in 6 of the past 10 Januarys:

Species (5) not recorded to eBird in Jan 2025 that had been recorded in 5 of the past 10 Januarys:

Species not recorded to eBird in Jan 2025 that had been recorded in less than half of the prior 10 Januarys are as follows…

The Fours (3): Northern Shrike, LeConte’s Sparrow & White-winged Dove. The Threes (6): Indigo Bunting, Pacific Loon, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Ovenbird, Yellow-headed Blackbird & American Goshawk. The Twos (12): Calliope Hummingbird, Little Gull, Caspian Tern, American Redstart, Harris’s Sparrow, Redpoll, Wood Stork, Glossy Ibis, Red Phalarope, Black-legged Kittiwake, King Eider & Cave Swallow. The Ones (27): Long-billed Curlew (only recorded in January 2024), White-faced Ibis (only in 2024), Hammond’s Flycatcher (only 2024), Northern Lapwing (2022), Heermann’s Gull (2022), Bohemian Waxwing (2022), Grasshopper Sparrow (2022), Cinnamon Teal (2021), Buff-bellied Hummingbird (2021), Pomarine Jaeger (2021), Thick-billed Murre (2021), Sooty Shearwater (2021), Green-tailed Towhee (2021), Blackburnian Warbler (2021), Anna’s Hummingbird (2020), Gray Kingbird (2020), Yellow-throated Vireo (2020), Bar-tailed Godwit (2019), Atlantic Puffin (2019), Common Murre (2019), Northern Rough-winged Swallow (2019), Black-throated Gray Warbler (2018), Allen’s Hummingbird (2017), Lucy’s Warbler (2017), Northern Fulmar (2016), Greater Shearwater (2016) & Bay-breasted Warbler (2016).

Looking more at selected groups of birds: Waterfowl diversity tied the low 10-year mark with 36 species (though the prior 10-year data ranged only from 36-37 species, so only 1 more add would have tied the high). Hummingbirds were average with 2 species, half the number recorded in January 2021 (which posted Buff-bellied, Calliope, Rufous, Ruby-throated all in the same month). Shorebird diversity (23 species) tied 2023 & 2024 for the top mark, with the average & medians being 22 species. Alcids (2 species) were average, with 4 in 2019 being the high. Gulls & Terns (11) were below the average of 12 but within the prior range 10-13. Flycatchers (4) tied the high mark also achieved in 2016, 2020 & 2024. Finches were above average with 6 species (prior range 4-7, with the 7 in 2021 only). Sparrows, for whatever reason, were below average with only 15 species, which tied the low mark set in 2016 (range 15-18). Warblers came in slightly above average with 13 species (range 8-15), for which 12 has been the average & median. Overall, passerine diversity was above average with 90 total species (range 80-97; high mark was in 2021) and non-passerines produced records for 141 species, slightly above the 10-year average of 139 (prior range 131-148). So, everything points to January 2025 being a slightly above average month compared to the prior ten iterations, and there were plenty of exciting birds beyond even what the discussion above includes.

February tends to be one of the more challenging months with fewer days available, and the excitement of the new year having mostly worn off (and no CBCs). Spring migration doesn’t really start until March, though a few early movers do show up in new places during the latter half of February, but overall, total species count will likely be a bit lower. Regardless, it’ll be interesting to see what is found throughout the state in the ensuing 28 days!

An over-wintering Clay-colored Sparrow at the Chesapeake Arboretum

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On Saturday, 11 Mar 2023, after spending the morning at the Great Dismal Swamp and nearby lands in southwest Chesapeake, I swung by the Chesapeake Arboretum to follow-up on the recent records of an adult male Painted Bunting lingering around the parking area (probably visiting feeder setups in the adjacent residential lots). By this point in the day, the winds were roaring out of the northwest, probably around 20 mph, so hearing was quite difficult and picking out subtle movements of passerines among the wind-whipped vegetation was even tougher. After a considerable amount of pishing, eventually several House Finches caught my attention in the line of shrubs along the north edge of the gravel parking lot immediately west of Oak Grove Road, so I spent a bit more time searching this area to see if other songbirds might fly in to the raspy sounds. Slowly but surely, a few more birds came in to investigate. I’d seen a Chipping Sparrow, a Dark-eyed Junco, a stray Yellow-rumped Warbler, but no brilliantly colored male Painted Buntings flew in to view.

