Top 10 birds of 2011

Yes, this is coming out 6 months late.  And it is on a much lower plane compared to my top ten from 2010 (it’s what I get for visiting Europe instead of the Neotropics).  But better late than never!

In 2011 I saw 405 bird species, of which 92 were lifers (way down from 907 with 649 lifers in 2010).  About two-thirds of these lifers I found on a couple trips to Europe, with 48 coming while exploring Greece and Croatia and 15 more from a later trip to Prague to attend a Society of Wetland Scientists conference. 

Making a top-10 list is a highly subjective (not to mention silly!) exercise.  Last year every bird I listed was a life bird from the tropics and listed by the IUCN as a species of concern. Also most were endemic and thus could only be found in a relatively small geographic area.  

This time around I didn’t see nearly enough endangered, impossible-to-find birds, so I’m mixing in some somewhat mundane birds that were significant because of where I found them.  But I’m only considering including birds that I found (or co-found); chases don’t count.  So the Allen’s Hummingbird in Catawba Co., NC and the Franklin’s Gull at Jordan Lake, for example, won’t make this list despite being fantastic birds for North Carolina.  Other people (Dwayne Martin and Thierry Besancon) did the hard work of finding and identifying these out-of-range rarities.  

Otherwise I’m making selections based on rarity, difficulty to find and/or identify, and to a lesser extent on charisma/looks.

In keeping with last year, we’ll make this a challenge.  I’m sure many folks have seen many of these birds, but has anybody seen them all?  Send me your total out of ten and whoever has the most will win a prize: an original Brown Boobies t-shirt in the size of your choice (S M L XL). 

On to the list!

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10. Olive-sided Flycatcher

Olive-sided Flycatcher - Pocosin Lakes NWR

This is a declining species that is a pretty rare migrant through North Carolina.  It is especially rare in the coastal plain where there have only been a dozen or so records.  I found mine on August 11 in Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.  

Nice tuxedo jacket! A rare sight in coastal NC

*bonus point if you have seen one in the coastal plain of NC*

9. Eurasian Bee-eater

Eating bees! (I think)

Also not particularly rare, but perhaps the most colorful European bird (a relatively unimpressive accomplishment in a continent that has nearly cornered the market on Little Brown Jobs).  I saw hundreds of these (quite a spectacle!) migrating through the Greek Isles while I was Island hopping my way from Rhodes over to my brother’s wedding on Paros. 

Lot's of Bee-Eaters!

8. Greenish Warbler

Greenish Warbler and its genus–phyloscopus—are prime example of the uninspiring plumage and identification challenges that the European birder faces.  It wouldn’t even matter if I had a decent photo of it…it would still be a drab bird and there still would be lingering identification doubts.  Luckily it was singing in the Red Bog I visited on a field trip as part of my conference in the Czech Republic. This wetland we visited has relict boreal vegetation from the Pleistocene and may be one of the southernmost refuges for this high-latitude species.  

7. Anhinga

Anhinga - Durham, NC

Tom Krakauer and I found this bird at a housing development pond in Northern Durham County, which was the first record of the species for the Durham Christmas Bird Count. 

It was a mild enough winter I guess

These are trash birds in Florida, but very rare in Durham...especially so in winter. 

Anhingas in Florida are hard to miss

*bonus point if you've seen an Anhing in Durham*

6. Citrine Wagtail

Citrine Wagtail (female) in Rhodes, Greece - rare this far west

I found a female in a creek bed in Rhodes Greece in May.  It was flagged as "rare" by ebird's filters and apparently it does not frequently stray this far west on its migration.  Unfortunately it was not the colorful male, but I was lucky that it was keeping company with a couple Yellow Wagtails, which made it much easier to identify. 

*bonus point if you've seen a Citrine Wagtail west of Asia*

5. Eleonora’s Falcon

Eleonora's Falcon - light morph

This is a really cool raptor with a relatively small breeding range that covers some Mediterranean Islands.  I saw dozens on the Greek Island of Tilos, which is thought to support 10% of the world's population.  It comes in two color morphs.

Eleonora's Falcon - dark morph

4. Short-toed Eagle

I'm not sure how rare a bird this is, but a woman from the Hellenic Ornithological Society on Tilos told me that it had not been previously recorded on the island.  So it was completely unprecedented  here at least!

