April Birds in Corolla

Well it has been a busy month up here so far in Corolla and the birds are just starting to migrate back through on their way to respective breeding grounds. We haven't had a huge day of migrants yet, but I expect this weekend (with temps in the high 80's) to be very productive. Just some of the birds back on the Corolla spit of land include: Osprey, Glossy Ibis, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Barn Swallows, Prairie Warblers, Pine and Palm Warblers, Northern Parulas, Black-and-white Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, Great Crested Flycatchers, Chipping Sparrows, passing Dunlin, Snowy Egrets, Lesser Yellowlegs, Green Herons, Indigo Buntings and my favorite... Eastern Kingbirds.

This male E. Kingbird showed up on the 9th of April and has been hanging around ever since. He has since been joined by at least 5 others and their bare electrical wire on wire chatterings can be heard all over the grounds. I took this picture of him perched behind our center moments before he vacated to fill up on another insect.

Check back for more updates and keep the migrants coming!

Rare Black-headed Gull (and Seals)

It was finally nice today, after almost a week of crappy, bone-chilling weather. So it was with a much rosier attitude that I received a call from Jeff Lewis this morning about a very rare gull that was hanging out in the movie theater parking lot in Kill Devil Hills. I guess that there were some new movies that came out this weekend. The Black-headed Gull doesn't have a black head in the winter time but the bright red bill and legs give it away pretty easily. Sarah let me use her new camera which was the only way I was able to get a reasonably good picture.

This gull is a regular across the pond in Britain, but on this side of the Atlantic, they stay up near Newfoundland and very very rarely make it all the way down here to North Carolina. He was hanging out with a bunch of other gulls, mostly Ring-bills and Lesser Black-backs. Here is an alright shot of him.

While I was in the parking lot searching around for him, I also got a call about some seals that had hauled themselves out of the water for a brief nap down at Oregon Inlet. Since I was almost there anyway, I decided to head down and see what was up. When I got there, four seals were resting on the sound side of the inlet (I guess the mud was nicer than the beach). They all looked pretty fat and healthy and were relaxing in that banana posture that they do so well. The little guy pictured below hauled out very close to me and I got this shot. I think that they were all Harbor Seals, but I will have to check it out tomorrow. Cheers!

Mackay Island Tour

Yesterday we had the last installment of our Winter Waterfowl Tour series at Mackay Island NWR. It was great to get up there and most of the participants had never been there before. And for good reason. Mackay Island is not really an island, but you do have to take the ferry to get there, so most people think twice about sacrificing an entire day just to head over there. All the better for us. On Saturday no one elase was there, we must have seen 3 people who weren't part of the tour. As the icing on the cake, I had spoken to refuge manager Mike Hoff and he hooked us up with a key to the restricted areas that are normally closed to visitors this time of year.

It definitely paid off as well, when we finally made our way out to Oak Point where former owner JP Knapp used to have his house, we were greeted by several thousand Snow Geese feeding in the fields. Check out the pictures below and drool.

White-headed Red-wing Blackbird?

Last week I went down to Hatteras (on a very cold day) to chase a Mew Gull that had been reported down there the day before. I never found it, but I stopped by Pea Island on the way home and found this slightly leucistic Red-winged Blackbird. He was sitting on top of some wax myrtle and singing away. These Blackbirds are really common here on the OBX, but I've never seen one that looked like this before. Right below him you can see a female Red-winged Blackbird. She's really streaky like a sparrow and probably shouldn't be called a "blackbird".

Nicaragua!

In the midst of a cold, snow, desolate and unfriendly winter, the best thing that one can do to beat the perma-grey blues is to escape. And that is just what I did in the middle of January. From the 12th to the 16th I took off from Miami with some friends from south Florida for warmer parts unknown.

I can't say that the prospect of seeing parrots in the wild was a deterrent in any way either... wink.

