Birding Fort Fisher

Natalia and I decided to bird Fort Fisher on our way back from the Carolina Bird Club meeting in Litchfield Beach, SC.  It was a report of a Yellow-headed Blackbird that drew us to a patch of senescent sunflowers by the ferry terminal.  While we couldn't turn up the target bird, the area proved to be quite birdy and hold a few surprises.

Lark Sparrow, Fort Fisher

Of course the rarer birds didn't do a good job posing for photos.  Lark Sparrow can be a tricky bird to find in NC, but this was not a first for me (link to when it was a first for me). 

Dickcissel is also an irregular NC bird and this was only my second in the state.

Dickcissel, Fort Fisher

The more common birds were much more cooperative.

Eastern Kingbird, Fort Fisher

Prairie Warbler, Fort Fisher

Just when we were about to give up on the vagrant blackbird, Greg Massey, Harry Sell and Jamie Adams arrived.  So we stuck around to show them the Lark Sparrow.

Greg tried to convince me there were Bobolinks in the area, but Jamie and I thought they all looked like Blue Grosbeaks.

Blue Grosbeak, Fort Fisher

Despite our disagreements over the finer points of little brown job identification, they invited us on a run down the Fort Fisher spit.  This is one of the best shorebirding spots in the whole state and one I had never previously explored, so I was thrilled to go along for the ride. 

We cruised out in Harry's truck and got Natalia her lifer looks at both Saltmarsh and Nelson's Sparrows and then got some close range practice picking apart the three North American peeps (Least, Semipalmated and Western Sandpipers).  The beach and marshes were littered with shorebirds.

A small flock of shorebirds in the marsh at Fort Fisher spit.  How many species can you see?

The best we found was a lone Red Knot, a species that may soon be added to the federal threatened species list.  I could check on its status if the Department of the Interior were not currently shut down.  

Red Knot, Fort Fisher

Just when we came up on a huge flock of a couple thousand shorebirds working the beach, Jamie realized that all our vehicles were parked in the ferry terminal lot, which was about to be shut behind a 15-foot razor wire fence.  So Harry bombed us back up the spit in record time so we could collect our vehicles before they were impounded. 

While we ended up getting back to Durham a lot later than we had planned, the excellent birding at Fort Fisher and the hilarious company of Harry, Jamie and Capt. Sell made it worthwhile.  Hope I cross paths with them again soon!

Spring Sprang Sprung

It has been a whirlwind the past few weeks with birding, term papers and field work…and now I find myself finally updating this blog with the first week of May gone.  Most of the exciting spring migrants have already passed over the rapidly warming central piedmont in favor of higher latitudes and elevations. 

Blackpoll Warbler

I saw this Blackpoll Warbler out my window the other day; a harbinger of the beginning of the end of spring migration.

According to the old-timers at the Carolina Club’s 75^th Anniversary meeting in Raleigh this past weekend, the rain storms just didn’t come at the right time to cause the fallout that every birder prays for in spring.  As a result many of the uncommon transient warblers were downright rare.  Nevertheless through two full days of leading area field trips for CBC participants I was able to turn up 21 warbler species.  Not bad at all!

Of course this says more about the sites I was assigned than anything else.  

On my Saturday morning trip to the ever popular birding hotspot, Mason Farm, we stumbled upon one migrant flock that had a Magnolia and Cape May Warbler—both gorgeous males!  And the entry marsh had a about a dozen sandpipers: mostly Solitary with a few Least and a Spotted. 

In the afternoon I took a smaller group to Eno River State Park where we got Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Scarlet Tanagers and lots of Black-throated Blue Warblers.  But the coolest sighting might have been the Red-shouldered Hawk that flew by with a snake in its bill.  

My co-leader, Mike McCloy, showing CBC members a Kentucky Warbler at Howell Woods

On Friday I led a group to Howell Woods down in Johnston County, which is thick with bottomland swamp species such as Hooded Warbler, Kentucky Warbler and Acadian Flycatcher. 

Acadian Flycatcher

It even has the elusive Swainson’s Warbler, which cooperatively sat up and sang for the group giving nearly everyone fantastic looks and me a passable photo of lifer #1553!

Swainson's Warbler!

Legendary naturalist Scott Weidensaul was in our group and even he was thrilled by this bird.  Or at least he said as much before electrifying the club and visitors with a talk about the wonders of bird migration.  Both Scott’s presentation and the venue, the recently completed North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, left me awestruck.  It was a fantastic way to cap the meeting.  

~~~

Last weekend I covered Quail Roost with Tom Krakauer for the Durham spring bird count again and we crushed our total from last year by about 10 species.  We had Natalia Ocampo-Penuela partially to thank for this; she came along to get a few life birds and ended up spotting one of the better birds of the count: a gorgeous male Blackburnian Warbler!  But the best bird for me was a flock of about 120 Bobolinks we found in a field of alfalfa. 

Bobolinks! Durham bird #204

Since the count was in late April, it was the first chance to see many of the returning breeding birds singing away on territory, such as this Blue Grosbeak…

Blue Grosbeak

…or this Yellow-breasted Chat.

Yellow-breasted Chat

We also saw a nice male Orchard Oriole.  

Orchard Oriole

There’s still time for some late-moving migrants, but once June rolls around and the summer heat really fires up I recommend visiting the beach or the coast...and to bring a bathing suit as well as binoculars!