Short-toed Eagle - a first for Tilos, Greece

I wrote up a formal description and sent them links to my video, but never heard anything back from any ornithologists or bird records people. 

*bonus point if you've seen Short-toed Eagle on Tilos*

3. Long-billed Dowitcher

Long-billed Dowitcher - Falls Lake, NC

I saw a lot of rare shorebirds on Falls Lake at the end of last summer, but this is the only one that I "discovered."  I was surprised later when I couldn't find any previous records for Durham, so as far as I can tell, this bird was a Durham County first. 

A first for Durham (?)

Perhaps others have had 'dowitcher sp.' at Falls Lake that were suspected of being Long-billed that were never confirmed.  Mine was kind enough to vocalize so there wasn't any doubt.

*bonus point if you've seen Long-billed Dowitcher in Durham*

2. Audouin’s Gull

Audouin's Gull is the only bird on this list that is currently experiencing any sort of extinction risk according to the IUCN which declares it to be 'near-threatened.'  In the 1960s it was one of the rarest gulls on Earth with only some 1,000 remaining.  Now the population is some 10 times the level of its low point, and stable thanks, no doubt, to some diligent effort by conservationists.  Despite the recovery, Audouin's Gull is still a rare bird that is pretty strictly pelagic, so tough to see.  I saw mine from a ferry near Nissyros, Greece.

1. Yellow Rail

I actually went on two successful Yellow Rail trips in 2011. Both were in Carteret County in sections of North River Marsh, one was in January and the other in December. This is one of the most difficult to see of all breeding North American bird species. Our (now infamous) method for finding them is documented here and here.

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So leave your score in the comments below (the bonus points are to break a tie) and take your shot at the prize!  

Hopefully somebody can top Derb Carter (last year's reigning champ).  I haven't gotten him his t-shirt yet, but I'm sure he doesn't need two!

Breeding Black-billed Cuckoos in coastal Carolina

Black-billed Cuckoos are tough to see anywhere.  Even in the mountains of North Carolina, where they breed, there is no reliable method for tracking them down.  They vocalize sporadically and spend most of their time perched in dense vegetation scanning their surroundings for caterpillars or large insects.

Until a few days ago Black-billed Cuckoos were known only as rare migrants in the eastern part of the state, with the most recent breeding record a specimen collected from Bertie County in May, 1896.  Observations made by John Fussell (who wrote the book on birding coastal NC) of birds singing in the Croatan National Forest and in nearby North River Farm seemed to suggest the potential for breeding, but this needed to be confirmed.

And since I also needed this bird for my life list (I had heard one in Vermont five years ago during a softball game), I woke up early and went out with Fussell himself on June 28 to Catfish Lake Road in the Croatan to some spots where he had heard cuckoos coo-coo-coo-ing 10 days prior.

Black-billed Cuckoo habitat? - Catfish Lake rd., Croatan National Forest

At first we heard no cuckoos of any kind.  John said that when he has heard Black-billed Cuckoos singing in June, they usually stop by the beginning of July.  And after a fruitless three hours, I was ready to accept the null hypothesis: that these cuckoos were just late migrants.  After all Black-billed Cuckoos are weird birds that often defy conventional bird wisdom: they shed their stomach linings to expel caterpillar spines; their young leave the nest faster than any other bird (17 days from egg lay to fledge); and they are just so cryptic and elusive.  Perhaps they could migrate through coastal areas on occasion in late June with the intent to breed later in July at some caterpillar hotspot somewhere else?

But we finally heard a cuckoo sound...(turn your volume way up)



We heard this call regularly for the better part of an hour, but couldn't coax a bird into view.  And the source of the sound didn't seem to be moving at all.  Perhaps it was sitting on a nest?

We moved in closer, pinpointing a dense vine-tangled bush. Then John finally spotted a cuckoo, but it looked pretty dingy... a fledgling!  Then an adult popped out of nowhere to feed it.  Wow!

I filmed the ensuing scramble made by the youngster as it tried to hide itself...



If you don't like videos, here are a few stills I extracted...

