Three NC birds with one stone

Natalia and I had a little getaway to Wilmington last weekend and took the opportunity to follow up on some unusual birds that have been hanging around southeastern North Carolina.

Shortly after dipping on Swallow-tailed Kites a few years ago with Nate Swick, the species was finally confirmed to be breeding in the Cape Fear River floodplain forest just below Lock and Dam #1.  Since they seem to be spreading northward, I figured they would get easier and easier each year.  At long last my patience has paid off.

Swallow-tailed Kite, above US-87, NC

We had our first sighting at the intersection of US-11 and US-87 as one cruised over the road in front of us.  We called Mark K., who, also searching for kites, was waiting for us to meet him about 5 miles further down the road.  This kite had vanished over the trees, so we decided to continue on to our rendezvous.
But we had only made it a quarter mile before two more kites crossed the road.  We pulled off at the first opportunity, a church parking lot, and were treated with the spectacle of eight (8!) Swallow-tailed Kites circling over our heads

I managed to get four out of eight Swallow-tailed Kites in one frame

I've seen these beautiful kites in Florida, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Colombia where they are common, but they are relative new-comers to NC. 

Only three Swallow-tailed Kites in this capture, but gives a nice perspective on how high they sometimes soar.  Also notice the middle-distance bird in the bottom left is molting flight feathers and has a much shorter tail.  Immature or molting adult?

Poor Mark arrived on the scene just after the kites had vanished.  We dallied around for 20 minutes in vain and then continued on to our original destination, an abandoned Monk Parakeet nest where kites had been seen earlier in the day.

We didn't see any kites, but where pleasantly surprised to see a pair of "Quaker birds," as they are called in pet store parlance, adding twigs to the nest.

Monk Parakeets, Northwest, NC

Monk Parakeets are native to southern South America, but are commonly owned as pets. Escapees have established large populations in the US--and not just in South Florida, but in northern cities as well.  Breeding in NC has been documented sporadically since the 1970s.

Monk Parakeet, Northwest, NC

According to locals, this pair has been in residence for a few years, but has yet to successfully fledge any chicks.  Apparently European Starlings (another exotic species, ironically) have taken to feeding on parakeet eggs.

We cruised around a bit longer with Mark hoping to lend him some of our Swallow-tailed Kite juju, but after a short, unsuccessful while we parted ways.  We wanted to get to the beach with time to see one more odd bird.  This one was over from across the pond, rather than from down south.

A Black-headed Gull had been hanging around Mason Inlet at the north end of Wrightsville Beach.  It turned out to be a real bird-chasers bird: sitting in plain sight in exactly the expected location.

Black-headed Gull, Mason Inlet, NC

These gulls are super common over in Europe and wander over the North America regularly, but this is the first one in a few years to be found in NC and then stick around for lots of birders to see.

Some may debate the "countability" of Monk Parakeet, but that quibble aside, it was cool to add three species to my NC in one day!  That hasn't happened since a pelagic I took in 2012. And I only added 5 species in all of 2014. So I don't ever expect to have such a day in this state ever again.

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks at Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks have been showing up all over the place recently, with brief appearances in each of North Carolina's three physiographic regions: mountains, piedmont and coastal plain, as well as northern outliers turning up Massachusetts and New Brunswick all in the last several weeks.  So on the one hand, a record of this species at Mattamuskeet is probably long over due.  Yet prior to 2013 there were only two formally confirmed North Carolina occurrences, so the pair I stumbled upon on Monday is certainly worth some excited documentation. 

It all began innocently enough. With the recent discovery of White-faced Ibises hanging around the refuge (see this post and this post) I have been giving any Glossy Ibises I see a second look if I get the chance. The long days of late June meant that after 13 hours of field work there was still plenty of daylight and I somehow had the energy to scrutinize some distant ibises.  

I picked out a couple young of the year glossies showing some odd white markings on the neck and crown, which I've never before seen in photos of field guides.

freshly fledged Glossy Ibis, Mattamuskeet NWR

Glossy Ibis, Mattamuskeet NWR

I stopped as I was driving out and hopped out of my car planning to scope some distant ibis when I noticed this cute pair of ducks right in front of me. 

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge

The provenance question always comes up with vagrant duck species.  This pair shuffled away from me, but didn't take immediate flight, which gave me some decent photographic opportunities.

Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Mattamuskeet NWR

They dabbled among the marsh plants (looks like the invasive Alligator Weed) a bit.

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks Mattamuskeet, NWR

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, Mattamuskeet NWR

They seemed to be quite at home among the other impoundment denizens. 

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks with Snowy Egret, Glossy Ibis, White Ibis

They eventually began to preen.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, Mattamuskeet NWR

I'm not sure what to make of this 'dance.'


After about 30 minutes the Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks abruptly picked up.  I followed them with binoculars and then switched to my scope until they became just wiggling dots against the sky that disappeared below the horizon to the south-southeast.  I thought that perhaps they might have resettled in one of the refuge impoundments in that direction, but a half-hearted search the following day failed to turn any up.   It seems like these ducks do not frequently linger after being found. 

In between shots of the Whistling-Ducks, I noticed a male Northern Pintail that had foregone the standard northern migration. He was keeping company with what appears to be a female Mottled Duck, another southern duck species with a complicated local history of anthropogenic introduction and showing a trend of northward expansion.

female Mottled Duck (right) with Northern Pintail, Mattamuskeet NWR

All at once I've got two species of duck that could possibly be considered first records for Hyde County if the authorities can stomach provenance concerns.

What will turn up at Mattamuskeet next?  Perhaps a Purple Gallinule?  There have been plenty of those turning up in NC lately, but it would take a good bit of luck to discover one among the sprawl of habitat available on the refuge. 

Until next time...

More White-faced Ibises at Mattamuskeet NWR

Last winter when I stumbled upon an immature White-faced Ibis at Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge it represented what would become just the third accepted record for this species in North Carolina.

Well now it appears if this bird may be (or have recently become?) an annual visitor to the refuge as I came across four White-faced in a flock of more than 100 Glossies last week.

White-faced Ibises, Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge

I first picked out a couple immature birds among a dense flock of glossies, but then after they took flight briefly I noticed a couple adults settle down apart from the group...perhaps a pair bond?

Can you find the White-faced Ibis in this scrum?

This begs the question: for how long have White-faced Ibises been visiting Mattamuskeet without being detected?

The refuge is relatively isolated and receives few birders outside of its world-famous winter waterfowl season. Because it is so vast, when birders do make the pilgrimage they rarely have the chance to check every every corner of each impoundment (not to mention the many areas that are inaccessible).  It also takes a good close look at the face to tell Glossy and White-faced Ibises apart; I've been lucky with cooperative flocks in that regard.

Who knows how long they'll stick around, but I will say that with or without rare ibises, spring is a fun and underrated time to bird Mattamuskeet.

By late April most of the waterfowl have departed except a few transient dabbler flocks, the most abundant being the handsome Blue-winged Teal, which are probably stopping en route from South America. 

Blue-winged Teal, Mattamuskeet NWR

Spring at the refuge also provides the rare opportunity to see some shorebirds in breeding plumage. I had to stop and try some quick digiscoping when I saw a flock of 140 dowitchers, but just when I was getting my first few captures, they took flight.

Long-billed Dowitchers, Mattamuskeet NWR

The cause for alarm turned out to be a prowling Peregrine Falcon, which I watched take a couple unsuccessful stoops at a Forster's Tern. 

Sadly my days of field work at Mattamuskeet will be coming to an end before too long and that will be goodbye to a lot of exciting bird life.  I can only hope some other rarity will magically appear in the meantime--perhaps a Garganey or Fulvous Whistling-Duck--wouldn't that be nice! 

Surveying a Snowy Plover

Counting Shorebirds for the International Shorebird Survey - photo by Mark Kosiewski

Bear Island is one of the few remaining undeveloped barrier islands along the east coast of the US.  Its wide open sandflats and dunes provide precious habitat for rapidly declining species of migrating shorebirds.

As part of the International Shorebird Survey, my fellow citizen scientists, Ed Corey, Mark Kosiewski, Natalia Ocampo-Penuela, and I, grabbed our scopes and counted hundreds of sandpipers, plovers and dowitchers. 

Of course it was a rare bird that enticed us to make the trip...

Snowy Plover

Snowy Plovers do not regularly appear on the Atlantic coast (and this was a lifer for me!), but over the years, a handful have turned up on various North Carolina beaches.  Ed Corey found this individual back in February.  I wonder how long it will stick around.