Then suddenly, at 11:21 AM, an unexpected CLAY-COLORED SPARROW popped up into view briefly before moving higher into a medium-height tree along the fence line, maybe 100 feet back (west) from the roadway. Even at a quick glance (mostly just the head was visible initially), this individual was readily identifiable by its beautiful features which included a consistently light gray colored & unstreaked nape, small pink bill, vivid white malar / moustachial stripe with brown edging, and lack of eye line extension forward of the eye giving the lore a ‘softer’ appearance than the somewhat similar Chipping Sparrow. Recognizing the unusualness of this species in Chesapeake, especially in early March, I quickly switched from binoculars to camera in an attempt to document the record as best I could. Over the ensuing 4 minutes, I shot a total of 52 photographs (though most were of marginal quality) of the bird before it flew out from the tree, headed southward along the eastern edge of the farmhouse/park office then slipped behind the building out of view. I kept birding the area until 11:51 AM, but I never caught back up with this Clay-colored Sparrow, despite seeing quite a few Chipping Sparrows in the area where it vanished and carefully sorting through those and the other passerines that were foraging among the grass/shrubbery. Fortunately, other birders managed to re-find and document this Clay-colored later in the day (ph. Christina Sabochick) and the following morning (ph. David Gibson), with the last report here occurring 14 Mar 2023 (vis. Paul King).

Clay-colored Sparrow is fortunately a species that most coastal Virginia birders are familiar with, since it is seen fairly regularly during fall migration, though it is still a rare bird here overall. Their peak occurrence in the region tends to be from about mid-September through October, with over-wintering individuals noted more rarely. With this record occurring on 11 Mar 2023, one assumes this bird has probably been at this location (or nearby) throughout the season, since this species doesn’t tend to move back northward this early. I would suggest that any March records in Virginia are safely attributed to over-wintering birds, rather than to early northbound arrivals (especially given the core of their migration movement is through the Great Plains). Thankfully, eBird has made visualizing species distribution and migration patterns much easier, and there’s an excellent week-to-week model located here on their website. If you click the Play button on the right panel and watch the abundance distribution change over time, note that the species begins to move northward from Texas in late March/early April. Technically, April/May records in Virginia could potentially pertain to over-winterers who simply went undetected (known winterers have stayed as late as 3 May for example), but the percentages probably shift a bit towards individuals who wintered south of us and are transiting across the state to get back to proper breeding habitat. To that point, any individuals wintering in coastal North Carolina would likely pass through Virginia en route to the northern prairie states and Canadian prairie provinces. So, it basically comes down to the fact that it is impossible to say where these newfound, late spring individuals may have wintered.

In terms of report frequency, this is only the second documented occurrence for Clay-colored Sparrow in the city of Chesapeake and the third total individual. On 4 Feb 2021, two Clay-colored Sparrows were photographed visiting a residential feeder off Saddlehorn Drive in the North Landing Farms neighborhood (ph. Keith Roberts). Statewide, this is at least the 37th documented record for a wintering Clay-colored Sparrow based solely on eBird reporting. It should be noted that there are almost certainly other past occurrences that simply never made it into the system or weren’t documented well enough to be validated/confirmed into the public database (but may have been correct nonetheless), so one can never really assign a certain value to how many records we’ve had. That said, a comprehensive listing of eBird records for individuals present during the Dec-Mar time frame is included below:

  • 1, Chesapeake Arboretum, Chesapeake, 11-14 Mar 2023 (ph. Rob Bielawski).

  • 1, Bland Experimental Farm / State Arboretum of Virginia, Clarke County, 6 Feb 2023 (ph. David Carr).

  • 1, Botetourt Center at Greenfield, Botetourt County, 18 Nov-4 Dec 2022 (vis. Annie Downing; later ph. Lucy Rowe).

  • 1, Harris Teeter Retention Pond, Virginia Beach, 16 Oct 2022-12 Mar 2023 (ph. Reuben Rohn). *This is the 3rd cycle in a row that an individual has been documented over-wintering at this site.

  • 1, Harris Teeter Retention Pond, Virginia Beach, 25 Mar-8 Apr 2022 (ph. Reuben Rohn). *This is the 2nd cycle in a row that an individual has been documented over-wintering at this site.

  • 2, North Landing Farms (Saddlehorn Drive), 4 Feb 2021 (ph. Keith Roberts).

  • 1, Ocean Lakes (Private Residence), 13-22 Jan 2021 (vis. Brandon Holland).

