Birding with Ben

April Birds in Corolla

2009-04-23T10:36:00.000-07:00

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)

2009-02-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-08T15:18:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-02-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-02-03T14:49:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-01-29T08:22:00.001-08:00

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.

Common Eider

2008-12-19T07:41:00.000-08:00

Apparently there has been a Common Eider down at Oregon Inlet this past week, I have not had a chance to check it out yet, but I will head down there this afternoon and keep you posted. Below is a picture of a female from the Cornell Lab site All about Birds http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds.

Sparrow Roundup

2008-12-19T07:05:00.001-08:00

This past Saturday, we had our first Coastal Plains Swamp Sparrow Roundup. Ray Danner, a PhD student with the Avian Ecology lab at Virginia Tech, agreed to let volunteers through the NCWRC assist with his preleminary research near Swan Quarter, NC. Myself and six others were on hand entirely too early in the morning and in desperate need of coffee. We began by hearing a little about Ray's project and what his aims are. Basically, the coastal plains subspecies of the Swamp Sparrow is being studied because of its unique environmental constraints. It winters in only a small area, summers in only a small area and acts in a way that distances itself from other Swamp Sparrow's. One peculiarity is in its feeding methods, rooting around in the mud in addition to seed eating, so much to the point that many of the dubious critters have their beaks slathered with muck. Strange, but Ray says that this may be the beginnings of a new evolutionary divergence that has already manifested itself and created similar attributes in Seaside Sparrows.

Whew, that being out of the way, we progressed to the fun stuff. Normally when out biriding, bird-equette requires those participating to adopt a state of near silence in order to "keep an ear out". This day, however, was entirely different. Shouting and stamping, blurting and belting, rousing choruses of "Grandma got run over by a Reindeer" lit the morning with a foul din as we actively engaged in a process called flush-netting to scare the sparrows into nets we had set up. Ray justified this practice saying they had tried passive netting where bird simply wander into the nets, but this is usually done at dawn when the birds are trying to reach their feeding grounds as opposed to when they are already there, which is what we were doing. Personally, I'd much rather be bothered at work than have my boss yell at me for being late, but I digress.

We had some success and ended up with 6 birds to process, 3 of which had been banded previously (Ray had done one himself in the same spot last year). Getting to see these birds up close was a very unique opportunity and I hope that we will be able to repeat it sometime in the coming months. Ray is planning on being here for at least the nex three months, and I hope his research goes well. By the way, I've put a slide shoe up of the Sparrow Roundup pictures to the right, click on the thumbnails to see the full size shots and make sure to check out Sarah with the House Wren.

12/6/08 Pea Island

2008-12-10T12:21:00.000-08:00

The Winter Waterfowl Tours are a new program here at the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education and they are focusing on the wintering waterfowl populations in Northeastern NC. I got to pick three sites to visit, one each in December, January and February, and we just had our first one on Saturday at Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. We had a very good showing and our trip commenced at 8 am from the Pea Island visitor's center with a party of 9 in tow.

Right off the bat we scored numerous ducks and over 200 swans, it was all I could do to get my introduction out the ponds were so full of birds. Luckily, we had a surprise guest in Jeff Lewis who helped spot some really key species on the day. The group headed down to the main overlook at the south end of North Pond and we were not disappointed. Buffleheads, Red-breasted and Hooded Mergansers, Tundra Swans, Snow Geese, Mallards, Black Ducks, Scaup, a raft of Redheads 400 strong and countless Ruddies greeted us within the first 30 minutes. Not that it let up from there.

We were well blessed with a beautiful day in the high 50's with clear skies and virtually no wind, which made finding the Black Scoter's, Lesser Black Backed Gulls and Red Throated Loons on the ocean all the easier. To those of you who haven't signed up for one of our trips yet, please do, it is much more fun with plenty of eyes to help with the spotting.

The trip ended up at the south end of the Bonner Bridge across Oregon Inlet. There is a jetty there and I wanted to have a see for Purple Sandpiper, a little shorebird with an affinity for rocky shores and rougher waves. This makes it difficult to find on the southeast Atlantic Coast unless you know where to look. These little birds are extremely charasmatic, even though they mostly sleep, and they winter further north than other sandpipers. Still something of a migrational feat since they breed on Baffin Island and Axel Heiberg Island near the artic circle. I happened to snap a few pictures of this one sleeping before I discovered that a friend was hanging out directly below. Beautiful little birds, especially that gold wash that seems to rim the outer edges of the scapular feathers.

