Thursday, January 26, 2017

OBX (17-21Jan2017)

Before I dive into the outer banks (OBX) orgy that was last Saturday, here is a few birds from New Hanover I picked up last week.


Black Scoter from Johnny Mercer's.


Herring Gull


Great Black-backed Gull


Carolina Wren eating a spider.




Hooded Merganser


Northern Mockingbird


American Wigeon


American Black Duck



Orange-crowned Warbler at Airlie Gardens


Hunting for tasty morsels.


Bingo!



You can almost see the orange crown here.


American Bullfrog

Saturday I got on the road by 3am and drove 4 hours through pea soup fog hoping to get to Alligator River before first light with the pipe dream of seeing some Short-eared Owls.  The fog was bad and by the time I made it to Alligator it was already light.  I made the drive through Alligator and kept going hoping to get better conditions on the outer banks.


Not much better at Pea Island.  If you look closely above you can see the outline of a Canvasback. Don't worry, I got much better looks later.  Off I went to Buxton and the host of the 3rd record of an Anna's Hummingbird in North Carolina.


Anna's Hummingbird - Ann the owner of the home has hosted dozens of hummingbirds each winter on the outer banks.  She has heat lamps set up for when the temps drop below zero.  As you can see from this pic, the bird was banded a couple days prior and is an adult male.


He was very cooperative and the colors were so amazing depending on the light.  Greens, purples, reds and bronze.





One of the Ruby-throated that the Anna's was bossing around.  Note the white paint on her forehead to mark her as a banded bird.





Out of focus but the colors were so nice that the pic is a keeper.

A great bird but not my only target.  I had big plans to walk the beach to Cape Point.  Cape Point is the very tip of the outer banks where the north facing and south facing beaches meet.  You can drive out there with a permit and a 4x4 but I figured it was a nice day for a walk so I hoofed it.


It didn't take long to find a rarity.  This Iceland Gull was probably a 2nd winter bird as the bill was bi-colored.


A little smaller than the nearby Herring Gulls.




Then only 100 yards further down the beach I found this juvenile or first winter Iceland Gull.  Two Icelands?? Wow.


Solid backfill which confirmed this as a separate bird.







Lesser Black-backed Gull


Another Lesser Black-backed Gull


Out at the point there were more gulls than people at Trump's inauguration.



I kept combing through the gulls until I noticed yet another white winged beauty.


This time a Glaucous!




He looked small compared to the Great Black-backed Gulls near him but bigger than the Herring.





What luck!  I switched my attention to the wrack line (high tide) and it didn't take long to find my next target.


Snow Bunting!





From there on any birds would be a bonus.  Next stop Pea Island.


Thousands of Snow Geese were hanging out at South Pond on Pea Island.


When I first saw this dark goose I thought maybe a Brant but once I got a closer look I realized it was just a dark morph Snow Goose.


Sedge Wren



Some "Blue" Snow Geese in there too.




I sent in the info for this Snow Goose with a yellow neck band.



American White Pelican


Canvasback





Common Eider at Jeanette's Pier - still foggy further North.



The Lark Sparrow was easy to find at the UNCW Coastal Studies building in Manteo.  Thanks to Jeff for the instructions I found it in less than 2 minutes.

By the time I got back to Alligator it was just getting dark so I stayed until it got pitch black and never had a Short-eared this time.  Its so cool how the Harriers and Short-eared hunt the same habitat and do a hand off when it gets dark.  Harriers can be found coursing the fields right up until the Short-eared pops out from hiding then in the morning they switch again.

What a great trip.

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