It seemed to be right at home (and was well-camouflaged) on the sand flats.  It would tilt its head at odd angles and zip around with remarkable speed making photography a bit of a challenge, but it did not seem particularly concerned about our presence.  Check out the video!


We found a whopping 5 plover species on the day (and 6 on the trip if you count the Killdeer we saw on the mainland), with plenty of Black-bellied and Semipalmated Plovers, a couple dozen of the controversial Piping Plover and more Wilson's Plovers than I had ever seen...

Wilsn's Plover

 ...we counted about 80, which seemed like more than the island could support since they were constantly chasing each other around the beach.

I was too busy counting birds to try to digiscope any of the other species, but there were several of the rare Red Knot, a couple hundred Long-billed Dowitchers, and the ubiquitous Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones and Willets.  The most numerous bird was Dunlin--we tallied some 1700.

Hopefully our survey will in some small way help these populations.  It sure was fun counting them and the setting was beautiful!

Big thanks to Ed, for originally discovering the Snowy Plover and arranging the ferry, UTV and State Park barracks for us.

Spotting on the Stormy Petrel II part 2

Spotting on the Stormy Petrel II

For the second time I enthusiastically jumped at the opportunity to spot on one of  Brian Patteson's Pelagic trips out of Cape Hatteras.  The first time was last August, but I actually have more experience off shore in the wintertime, so I felt relatively qualified.

Of course everybody wants an albatross now, so meeting expectations is tough!

No albatross, but we ended up having an awesome day for birds.  Great Skua is almost always the top (reasonable) target and we had decent looks at two!  There were more Manx Shearwaters around than I had ever seen with as many as four visible at a time and a count for the trip around 20.  A few flocks of Red Phalaropes made a brief showing as well.

But the alcid numbers on the trip were absurd.  They were, roughly: 1000 Razorbills, 100 Dovekies and 10 Atlantic Puffins. (edit--official alcid counts were: 2000 Razorbills, 232 Dovekies, and 15 puffins).

Immature Atlantic Puffin

To me those numbers say there should have been 1 Murre out there somewhere to fill out the 10-fold alcid dilution ratio.  Sadly I wasn't able to spot one. 

 My proud moment instead came from spotting an odd bird in the Hitchcockian gull flock (fortunately they're just after chum and not us)...

See anything unusual?

 That's right an Iceland Gull!  I had never seen an adult before, so while not a tick, I still felt like this was a "lifer."

Adult Iceland Gull - it has some faint gray in the wingtips making it a kumlieni

More details on this trip can be found at Brian's Seabirding blog. A big thanks to Brian and Kate for having me aboard.

After the successful pelagic, Ed Corey was nice enough to me up for the night at Jockey's Ridge State Park.  Early the next morning, before heading onto Mattamuskeet (where I would stumble upon a White-faced Ibis), Mark Koseiwski and I ventured out into the dunes to find a flock of four Snow Buntings.

Snow Buntings

I had been trying to see this species at the coast of NC all winter, so I was glad to finally see this little flock!

Hopefully I'll get back out to Hatteras once the spring/summer season starts up...

North Carolina's third record of White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi)

Prudence dictates that I should put a question mark at the end of this post title, especially with a tough ID call like this...

...but tell me this isn't a White-faced Ibis.

The red eye and pink facial skin is glaring.

The suspect was hanging out in a flooded field at the east end of Lake Mattamuskeet in Hyde Co., NC in the company of about a dozen Glossy Ibises.  While superficially very similar (and apparently there is integradation between these species), in a scope from ~50 yards this bird stood out. 

Put the head away for a second and look at the leg color for example... pinkish-red on the White-faced and a cold gray on the Glossies.

Also the White-faced Ibis seemed to have slightly lighter-colored plumage and I noticed more tones of fuschia than in the darker Glossies.

This was pronounced enough so that even with the heads hidden you can tell which is the odd bird out (and which is the Boat-tailed Grackle). 


So I think I'll have to fill out some paperwork on this one for the NC Bird Records Committee.  Luckily the area where it was found opens up to the public for the season starting the Friday, so maybe some others will be able to see it.

Leadin' field trips down east

North Carolina's Albemarle Peninsula and Outer Banks make up a world-class birding destination in mid-winter, with waterfowl galore, and a healthy diversity of waders, shorebirds and sparrows.

I had the honor of leading field trips 'Down East' (as it's called) in back-to-back weekends.