Surf Scoter in Corolla

2008-12-10T11:38:00.000-08:00

Once again I have been negligent in my blogging duties, but I have a slew of updates and can't wait to share them. Number one: We have had a Surf Scoter in Corolla for almost the past week. I first discovered it on December 4th and have called up a few friends to snap some quality photographs of it since I am lacking in the picture taking department. As you can see, the male is a beautiful, yet silent, duck with a a very Aquiline bill that is a multitude of colors paired with a blank black canvas of its back. A showstopper, no doubt.

It's not strange that the bird is here in Corolla, its just where it is in Corolla. The bird has taken up residence in a small freshwater pond across the street from the TimBukII shopping plaza. Strange since Sibley tells us that the bird is "common on open salt water, usually near rocks; uncommon to rare inland" . So the Scoter, aptly named for its tendency to forage in ocean surf and breaking waves, is definitely lost in the very small retaining pond in front of an ocean housing complex. Below is a picture of the pond where the Scoter is currently residing.

Thanksgiving Birds

2008-11-30T07:39:00.000-08:00

Well, today I am up at the lake house with the family and my mom's extended family are almost all here. The lake house is on Lake Burton in NE Georgia and I have never actually birded here. Aside from the fact that it is slightly rainy/miserable outside and the lake has all the misgivings of chilled steel, I had a wonderful breakfast and birded the lake from the front bay windows. Not too much is out and about this morning, but I did see coots, Buffleheads' and two Pied-billed Grebes oh, and an American Tree Sparrow as I climbed the stairs to the boathouse earlier.

I've posted a picture (not mine) of the Bufflehead because it is such a curious little bird. It is a sea duck related to a Goldeneye and is indeed our smallest North American duck. Despite its small size, the males are relatively easy to spot. The harlequinesque black and white pattern is distinctive and highly visible at a distance. ie. Small duck diving around on a deep pond with a bunch of white on its head: male Bufflehead... probably. Appropriately named because of the buffalo shape of the head when the Y chromosome is agitated. (sigh) boys

Well, Happy Thanksgiving and I am now off to hike around and catch some more birds. Cheers.

Why are Red Knots Knot Red?

2008-11-24T10:14:00.000-08:00

This morning I was taking Maverick (my dog of dogs) for his morning walk on the beach when we discovered this Red Knot stalking up and down in the surf line methodically stooping and picking up small crustaceans and mollusks. From the picture you can see that this sandpiper is large and sturdy like a Robin with relatively short legs and a short-ish bill. Conspicuously absent was the rich salmon color that lights up the head and breast of this bird during the breeding season (I have only seen it a handful of times), and derives its namesake. Strangely enough, this bird was apart from its usual compatriots, Black-bellied Plovers and Ruddy Turnstones. I wouldn't even have seen it had it not been for Maverick scaring the bejeezus out of it (Dogzilla of the Atlantic Coastline). We will have to be more careful not to flush these birds while they are resting and feeding, I'm sure that they have enough problems with the thousands of yokels who visit here each week.

One of the things that I find most intriguing and unbelievable about the Knot is the lengths that it must go to each year to find breeding and wintering habitat. As you can see from the range map at the left, the six subspecies of Knot travel a variety of distances, with one common factor... they fly a LONG way.

They do this by staging in vast numbers in certain spots on their migration routes and then they all lift off together, traveling thousands of miles in a single flight. One such flight, an 80+ hour 2,500 mile non-stopper from the Eastern tip of Brazil to Delaware Bay, in the northeast, is just one of these amazing journeys'. So important is the Delaware Bay to the Atlantic flyway that an estimated 90 percent of the entire population of the Red Knot subspecies C. c. rufa may be found on the bay in a single day.

All this from a bird that weighs less than a cup of coffee.