  • 1, Pughsville North CBC Sector (Nansemond River CBC), Suffolk, 4 Jan 2021 (vis. Robert Ake & Bill Williams).

  • 1, Locust Dale Road, Culpeper County, 31 Dec 2020 (ph. Jason Strickland).

  • 1, Harris Teeter Retention Pond, Virginia Beach, 30 Dec 2020-19 Apr 2021 (ph. Rob Bielawski).

  • 1, Virginia Beach National Golf Club, Virginia Beach, 21-25 Jan 2020 (vis. & later ph. Andrew Baldelli).

  • 1, Indian River (Private Residence), Virginia Beach, 31 Jan 2019 (vis. George Harris & Rosemarie Harris).

  • 1, Curles Neck Farm, Henrico County, 16 Dec 2018-3 Mar 2019 (ph. Jack Esworthy IV & Ellison Orcutt).

  • 1, Shirley Plantation, Charles City County, 16 Dec 2018 (ph. Allen Bryan).

  • 1, Laurel Hill Equestrian Center, Fairfax County, 9 Nov 2018-17 Feb 2019 (vis. Kurt Gaskill; later ph. Jeffrey Pozner). *This is the 2nd cycle in a row that an individual has been documented over-wintering at this site.

  • 1, Pocahontas Club Road, Virginia Beach, 18 Jan 2018 (vis. Andrew Baldelli).

  • 1, Winter Wheat Lane (Private), New Kent County, 31 Dec 2017 (ph. Carson Lambert & Andrew Rapp).

  • 1, Laurel Hill Equestrian Center, Fairfax County, 5 Dec 2017-27 Feb 2018 (ph. Will Kennerley).

  • 1, Exeter Court (Private Residence), James City County, 16 Jan-3 May 2017 (ph. Brian Taber).

  • 1, Curles Neck Farm, Henrico County, 18 Dec 2016 (ph. Ryan Graves & Ellison Orcutt).

  • 2, Seaside Road, Northampton County, 22 Jan 2016 (vis. Edward Brinkley; later ph. Roberta Kellam).

  • 1, Craney Island Dredged Material Management Area, Portsmouth, 21 Jan 2016 (ph. Robert Ake & Bill Williams).

  • 1, Seaside Road, Northampton County, 17-20 Jan 2016 (vis. Todd Day fide Edward Brinkley).

  • 1, US Route 17 at Carr Lane, Fauquier County, 17 Jan 2016 (ph. Ellison Orcutt & Beth Oristian).

  • 1, Blackburn Road, Prince William County, 28 Dec 2014-14 Feb 2015 (vis. Marc Ribaudo; later ph. Elton Morel).

  • 1, Bells Lane, Staunton, 8 Feb-3 Apr 2014 (vis. Diane Lepkowski & Greg Moyers; later ph. David Wendelken).

  • 1, Bristersburg Road at Elk Run Road, Fauquier County, 14 Feb 2014 (vis. Kurt Gaskill).

  • 1, Arlington (Private), Northampton County, 24 Dec 2012 (obs. Edward Brinkley).

  • 1, Lucketts, Loudoun County, 2 Jan 2012 (vis. Elton Morel).

  • 1, Smith Mountain Lake Community Park, 3 Dec 2011 (vis. Kent Davis & Mike Smith).

  • 1, Trader Farm (Private), Westmoreland County, 28 Oct 2007 (vis. Frederick Atwood).

  • 1, Bull Run Regional Park, Fairfax County, 10 Jan 2006 (obs. David Larsen).

  • 1, Rappahannock River Valley NWR (Wilna Tract), Richmond County, 9 Jan 2005 (obs. Allen Bryan; ph. John Fox fide Virginia’s omnium-gatherum).

  • 1, Julie J. Metz Wetlands Bank, Prince William County, 30 Nov 2003-16 Feb 2004 (obs. Larry Meade).

  • 1, Troy Creek Farm (Private), Westmoreland County, 15 Dec 2002 (vis. Frederick Atwood).

  • 1, Greensprings Interpretive Trail, James City County, 20 Jan-6 Apr 2002 (vis. Bill Williams).

  • 1, Mannassas National Battlefield Park, Prince William County, 24 Dec 2001-16 Feb 2022 (vis. Kurt Gaskill).

Lastly, I should probably mention that I never did find the Painted Bunting that brought me here in the first place, but that’s just fine with me. Anyone who knows me, even a little bit, knows sparrows are my favorite group of birds, and in my opinion finding a rare sparrow is about as exciting as birding gets.