It just so happens that a buddy of mine from Oregon owns a surf business down there ( www.surftoursnicaragua.com is the website and you can check it out) and it was really good to get to see him and all that his business has to offer. I have to say that he is doing a great job down there and we had a great time hanging out with him for as long as we could. Sadly, we had to move on and Joe and Sean and I headed up the coast halfway into our trip to find a house that Joe had rented or us.

It may be hindsight that encouraged me to buy my very first language program online, but I realize that I am never going back there unless I can speak Spanish! (And I have plans to take Sarah there next year)

*Pause for a collective sigh from the parental units*

The country was beautiful and warm and when you get away from the city the people are all very friendly and caring. We stayed at a little house near a town called Chinandego on the north shore of Nicaragua. View where we were at here http://maps.google.com/maps?f=s&ie=UTF8&ll=12.291701,-86.572266&spn=1.341781,2.136841&t=p&z=9 as you can see, there was a large lake when we landed in the capital city of Managua (I've never been to an airport where a plane lands and then has to turn around on the runway to get to the terminal) and for the entire drive NW we were seeing volcanoes out of our right window.

The house that we stayed in was gorgeous and we got to surf and play around on the beach during the day. The caretakers of the house, Wilmer and Coco were fantastic hosts and spoiled us with oranges each morning and coconuts picked from the trees in the yard in the afternoons. My buddy Joe had a god time chasing the family chickens and Sean enjoyed talking to the parrots. Myself, I got to bird. Even on a limited time frame and in slightly urban areas, I managed to add 14 species to my life list. Great names down there too: Tropical Kingbird (my favorite), Turquoise-browed Motmot, White-throated Magpie-Jay, Rufous-naped Wren, Cinnamon Hummingbird, Red-lored Parrot, Blue-black Grassquit, Bare-throated Tiger-heron, Violet Sabrewing and Cinnamon-bellied Flower-piercer it's enough to tangle your tongue and allow your imagination to run rampant.

On to Mattamuskeet

Now we are finally caught up to this year! On Sunday the 4th of January (there was hunting on the 3rd) we had our second installment of the Winter Waterfowl Tour series at OBCWE. This time we travelled down to Lae Mattamuskeet NWR to catch a glimpse at all it has to offer there. Fortunately enough, we were joined by Bruce Freske who is the Refuge Manager and we were given the rare opportunity to head down to Lake Landing (a closed area) during the peak of winter staging.

What we got to see was incredible. 10,000+ Snow Geese, Northern Pintails, Bufflehead, Wigeon, Canvasbacks, Tundra Swans, Hooded Merrgansers and Bald Eagles galore... just to name a few. It also seems that interest in the trips has also turned way up. We were at peak capacity at twenty participants, a far cry from the eleven of the first trip. I anticipate that the Mackay trip in February will be even more full.

All told, I tacked 49 species on the day. Not too bad considering that everyone got to see all 49. The best by far on the day had to be the Snow Geese, just so many in one place.

Been a while...

So, once again I have been terrible about blogging. Mom, the next 20 minutes of reading are for you.

Gracious I might even have to get out a calendar for this one. Luckily I have the constant chattering of Maverick's Purple Martin to keep me company as I type away here. And speaking of Maverick, he had a fantastic Christmas at the Falkowski residence in PA. He got to play in the snow much that I thought he might come in from playing encased in a cube of iced heaven. I also got to do a bit of birding at Presque Isle one day with Sarah. She got to try out her new camera on the ice dunes that are relatively famous there, and I got to hunt down a series of lifers. Life birds at PI for me included: White-winged Scoter (a type of duck that likes it cooooold), Common Goldeneye (another duck and apprpriately named), Black-capped Chckadees (we have Carolina's in the South) and an American Tree Sparrow.

I also got one other lifer on the trip when we went to visit Sarah's friends Angela and Phil, (who are pregnant and due in June) a Common Merganser. We had walked out on Woodcock dam which is relatively near their house and I spotted a whole host of the things congregated out on the (cold) water.

We had a very nice Christmas and I am pretty sure that it snowed enough for me to have my fill until next year (it was 3 degrees when we went out one night!). Above and below are some pictures from Presque Isle and birding on the ice dunes.