Sadly, the Red Knot is know facing new survival challenges that 20 years ago were not a factor. This pair of socks size bird, and millions of other shorebirds choose Delaware Bay as a stopover on their long migrations due to the rich seasonal bounty of horseshoe crab eggs. As the crabs infiltrate the shallow waters once a year they lay eggs that number in the tens of billions. Shorebirds then gorge themselves before continuing on to breeding grounds near the Arctic circle.

But in the mid 1990's, there was a substantial increase in the harvest of Horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay. Asian eel markets had skyrocketed and the few commercial eel fishermen who fished using whole horseshoe crabs were making a killing, scooping up the crabs by the hundreds as they gathered in the shallows of Delaware Bay to spawn and lay their eggs. This over consumption led to a moratorium on the collection of horseshoe crabs in both New Jersey and Delaware after the population crashed to 40,000 Knots in 2004. There are positives however, and the increased pressure of citizens and their governments may lead to the protection of vital habitats and food sources for these incredible birds. And, I kinda like them too.

One last neat thought: A red knot banded in May 1987 was seen on Delaware Bay in May 2000. During those 13 years, the bird had flown about 242,350 miles, a distance farther than from the earth to the moon.

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful...

2008-11-20T06:20:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been almost a week since my last post, but the weather outside has been pretty dismal, and not in the Swampy NWR kind of way. Just dismal. We tried to do some birding last weekend down at Pea Island with some friends, but it was pouring rain and this week it has just been cold. Yesterday's high was 39 brrrr.

Needless to say I am itching to get out. Last night the North B anks Bird Club met at the library in Kill Devil Hills and I was excited to present. We have orchestrated a "Sparrow Roundup" with PhD student Ray Danner who is working with the avian ecology department at VT. You can read all about the project here. Some volunteers and I will be helping out Ray in mid-December to establish a baseline count of the Coastal Plain sub-species of the Swamp Sparrow. (pictured above) I am very excited about the opporutnity to participate and help further the research of these birds. If you are wondering why these birds are important, check the website!

Not to let the weather put a damper on me, I did go out for a little birding this morning. And although I only caught glimpses of some butter-butts, I took a few photos. So now we're going to institute a new challenge section to the Birding with Ben blog... Find the Bird. (See how that fits in nicely since I am incapable of taking quality photos?) Good luck and let me know if you find the Yellow-Rump in the picture below. It's not really that hard.

White-faced Ibis?

2008-11-13T09:07:00.000-08:00

I just found out from Jeff Lewis, our bird club President, that the Glossy Ibis that I saw at the end of the Wings Over Water birding festival last week may in fact be a White-faced Ibis. These two species are almost identical, except that the White-faced has a reddish face and eye as opposed to the Glossy's dark face and eye.

Confusing? Yes, but I am including pictures (that are not mine.) from the Carolina Bird Club website showing the difference (hopefully) between the 2 species. The bird that I saw is at the top and below left is a Glossy, and below right is a White-faced. What do you think? It doesn't help very much that the bird that we spotted is a juvenile.

It would be a very good sighting if the bird turned out to be a White-faced, and only the second recorded sighting in North Carolina. Although these birds are quite common in the SW United States, they are rarely found this far east.

Day 5 cont: Hummers

2008-11-09T15:25:00.000-08:00

The last trip of the week was by far the most up close and personal with the birds. Sarah and I both attended a trip entitled Hummingbird Banding, hosted by Susan Campbell. This trip was to the hummingbird feeders at a private residence in Manteo, and it was informative to say the least.

The Leader, Susan Campbell, is a federally licensed bird bander who lives out near Raleigh and is one of 3 hummingbird banders in the state of NC. In 1999 the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences began investigating occurrences of unusual and unexpected hummingbirds in NC during the months from October to March. Susan, in collaboration with Master Banders Bob and Martha Sargent, (founders of the Hummer/Bird Study Group) is the research lead our area. She gave us plenty of information about hummingbirds and even how to care for them during the winter months, should one decide to stay. The Eastern part of NC seems to be unique in that it stays mildly temperate even throughout most of the cold months. This, according to Susan, is due to the Gulf Stream current that feeds warm air even in the most dire of straits. Indeed, so unique is this oceanic warming trend that hummers are hard pressed to survive in the middle of the state, they must stick to the coast. Also, contrary to popular belief, the sugar water that we put out in the winter is only an addition to what the hummers need to survive, insects. During migration, spring and fall, they may stock up at the feeder but on breeding and wintering habitat they love the bugs. No bugs, no hummers.