Fledling Black-billed Cuckoo

showing the short tail while scrambling away

This was the last we saw of the fledgling.  At one point we heard a fledgling call from another bush 20 feet away, so we suspect there were at least two young. As we worked our way out we saw one adult pop up out of a ditch and cross the road. And then we flushed a second out of some rank vegetation.

Adult

This one was incredibly cooperative, sitting up on exposed twigs in the power line cut.  We even had time to get scopes on it!

From the road we saw one of the adults working the edge of the powerline cut and then disappearing into the bushes to feed its brood.

What a successful and "historic" morning!  The handful of Swainson's Warblers we heard singing seem hardly worth mentioning.

This is my second significant encounter with a bird that begins with "Black-b." this year (the first).  So I've got high hopes for stumbling upon a Black-bellied Whistling Duck or Black-bellied Storm-Petrel in North Carolina sometime in the next 6 months!

Birding Viera Wetland

The 9th INTECOL International Wetlands Conference brought me down to Orlando, Florida for a week of academic lectures and elbow-rubbing with some of the world's top wetland scientists.

I had been invited to give a 20-minute presentation on my dissertation research (which went great by the way) but I'd be damned if I was going to drive so far south without getting out to see some birds!

So I woke up early one morning and zipped out to Viera Wetland (aka Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands) for some birding appropriate for a wetland scientist.

Viera Wetland

 The place is a Mecca for wading birds with Ibises everywhere...

White Ibises

Glossy Ibises

...and a variety of herons...

Tricolored Heron

...and egrets...

Cattle Egrets

Dozens of Black-bellied Whistlling-Ducks were nesting in hollow palm trunks all over the place.   

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck

I had only seen these cute guys once before and way down in Panama back in 2008 (ABA bird #338).

The same was essentially true of Roseate Spoonbill, a bird I had seen only once before seen in Nicaragua.

Roseate Spoonbill

They look so pretty from far away, but up close the bald head and red eye look downright sinister to me (well if you ignore the comical spoon-shaped bill). This one was my ABA #339!

Least Bitterns were calling everywhere and even a few showed...

Least Bittern

I saw three of them throughout the morning and one was even prowling around on lily pads!

Hiding in plain view

I guess it was doing a frog impression?  Life bird #1554!

telescoping neck!

And then there was a pair of Sandhill Cranes...

Sandhill Crane

Just more trash birds by Florida standards! 

As you can see the birders in this state are spoiled rotten for cool wetland species.  And the photographers who visit Viera Wetland are as well.  The site consists of 5 wetland treatment cells, each with a different water level for maximum habitat diversity.  And the border of each cell is a high drivable berm.  The result is the ultimate lazy nature photographer's dream; simply drive along until you see the right bird in good light and fire away.  No need to even leave your vehicle!

The one exception and only time I actually needed to use my scope was when a group of four Crested Caracaras flew along the treeline and landed in a distant pine.

Crested Caracaras

Of course it's tough to get a good shot from half a mile away, but I'm always amazed that the birds are even identifiable at that distance.  I had seen Crested Caracara's a handful of times in the tropics, but this was my first sighting in the US (ABA #341).
 
The only bird I was hoping to see and missed was Purple Gallinule.  But their "Common" cousins were ubiquitous and I even saw some downy chicks!

Common Gallinules with chicks

It took me a few loops around the wetland cells to get my real target bird...

Limpkin

...Limpkin!  This species looks like it should be a skulker like a rail, but that just isn't the case.  Limpkins aren't especially shy, they just aren't very common...

Yum! Lifer #1555

...and only found in areas with an abundance of their prey of choice: snails.

By this point my three hours were up and I had to race back to the convention center for more concurrent sessions and important networking opportunities.  But the visit to Viera Wetland was definitely worth the trip.  I'm not sure if there is another spot in this area that can offer up such a complete and reliable menu of so many cool species with such great opportunities for photos.

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On our way back north Katie and I dropped by Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in search of Florida Scrub-Jay, which proved to be easy enough.

The light was terrible for photos, but I was just glad to see this endemic, IUCN-listed species.  And I really like Jays.

Florida Scrubu-Jay

We also stumbled upon the most cooperative Bobwhite I had ever seen.