Trip 1: Duke Conservation Society / Nicholas School Naturalists / Student Association of Wetland Scientists trip to Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge

A couple weeks ago Jeff Pippen and I took a group of 21 master's students from the Nicholas School down to Lake Mattamuskeetfor an unseasonably warm and sunny day of birding.

Lots of happy students

Bird highlights were a Eurasian Wigeon (thanks to Thierry Besancon, who we bumped into with a group from New Hope Audubon), a brief, but diagnostic glimpse of an Ashe-throated Flycatcher (the second one I have found in NC in as many months) and a very photogenic Anhinga.

Anhinga

I used this opportunity to swap SD cards and batteries for the cameras at my research site...

photo by Emma Hedman

Trip 2: Carolina Bird Club Winter Meeting at Nags Head, NC

This past weekend the Carolina Bird Club held its winter meeting at Nags Head, a launching point for a heap of the state's top birding hotspots.  I led 3 half-day trips around Bodie Island over Friday and Saturday.

The Bodie Lighthouse pond is the best place I know to get close enough to photograph (or in this case digiscope) ducks...

Northern Pintail and Northern Shoveler

sleepy Gadwall pair

American Avocets, Green-winged Teal and Northern Pintail

Oregon Inlet always has something interesting going on bird-wise. This weekend the highlight for many of the birders on my trips were a pair of Purple Sandpipers at the end of the jetty.

Purple Sandpipers

On the way back west I dropped by the 'sparrow fields' by Lake Phelps.  The hotspot lived up to its name and the adjacent shrub line was loaded with oddball sparrows that are usually pretty hard to come by in North Carolina...

Vesper Sparrow

Vesper Sparrows

Vesper Sparrow and Clay-colored Sparrow

Rare birds for Christmas

When I was trying to come up with a Christmas wish list I jokingly included a couple birds I wanted to see: Evening Grosbeak and Golden Eagle.

No luck yet on the grosbeak, but I've crossed paths with a Golden Eagle twice since making the list!

Golden Eagle, Hyde County, NC

Both were in the Lake Mattamuskeet area, but this distant one I found and photographed down in the Gull Rock Game Land territory on the Mattamuskeet Christmas Bird Count.

And the previous day Ed Corey, Kyle Kittelberger and I were able to chase down this Lapland Longspur that Jeff Lewis found on the beach during the Bodie/Pea Christmas Bird Count.

Lapland Longspur, Dare County, NC

Lapland Longspur

And then during the Alligator River Count, we dipped over to Wanchese to see this Eared Grebe that Edmund LeGrande had found sitting right in the harbor.

Eared Grebe, Wanchese, NC

Eared Grebe

Horned and Pied-billed Grebes were in the same area for nice comparisons.

Eared Grebe and Pied-billed Grebe

Together over the course of 4 days and 4 Christmas Bird Counts we saw about 158 species.  Not a bad haul!

My best bird, however, was a Black Rail that I flushed in the marshes in the Gull Rock Game Land.  It was one of those lightning-strike birding moments, when you're just at the right place at the right time.  I wasn't expecting to cross paths with a Black Rail here (and this was the first I've ever seen), but fortunately in my brief view I was able to see white on the bird's back.  That field mark plus it's behavior, like a mouse with feathers and wings, left me without a doubt about its identity.

It was in a narrow strip of marsh bordered by the sound on one side and a channel on the other, so I gathered up the others in my party (6 people total) hoping that if we walked in a line through this area we might be able to flush it into the open.  But these attempts failed.  And we got no response to tapes when we returned at dusk hoping to hear it call. 

I found out later at the Mattamuskeet countdown dinner that John Fussell had surveyed this marsh for Black Rails for years and never found a one. 

This is one of those rare birds that birders hate to report.  There's no hard evidence and, in this case, not even any fellow witnesses.  Reviewing parties will be skeptical (as they should be) and it may not make it into the Christmas Bird Count records even though I submitted a detailed report (it would be a new species for the Mattamskeet CBC, I think).  Frequent reports like this, especially if they aren't accepted and made into "records," are liable to earn one a reputation as a "loose canon."

That's why digital cameras have become almost obligatory for birders and why so many people avoid reporting rare birds altogether. 

Now if I can just find an Evening Grosbeak this winter...is it too much to ask for one that will pose for a photo?