Evacuation Birds (12-17Sep2018)

I was secretly hoping for a hurricane to bring some birds but I was not expecting a storm like Florence...  When we saw the size of the storm, we decided to get out of town.  And where better to spend some time away from the coast than the mountains of NC!  We managed to secure a cabin near Roscoe, NC which was close enough that I was able to finally pay a couple visits to the legendary Heffner Gap on the parkway.

The first morning was unfortunately raining and I only had a few birds.

Tennessee Warblers were plentiful and some of them were doing vireo impressions.

Tons of unidentified empid flycatchers..

 
A fiery Skipper?

The Moses Cone Manor

This wacky Great Blue Heron at Bass Lake was doing funky things with his tongue.

On the second morning I hit the jackpot at Heffner Gap.  There were so many warblers, I ended up not taking too many photos because I was constantly looking at new birds every 5 or so seconds.

Bay-Breasted Warbler - I only had one of these so I had to take some pictures of this species.

Black-throated Greens were very plentiful.

The legendary Bill H of Heffner Gap was there sharing in the bounty and told me this Hooded was likely a resident bird.  He was still singing like crazy.

This looked almost like a Wood Pewee but I am not sure.

I initially thought this was a Least Flycatcher but now I am second guessing.

Black-throated Blue female.

hmmm

Broad-winged Hawk

I managed to get away one of the days to chase some Buff-breasted Sandpipers at Hooper Lane.  It took a while but I finally found one.

Another year bird in the bag!

Now the storm was threatening us in the mountains and we wanted to get closer to home so we could finally assess the damage.  Not knowing what is happening to your house during a hurricane is almost as bad as being in one, but not quite.  We have been through hurricanes before and it is not fun having no power in hot weather for days on end.  In Raleigh at a hotel we started learning of the crazy flooding and decided to wait it out until we could confirm the flood waters had receded and power was back up.

I managed to bird a couple times in the triangle area but it was not what I was hoping for.

Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs making odd couples.

Red-necked Phalaropes were a nice find at Lake Crabtree.

This bike trail was a little wet.

A Sabine's Gull was found at Falls Lake but I was not checking my emails enough and I missed my opportunity. It was gone the next morning.  That was an especially big miss.

Tomorrow we finally drive home to assess the damage.  Our neighbors just confirmed we have power after over a week since we evacuated.