Picking up two birds is a long slog this far into the year, so bear with me as I go through a couple weeks of pics here.
On the north end of Wrightsville Beach the evening light has been fun to play with and some interesting subjects posed for me.
Stilt Sandpipers were flagging as rare.
Willets are always one of my favorites once they quiet down after breeding season.
This peep almost tricked me into thinking Semipalmated Sandpiper, but then I noticed the tip of the bill was covered with sand making me think it was shorter and stubbier.
Here you can see the bill is longer and droopy like a Western SP which is more expected this time of year.
Sometimes a Dowitcher just screams Long-billed right away like this beast did. It dwarfed the nearby Short-billed behind it and also had that "I just swallowed a grapefruit" look.
The bill was long and didn't have much of a kink in it. Also, you can see the tail feathers had more dark than light.
One feature I always like but is not definitive like all the other field marks is the pinch at the bottom of the V formed by the supercilia (eye-brows). On a SB Dow, it pinches shut so that there is no real space between the bottom white supercilia. On a LB Dow like this one, the supercilia form a nice even V without any significant pinch at the bottom and the two white bars don't meet. The dark tail is also evident here.
Oh my god! Look at that V. These are the things that brings order to the world.
Another field mark is that LB Dows always stand on the left of SBs.
Just kidding, here it is on the right.
Last picture I promise, but just look at that grapefruit.
Red-tailed Hawk at Fort Fisher Rocks on one day.
White-winged Scoter at the same spot the next day.
Sticking with the White-winged theme, I was on my way back home (to work) when I saw this White-winged Dove sitting next to a Eurasian Collared Dove at Kure Beach. Probably the same one Jesse A found earlier in the week at Federal Rocks.
We have had some really huge tides and some good winds and waves which brought in some nice winter gulls.
Bonaparte's Gull back from it's northern haunts.
Overexposed but nice pic.
During the week a Lapland Longspur was found one late afternoon at the 90 degree turn at Mid Pines Rd in Raleigh. I was going to wait and see if it was relocated in the morning before making the 2 hour drive but I randomly had one of my monthly bouts of insomnia waking at about 2 am and not able to go back to sleep. So I figured why not make chase early and then take my teleconference calls in the morning on the way back home. I am glad I did because it was there and then split when a tractor worked the fields later in the day.
Laplands have a diagnostic border around the auriculars (ear feathers) which is shared with Vesper Sparrow to a certain extent but it is much more pronounced on the Lapland.
It was hanging out with a group of Horned Larks.
It would have been really hard to spot without the flock flushing every so often.
Only two more birds to tie my previous record and 3 more to beat Derb's old record. Matthew W has already clinched the overall record with 360 birds already and he has 2 more months to go! He is on fire and his strategy of doing tons of pelagics has paid off. My only differentiator is I have pics of all but three of mine, so if there is a big year photographic record, I have it now.
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