To the trapping, Susan set up a trap around a feeder in the main yard and it was not long before a little male was wheeling his way to the lure. (hummers can see red from a quarter to half a mile away) After capturing him in the wire cage, she extracted him, weighed/measured him and put a band on him. Here she is checking his throat for fat, he was plenty healthy.

This is a picture of the tiny little bands, they weigh .0017 grams and Susan said, by weight, they are akin to a person wearing a wristwatch.

After the band was in place, Susan checked that it wasn't a hindrance and then painted him with a white dot on the top of his head. A good idea since there it's virtually impossible to see that little band when their legs are tucked up during flight. Once the banding was completed, we fed him, posed him for pictures and he was released. Make sure you inspect the pictures to see the beginning of the gorget feathers on the throat coming in. This little guy only had three and was probably only 2-3 months old. Check out the video below.

Day 5: Marsh Birds of Bodie Island

2008-11-09T12:14:00.000-08:00

On this, the final day, I had two trips and was equally excited about both. The first was this morning at the Bodie Island light house and it involved tramping around in thigh high water to look for some wrens and rails. The search area is in red.

I met tour leader Steve Shultz at 7:30 am at the light and it became immediately apparent that we would be the only two on the trip. What, dragging around in the muck doesn't sound like fun? Soon, I was decked out in my hip boots, but having left in a weary haze at 5:45 (again), I unwittingly left my binoculars behind at the house. After a quick check call to Sarah, waking her up (now I owe her three), I embraced my Murphy's moment and off we went. Steve with his lightweight binoculars and me with my scope made of tungsten.

As we set off into the marsh, Steve remarked how high the water was and that we probably wouldn't see much. He was right, but we still saw enough to give me 5 life birds on the day, pretty incredible. In the marshes we saw my first Sedge Wren and Lincoln's Sparrow, the latter of which Steve said was a very good bird here. We also heard the Virginia Rail and King Rail, laterally compressed birds whose unique body morphologies allow them to pass unseen or heard through the marsh grasses. Incidentally, the term "skinny as a rail" embodies this particulary evolutionary trait. After we exhausted ourselves in the tall grass, we headed over to the Marina at the North end of the Bonner Bridge that spans Oregon Inlet for some more salt-tolerant sparrows.

Once in the marshes underneath the overpass we went straight to work and quickly rustled up a Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow (at right) which was another lifer for me. A couple of minutes went by and we also flushed an American Bittern, a couple of Swamp Sparrows and Seaside Sparrow (another lifer). On to the next stop!

Our last birding locale was at the old Life Saving Station at the south end of the Bonner Bridge that spans Oregon Inlet. We were specifically looking for a Purple Sandpiper (which we didn't find), but we did find a Vesper Sparrow (at left) which Steve said was a very good bird for the OBX. Thanks Steve for taking the time to search for some great birds, for all the mud and the outgoing tide that almost drowned me.

Day 4: South Pond at Pea Island

2008-11-09T11:40:00.001-08:00

Well, today was definitely the day that I had been waiting for all week. A chance to bird the rarely accessible South Pond at Pea Island. Since I didn't get to it yesterday, here's a little bit about the Refuge. Pea Island was established in May 1937 and is a 13 mile long spit of sand along the northern end of Hatteras Island.

I thought that this seemed a substantial bit of land, but the 13 mile length accounts for only 5,800 sq acres of "land". The refuge varies between a quarter mile and a mile wide and is one of the places for wintering waterfowl on the OBX. Pea Island is managed in conjuction with the much larger Alligator River NWR and both of these refuges are under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a federal heading.

South Pond, where I was a fortunate enough guest, is closed to all human traffic and is managed as a waterfowl impoundment during the winter months. Scores of migrating birds use this area and even endangered and threatned species like Peregrine Falcons and Piping Plovers can be seen throughout the year.