Northern Bobwhite

We did a little bit of exploring some of the refuge's vast tracts of wetlands and saw some other cool birds such as Wood Stork, Reddish Egret, Black-necked Stilt and more Roseate Spoonbills, but with a 10-hour drive back to Durham looming, we had to cut ourselves off and hit the road. 

Hopefully my next trip to Florida will include the Everglades and the plethora of specialties that can be found in the nether regions of the state.  But I have certainly had my wetland bird fix for now!

Warblings in Wake!

Emails were flying around over the long weekend about a pair of Warbler Vireos nesting in Raleigh.  I really wanted to see these birds, but was stuck up in New England (looking at different Warbling Vireos, among other birds).  So as soon as I got home and had the chance, I zipped out to Shelley Lake Park to see them for myself.

Why are these birds so special?  Well, just take a look a Cornell's breeding range map for the species...

(map by Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

Central North Carolina is just about the only spot in the country that these birds should not be breeding.  Yet here one is nesting in Wake County....

Female Warbling Vireo nesting in Raleigh

And this is a species that is tricky to find anywhere in NC (state bird #313 for me!).

I've heard birders say that song birds don't sing when they're sitting on eggs.

Male Warbling Vireo singing while incubating

Well it wasn't true with this pair at least.  I saw the female fly off the nest and then off to forage and the male take her place and continue singing away while incubating the eggs (a rare male multi-tasker!).  And when he wasn't on the nest he was very busy chasing away grackles.

It will be interesting to see how this pair does so far out of their expect range and in a spot with such a high density of nest predators (i.e. grackles, crows, Blue Jays). The odds-makers on the carolinabirds listeserve don't seem to have much confidence!

Congratulation to Lynn Erla Beagle and her group from Wake Audubon for finding this unusual pair.  And thanks to Mike Turner for posting detailed instructions and GPS coordinates that many folks (including me) used to easily locate the nest. 

Searching for Ceruleans on the Roanoke

The Cerulean Warbler is a special bird.  Not only is it the only member of the huge wood-warbler family that is entirely blue and white, but it also has the tragic distinction of being one of the most rapidly declining neotropical migrant songbirds. On average the population shrinks 3 percent each year and has been doing so for decades.  It isn’t entirely understood why the species is struggling so, but the downhill trajectory combined with a low population density has earned it a spot on the IUCN’s endangered species list where it carries the label, “Vulnerable.”

Because Ceruleans nest in emergent trees in mature forest, they are nearly impossible to spot without first being heard. To get at this bird typically requires a special trip to a special known breeding location during the late spring when the males proclaim their presence with a buzzy song that sputters like a tiny gas motor trying to start.  Since ~99.9% of Cerlueans breed in the mountains, that’s where nearly everyone goes to add this special bird to a life, state or year list.

What we set out to do was find that remnant 0.1% of the population that somehow persists miles from all its relatives in a completely different physiographic region in riparian forest along the Roanoke River in the coastal plain of North Carolina.  

The team -- photo by Ken Hackney

Paul Taillie, Natalia Ocampo-Penuela, Mark Kosiewski, Nick Flanders, and I paddling a 15-mile stretch of river going downstream from Weldon, listening intently, hoping to pick out that Cerulean song.

Birding by kayak

We had perfect weather—clear skies and highs around 75—and perfect timing.  We were late enough to avoid fishing boats (we saw two all day) and early enough to beat the mosquitos (my count was one individual for the weekend).  And the river was flowing nicely, so that in the early hours of the morning when the birding was best, we scarcely had to paddle, but would just drift and listen.  

And the river was gorgeous and fantastic for birds.  At any given time two or more Bald Eagles were typically in view.

Bald Eagle

And Prothonotary Warbler was among the most abundant species of the day.  

Prothonotary Warbler

 This Prothonotary nestling enjoys a spectacular view of the Roanoke from its dead tree trunk penthouse (penthole?). 

Prothonotary Nestling

We found 15 warbler species on the day.  It was a little late for migrants and we detected only two: Blackpoll and Yellow, but we recorded 10 singing males of each of two rather secretive and rare breeders, Swainson’s and Kentucky, and got great looks at both.

