Thanksgiving Birds

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?

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...

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 Banks 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?

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

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

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

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.