On our trip, we had immense success. Life birds on the day for me included Common Loons', Brant (a small black-necked goose pictured above) and even a Eurasian Wigeon, a rare wintering species whose Atlantic population is likely only a few hundred birds. I especially like the orangey-rusty color on the head, compared to the American Wigeon's green.

All told, we ended up with 72 species for the morning and that was just the beginning for my adventures as I locked my keys in the car... sigh.

Not only did I lock my keys in the car, but it was at the same time that the call came in about a Brewer's Blackbird being spotted half a mile away. I had no idea about this, but apparently the Brewer's is a bird that most North Carolinian's haven't seen in their own state, and I was going to miss it.

But in my most desperate hour, a rescuer appeared. Clad in the most shimmering samite, she held aloft Excalibur, signifying by divine right that I... sorry, wrong story. No, Sarah appeared atop her ebony 4 cylinder steed and we sped down to find the bird. Even more to my chagrin, Sarah even ended up spotting the blackbird for us, now I owe her times two.

Day 3: Pea Island

2008-11-09T10:09:00.000-08:00

I was at Pea Island this morning for another day of birding. The tour, called North Pond Duck ID, was headed by Scott Hartley and was meteorologicaly interesting. Today was definitely the worst weather of the week, but an incredible birding day. We started out at the Pea Island NWR visitor's center and followed the south dike of North Pond to an observation overlook. From there we observed over 50 species of birds and I even got a look at my first Pine Siskin and its brethern as they flew over us, no doubt looking to get out of the rain and the cold. Because of the weather, we ended up taking a short break inside the Visitor's Center where we recharged on coffee and breakfast stuffs provided by the NWR volunteer staff. Aren't they nice people? While we waited for the front to relent I got to reading a book about bird life, it was Kenn Kauffman's "Lives of North American Birds", and it is excellent. I ended up buying it and have been driving Sarah crazy by not putting it down. I think soon she may have the crazy idea of using the pages to wrap fish or light fires to keep it from me.

After our break, Scott took us up to the north dike in North Pond and from there we saw Avocets and even a Merlin and a Peregrine. This trip to Pea Island is also proving valuable as our winter waterfowl tour weries here at work will be traveling to PINWR in December for our first tour. I hope that it is as productive then as it was today.

Be sure to check out the upswing in Avocets bill in the picture on the right.

Day 2: Mattamuskeet Round 2

2008-11-09T08:29:00.000-08:00

I took a break from my magnificently mammoth day at Mattamuskeet (that alliteration was for you mom) on Sunday to recharge for a second assault on Wednesday. Today's trip was part of the Wings Over Water festival and was led by a great volunteer named Ernie Marshall. Ernie drove myself and 10 others around the refuge in a van and took us to all the good birding spots. Unfortunately, we had a front move in last night and today it was cold with a nasty wind out of the NE that was pinning everything down. Although everything is its right mind was hiding, we did see an Anhinga, very out of place since they usually spend the winter in Florida and we even encountered a Cottonmouth who posed very nicely for us. The highlight of this trip was probably the Kestrel that buzzed the van as it was looking for lunch.

After the trip, I stuck around the Refuge for two other activities sponsored by WOW. The first was a silent nature video of the refuge "A Winter Day - Lake Mattamuskeet" (you can watch part of the film at the link) and was done by two very nice people, Blake and Emily Scott. Their series of nature films at Mattamuskeet and Pungo Lake have received 19 awards and are awesome. They were telling me that they also have a new movie coming out soon that has an amazing bear territorial scene.

The third activity of the afternoon was a presentation about Lake Mattamuskeet's history and ecology. Since I am leading a birding trip to Mattamuskeet in early January, I really enjoyed getting to meet with Dr. Lewis Forrest who is the executive director of the Mattamuskeet Foundation. It was Dr. Forrest who was responsible for discovering the records for the town of New Holland, which was built on the drained bed of Lake Mattamuskeet, after they had sat for 56 years in a barn. 36,000 pages of records. He was a fantastic presenter and I purchased his book on the history of Lake Mattamuskeet. So, not as many birds today but the history lesson was great and I'm getting geared back up for tomorrow.

The Beginning of Bird week

2008-11-09T07:45:00.000-08:00

This past week has been bird crazy

Over the past 7 days I have seen well over 130 different species of birds. Needless to say I am exhausted, but far from birded out. Now, for your blopophilic pleasure, I will outline all of the different trips I have been on during the last week, and... hopefully capture the excitement and thrill of the chase.