Kentucky Warbler

And yes, we found our Cerulean Warblers…six males singing away, perhaps hoping to lure in a female from what must be a severely limited supply.  We beached our boats and clambered up the steep bank to try to spot one…

!!

We were thrilled to see our first of 3 seen Cerlueans on the day, but what was shocking was the trashed habitat where this one had decided to stake out its territory.

Prime Cerulean Warbler habitat?

While there were some tall Tulip Poplars (a species they tend to prefer), the forest cover was fragmented by little clear-cuts. Even where the canopy was mostly intact there was evidence of active selective logging.  We saw stumps and freshly downed tree crowns.   

Singing

Sadly this bird may be singing in vain.  Even if he is able to successfully breed in his fragment this year, will there be anything for him in 2013?  Indeed the prospects for this tiny population are grim (even more so than they are for the species as a whole).  

Were the Roanoke Ceruleans, with their isolation, given thousands of years to breed and respond to selective pressures, they might genetically drift to a novel subspecific identity.  But I’m not sure if this population will make it through the current century. 

One of North Carolina’s preeminent birders and naturalists, Harry LeGrand, recently reported zero Ceruleans in at least 12-15 trips to the Roanoke this spring (all working on foot, essentially just in Halifax and Northampton).  He concluded that Ceruleans are "...in considerable decline here."

The good news is that there are large swaths of Roanoke riparian corridor that are protected (i.e. by the nature Conservancy), though I’m not sure how well they correspond with these Ceruleans’ Alamo just south of Weldon. And the problem may very well be with wintering habitat, or something unrelated to the state of the forest buffer along the Roanoke.

Of course, we were having far too much fun to worry too much about the birds’ fate.  With the stream flowing well we made it to the Tillery camping platform (reserved through Roanoke RiverPartners) before 3pm, leaving plenty of time to relax, have a swim, and fish.

Camping on the Roanoke

And it was a spectacular flawless weekend.  We ended up with 90 or so species as a group.  Other highlinghts included one Scarlet Tanager, a singing Horned Lark, a singing Grasshopper Sparrow, Loggerhead Shrikes, a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron, and a stop by Sylvan Heights Waterfowl Park to see the menagerie before heading back to the Triangle on Sunday.

So I would highly recommend having a paddle on the Roanoke. And if you hope to find Cerulean Warblers away from the mountains, I would recommend planning your trip soon!

locally grown Yellow-crowned Night-Herons

Over the weekend I investigated the suspicious rumors of Yellow-crowned Night-Herons nesting in marshes around Durham and Chapel Hill.  What could these birds possibly be doing around the triangle, when they should be down at the beach?  Eating crayfish and raising young?  Likely story!

And by "rumors" I just mean great photos of nests taken by top local birders...clearly this was a mystery in need of investigation!

Luckily I was able to convince Will Cook to let me cover the highway 54 waterfowl impoundments for the Chapel Hill Spring Bird count.  I had never birded these spots before (until recently I thought they were duck prisons and I'm not into captive birds), so I wasn't sure what to expect.

But when I arrived at dawn, lo and behold the trees were filled with Yellow-crowned Night-Herons!

Yellow-crowned Night-Herons at the New Hope Creek waterfowl impoundment

Well, actually I only counted 7, but it was still a heck of a lot more Night-Heron action than I expected to find!

When I passed back by their haunt at 9 am, there wasn't a single one left to be found.  They had all gone off to roost for the day I assume.  They are Night-Herons after all, so-called because of their nocturnal (or maybe crepuscular?) behavior.

Look at those toes! How can that be comfortable?

I'm not sure whether the local population is growing or it's just that birders aren't at these little artificial highway-side marshes at dawn very often (I suspect both).  All I know is that there is a ton of habitat similar to the area I covered that is either inaccessible or virtually never checked.

A simple extrapolation leads me to believe that at least several dozen Yellow-crowned Night-Herons must breed in the area.  Yet until 5 or 6 years ago these birds were almost never detected on area spring bird counts.  The previous record high count for the Chapel Hill Spring Count was 11 individuals.  If only I could have been at two impoundments at once perhaps I could have broken the record...

Oh well, maybe next year!

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!