I didn't plan it this way, but the last "rare" birds popping up on Carolinabirds server were bagged in the final two days of January. Usually it takes way more than a month to successfully visit all the corners of NC to get all the rare birds being found in the new year. However, I have been lucky or persistent and have not dipped on anything yet. So far I had two trips to the outer banks and one grand tour to CLT and Greensboro and back. Eared Grebe, Greater White-fronted Goose and Common Merganser were the three rare species that I didn't have yet and all were near Asheville which is quite a drive. Normally I wouldn't drive all the way to Asheville for these birds but there were some other nice birds being seen on the route and its been a while since I have been to the mountains. I didn't have calls scheduled in the afternoon on Friday so my boss let me jet early and I somewhat reluctantly set off shortly after lunch making it to Asheville after dark and posted up in a Best Western. The hotel room was nice enough but I was roused at about 2am by some sexually enthusiastic neighbors. I ended up putting in my handy ear plugs in and did get back to sleep.
In case you were wondering, I am very cautious about COVID and only select hotels with separate entry for the rooms and window units to avoid breathing common air. When I visit gas stations I use biodegradable disinfectant wipes to hold the gas pump and I try to avoid using pubic rest rooms as much as possible. Personally I think the nicer hotels are higher risk because of circulating HVAC systems and common hallways not to mention elevators and other hazardous situations.
Technically I did dip finally on a planned bird when I showed up to Beaver Lake north of Asheville and missed Common Merganser which has been seen roosting on the lake at night. I showed at first light but the birds were nowhere to be seen. However, you will see I did end up getting the species somewhere else so no harm no foul.
Winter Wren with some winter rime (frost).
He kept flying under the boardwalk at the entrance to the park so I wonder if he has a little den under there.
In all my years birding in NC, I have never had decent pics of Eared Grebes. They tend to be distant and located in inaccessible areas like waste-water treatment plants. The good news is that the Eared Grebe at Lake Julian south of Asheville has been pretty easy to find and the lake is relatively small so if you spend some time, you can get up close and personal. Matt W was already there at the lakeshore when I showed up and had me on the bird on the far shore. Matt took off to go look for birds at Ecusta Pond and I decided to work my way around the lake to see if I could get some closer shots.
Eared Grebe - the light was total crap and all the pics were getting washed out but since this bird continued to hunt close to shore I was able to spend some time working on exposure issues and ended up with some keepers.
About that time Matt called and confirmed the Common Mergs and Greater White-fronted Geese were still hanging out at Ecusta in Brevard. So a short while later I hiked up the stairs to the church behind the pond which is restricted access and can only be seen from the church staircase which offers a higher vantage.
Now Common Mergansers are another species in North Carolina that are very tough to photograph well. The are notoriously skittish and keep their distance. The few decent photos I have seen in NC are from breeding birds that have chicks that can't fly but those are usually only accessible on a canoe trip down a white-water river. I do want to hunt one down eventually. Needless to say, my NC photos of this species all suck big time. I do have a decent photo from Colorado though.
3 drake Common Mergansers flying about 200 yards off.
2 males and a female. Although Ecusta Pond sounds like it could be an idyllic spot, its basically a waste-water treatment plan with a high berm and fence around it and can only be seen from said church steps which only allow 1-2 people at a time.
Greater White-front Geese - although I have had a couple close encounters with this species, they usually are also far off in a field with Canada Geese. These were no exception.
I still had some time before I had to jet back to the hotel so I drove by Hooper Lane in Mills River but dipped on anything worth photographing. Check out was quick and I had some time to kill so I stopped at one of my favorite spots in NC, Warren Wilson College. For those of you that have never been, this college has an Agriculture focus and has a really nice farm with happy pigs, cattle and other critters. The birds love it too. The pig pens had feed spread out and blackbird flocks were benefitting from the bounty.
Rusty Blackbird male - I was hoping for Brewer's but didn't have any that convinced me. For the breeding males it is hard to tell them apart so ideally you need a female to seal the ID.
Most Rusty BBs were obviously "rusty". As you can see there were Brown-headed Cowbirds too which had to be checked as well.
Some nice males mixed in with just a hint of rust.
Golden-crowned Kinglet - will need to improve on pics but this was a year bird so I added it to the tally.
White-crowned Sparrow - it took a little while to finally find the White-crowned flock but I kept at it and was triumphant.
My next destination was a spot southeast of Charlotte where I was meeting a couple friends for some owling (Siri apparently wanted me to be bowling). I planned a relatively straight line from Warren Wilson which allowed a stop half way at a town that continues to host two Barn Owls in an old cotton gin. That's about all I can say about that, due to the sensitive nature of owls, so don't ask me for details. What I will say is that Barn Owl is a species that I still did not have pictures for in NC, until now..
Barn Owl - I managed to fire off some shots when they flew from the gin to the nearby tree line. Not ideal to have them flying away from me for my first NC pic, but I will take what I can get and will not push my luck. Hopefully this duo has a successful brood this year.
Here is a better photo from Cuba where my flash did a good job. The birds there are much more bold, usually I would not use flash as it can stress the birds.
Back to North Carolina and the epic journey on Saturday. A couple more hours after my first owl sighting, I was at my final birding stop just as the sun set and met up with two friends socially distant and masked up. Owls are tough to photograph for obvious reasons. The Short-eared Owls at Alligator NWR are usually super distant and only come out at dusk so the lighting conditions suck. Combine distance and poor light and you will be hard pressed to get any recognizable photos. In fact I did see some Short-ears earlier this year but was not able to get photos. So I was ecstatic to get some decent photos this time outside Charlotte.
This was pretty much the only photo I got that was not a speed blur. Short-eared wing patterns are diagnostic although Long-eared Owls do have similar wings from underneath. However, Long-eared Owls have dark bodies and Short-eared are light with little markings. Some day I will get my Long-eared, but this was not the day.
A more typical poor light silhouette shot. We had 3-4 flying around.
As it got more dark, I spotted an owl coming in and it vocalized... SHHHhhhh.. another Barn Owl! My friend got her spotlight on it and I attempted a shot which came out as a multi exposed speed blur..
Barn Owl - its art! Wow, until today I never photographed a Barn Owl in NC and now I did it twice in two different spots separated by hundreds of miles in less than 4 hours. My streak of luck continues!!
The 3 hour drive home in the dark started in snow and sleet and had me worried but the roads stayed clear and the temperature rose to over freezing as I made headway to the coast.
Here are a few photos from today at Carolina Beach Lake back home before it starting pissing rain.
Lesser Scaup
The lone Snow Goose continues...
As does the lone Marbled Godwit.
Some food for thought... do birds live long enough to get sick from slightly polluted water? I would think cancer is probably not a common cause of death since they probably have more imminent things to contend with like starvation, predators and bad weather. So maybe a nice worm from mud in CB Lake that perhaps has trace levels of pollutants is not a big deal. Many birds love waste-water treatment plants so I guess CB Lake is fine.. I would say that I am heartened that the current administration seems to be making some good progress in pushing some important executive orders regarding the environment.
What will show up next?? I still need to get my Pacific Loon so I will put some time in this week on the pier in the mornings before work.