*Note: a simple solution of 2 parts vinegar to 3 parts water can be used to clean up the drool from your desk that will no doubt accumulate as you read of the "excitement and thrill".*

Day 1: Sunday 11/02

Today I went with the North Banks Bird Club, which is the local club here for Corolla, Kitty Hawk, KDH, and Nags, down to Lake Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge. Our trip was spearheaded by Jeff Lewis, who is the Pres. of the NBBC and an excellent birder. Mattamuskeet sits SW of where I live on the OBX and is the largest natural lake in NC. It constitutes ~40,000 acres and was drained for farmland in the early part of the 20th century. Later the lake was allowed to refill and was turned into a Wildlife Refuge to support wintering waterfowl. Believe it or not, before it was drained, the lake was 120,000 acres. Three times as large as it is now.

I have to say that our trip was a success. I saw 90 different species and my first ever Orange-crowned Warbler, which winter down at Mattamuskeet in the hedges and thickets along the roadsides of Hwy. 94. I actually listed all of the birds that I viewed as well and for a nominal fee I will happily relate the entire list to you, only joking. In the mix on our windy trip were ducks, geese, swans, warblers, hawks, falcons, vultures, swallows, shorebirds, woodpeckers, sparrows and even flycatchers.

Not a bad trip to say the least, although the "Country Cookin" restaurant that we stopped at for Sunday brunch could have done with an overhaul... to an Italian place.

Found the Godwit!

2008-11-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I went down to chase a Godwit at Pea Island. Not just any Godwit, mind you, but a Hudsonian Godwit. These little buggers are a rare visitor here to the OBX and can cause quite a stir when sited. I actually got a call this morning when I was dramatically escaping the clutches of a particularly vicious Quercus species and decided to make the trip down. Jeff Lewis, "the informant", had said that the bird was .45 miles south of the PI visitor's center on the beach (east) side of the road... A seemingly wide expanse to find the proverbial needle in the haystack. However when I arrived, I found the bird here... note the red circle Quite possibly, this was the easiest chase I have ever done. At first I thought that the bird was completely oblivious, but I soon discovered that it was favoring its right leg heavily as it fed in the high grass 10 yards west of the dune line. I must have watched her for a half an hour and she was more than cooperative. From the pictures that you can see below, she is easily identifiable in the profile shot and corroborated by the telling black and white wing plummage of the flight shot. Now I must head off to bed, I'm off to Mattamuskeet early. Ahhhh, coffee.

Cheers

Butter-butts

2008-11-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

The Yellow-rumped warblers are back. Well, technically they have been back for going on two weeks (and taking up all the space that they can) but I haven't gotten around to talking about them yet. This morning I went over to the Currituck Heritage Park, where the Outer Banks Center for Wildlife Education is located, and have been rewarded with a beautiful day. It's in the high 60's and NO wind! Everything is out flying about today including Flickers', Downies (pictured below) and hordes of Black-bellied Plovers.

The pop in the hop, if I may be so urban, of these birds has also spilled over to my demeanor and I ended up scaling, and subsequently falling out of, several large live oaks to get these shots. And although it pained my backside, I couldn't help but smile as I realized that there were now yellow-rumped and black & blue-rumps perched in that arborous host.

Now I am off to Pea Island, Jeff Lewis just called to let me know that there is a Hudsonian Godwit having a nice beachy day and I would love to gawk. By the way... I never found those swans from the other day. A wild goose chase? pun intended.

Cheers

2008-10-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

Geese!

I had a birding tour this morning with a very nice lady from Virginia, Sue Haynes. Usually we have at least 6 or 7 people so this was a nice chance to talk about birds, specifically the research she conducted on Bald Eagles and nesting site selection. Interesting stuff.

Anyway, we saw more than we initially thought, mostly due to the weather. It was cold this morning! But we braved it and were rewarded with the first snow geese of the season. Granted they were a ways off and we had to use the big glass to get a good look at them, but they were lifers for me. Also flying around today were 10 Black-Crown Night herons that flew over us in a loose formation, I've never seen BCNH's act like that before... strange. Elsewhere on our list were: lots of Yellow-Rumps, Flickers, Kingfishers, Tree Swallows and even a Bald Eagle which quickly prompted Sue to digress into that strange biology lilt that researchers are prone to sometimes. I hope she and Gary, her husband, have a good rest of their vacation.

Great as the Snow Geese were, the bird of the day award goes to a more than obliging Cooper's Hawk that zoomed over me as I was giving an introduction to our beach walk tour this afternoon. He nearly clipped me as he skated the dunes and alit on a broken snag eight feet behind my dome. Odd is the feeling being weighed and measured by a Coop's conducting an interpretation skills inventory.

Oh, and on her way down to Hatteras today, Sarah said she saw "huge white birds sitting at Pea Island". I posed a query and she exasperatedly responded "no they're not pelicans Ben, I love pelicans."

I'm leaving to see the swans at 5.

Owling

2008-10-30T08:04:00.000-07:00

Every so often you come across the chance to do something really fun and exciting. For me I guess that is most days I'm out birding, but I'm talking really exciting.

Owl exciting!

Last January I was fortunate enough to take a break from my at the time job on Little St Simons Island to participate in the Southwest Birding Festival in Naples, FL. I had quite a time there and with the fabulous aid of Steve Mutart on the Eagle Lakes field trip and Beverly Anderson at Tigertail Beach, I was more than swimming in new bird species. From Kestrels and hawks to Snowy Plovers and waders I cannot thank those two enough. One of the highlights of the trip, and the owl connection, came in the form of Scott Weidensaul. Scott is a wonderful speaker, an even better author and one heck of a nice guy. Needless to say, I took to his wit and open demeanor immediately. To make a long story short, later in April, I ran into Scott again as he was a highly coveted guest speaker at LSSI's own spring birding days. I relished the opportunity to pick his brain apart again and spent the next few days generally making a nuisance of myself in his presence.

It was during this time that I learned about the Saw-Whet Owl project that Scott spearheads in Eastern Pennsylvania. Since I was getting ready to move to the OBX, I knew that I was destined to beg/plead/coerce Scott into letting me come up and volunteer in the fall, which is what I just got back from. Up to date? Good, time for a cute picture then continue reading below.

The project you were reading about before you were blindsided by that disgusting display of awwwwww is sponsored in part by the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in PA, and run by a host of banders and volunteers who operate under Scott's federal banding permit. There is a variety of research being done on Saw-Whet's and you can read about it on Ned Smit's web site http://nscnaowls.blogspot.com/. For me, it was great to get some hands-on experience with these animals and the means of detaining them, ie mist nets. Thankfully there were many people there who were more than capable banders and I had all the help that I could get. (Much thanks to John, Gene, Tim, Ben, Corky, Mary Ann, Teresa and Phil by the way.)

Getting a chance to view these birds was very special for me and I am still spewing out my thanks to Scott, even though he is surely tired of my braying. "Owls are awesome" is my new, slightly prepubescent-esque, mantle and I am looking forward to searching for them in the woods surrounding the Bodie Island light house this winter. (Curtis Smalling, a state Audubon Biological Technician told me they are there. Nice guy, take a class with him if you get a chance, he makes Golden-winged Warblers very entertaining.)

Cheers

Starting a Blog

2008-10-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

After many hours of debating with Sarah, I have decided that it is high time that I get with the information age and attempt some semblance of keeping my family abreast of my current tribulations. You're welcome mom. So here we go!

Today I decided to blog about birding and only birding... unless I wish to blog about something else. There is something about being able to post what you want, but I digress. Currently I am living in the northern OBX of the N.Carolina coast. I'm working for the NC Wildlife Resources Commission and this is affording me many opportunities to go birding.

Birding is something that I have only recently discovered, and I have found it a most agreeable vice/hobby/way to annoy Sarah etc. I enjoy the places that it takes me and the people that I meet because of it. Until now I have been limited in who shares in this new found joy (Maverick typically expresses his views on the subject by assuming the position at left.) but now I am sure that I will acheive international fame and fortune thanks to this little invention called the internet. Much thanks to Al Gore. And Tay Zonday... watch out.