Blood Moon, Beach Stuff and the Shack (15May - 25Jun2022)

The birding has been sporadic for me over the past month, but I always find an excuse to get out at least a few times.  The night of 15May the Blood Moon eclipse was a super nice treat from my  driveway. Photo taken with 15 sec exposure on my iPhone with no filters applied.

I have been spending almost all my free time working in my yard, planting native plants and pulling weeds etc..  Every once in a while good birds come to me. Lately I have had Mississippi Kites circling my neighborhood.  The following pictures taken from my driveway.

I've also been spending time with Paco lately, he's starting to get old and gets anxious when I leave the house.

Meanwhile, the north end of Wrightsville Beach is almost always worth the walk.

Whimbrel

Bottlenose Dolphin in the intracoastal.

Sandwich Tern

Royal Tern

Some Bonaparte's Gulls are just lazy and don't ever leave.

Sandwich

This hefty Water Moccasin at Wade Park was a beauty!

Common Loon at WB

Willets in breeding condition are absolutely annoying.  

Wilson's Plovers are the most handsome of the local plovers.

These vacationers were blasting some horrible music and dancing on the shore at the north end of WB.  At first I was annoyed, but then I just had to crack a smile.

Common Eider at Fort Fisher

Black Scoter

Gray Kingbird - its always good to locate a self-found rarity. I have had several self-found Gray Kingbirds over the years.  This one was enjoyed by several people at Fort Fisher.

Common Terns have been pretty successful on the south end of Wrightsville Beach this year.

Common Loon

Wilson's Plovers - Like father like son (Or like mother like daughter).

Least Terns at the north end of WB.

Clapper Rail

The Frangipani I have been nurturing for 20 years in my back yard.

Melissa hasn't been able to run due to some health issues so she picked up her water color pencils for the first time in 30 years and made this on the first pass!  

Meanwhile, we have made Fish Tacos a regular part of the rotation at home.  These feature pickled red onions, Albacore, avocado, Pineapple and Mango. Yum!

Sandwich Terns are so accommodating, I can't ignore them even if I wanted to.

A Great Shearwater on the south side of Wrightsville Beach.

Common Tern

Common Tern chicks

And finally some pics from the only real trip of the past month, I co-led a Cape Fear Audubon trip to East Shackleford Banks with John Fussell.  What an awesome day and it was cool to connect with a like-minded group of people.  

Immature White Ibis

We had Common Nighthawks doing their thing pretty much the whole time.

East Shack is pretty much the most reliable place in the state for Reddish Egrets and today was no exception.  

The same is true for Long-billed Curlews but usually only in the winter....

However, we lucked out with one Long-billed although it looked on the short side of long, meaning it appeared to be a young bird..  According to Sibley field guides, immature birds should only be expected Aug-Dec?  

The bill certainly looked good for a juvenile to me but as far as I know nesting has not been confirmed in NC.

Of course the wild horses are always a bonus at Shack.

We also had some Black Terns on the beach but I neglected to take pics.

What an awesome trip!  The weather was pretty much perfect with puffy clouds and enough wind to keep the flies away.  Once you go to Shack, you will always want to go Back!

Gretchen sent me this group pic!  Thanks for the fun time Cooper, Chris, John, Nancy, Ken, Gretchen, Doug, Johnnie, Red and Kaaren!

Pre-Blitz (09-15May2022)

Every spring Patteson Pelagics runs a series of trips to the gulf stream called the Blitz, I guess because it is a non-stop barrage of runs back and forth with no off days.  Its frequently booked up quickly and I was jonesing to get out on the water so I signed up for the week before the blitz.  First some pics from around town at home.

A kind of weird looking Yellow-crowned Night-heron has been hanging around Airlie Gardens but in the marsh and not on the pond.

Spotted Sandpipers have been thick around the pond.

Some of my Brunswick County friends had reports of a pair of Sandhill Cranes exhibiting nesting behavior at Boiling Spring Lakes so I hooked up with Harry and checked it out.

Harry says the pair has been trading off on egg sitting duty for about 2 hours a pop so usually you only see one while the other is hidden in the tall grass. So we posted up and watched this one.  Harry said it had switched about an hour before so we waited an hour to test the 2 hour theory.

Sure enough, the two traded places after an hour.

She/he was restless after sitting on eggs for 2 hours and chased some mallards out of the area.

Harry has since confirmed a Colt has fledged and is following the parents around the dried out lake bed.  This might be the first documented successful pair in North Carolina.  Interestingly the red hue on the feathers is slathered on by the bird from oxides in the mud presumably for camouflaging. 

A Wood Duck at Wade Park.

On my way to the OBX for the pelagic this rainbow dove the Alligator River was a good omen (can omens be good?).  I camped at the Cape Point campground and it was a beautiful night with all the natural sounds that comes with that place - Tree Frogs, Nighthawks and Chucks.  Luckily it didn't come with any of the bad sounds like generators which some "campers" like to fire up sometimes.

The pelagic started out pretty good with Black-capped Petrels and lots of Storm-petrels including Band-rumped and Leach's among the Wilson's but I didn't start photographing until Kate and I noticed a smaller Storm-peltrel almost simultaneously behind the boat in the wake.  We both screamed "European Storm-petrel" and got everyone on it. Getting a photo was tough because the birds were all mixed up and moving around frenetically in the wind and waves.

Record shot of a European Stormie - note the absence of strong carpal bars.

White underwings are what got us on it in the first place but also the more rapid flight style.  It was gone pretty quick and I don't think anyone got any great pics.

The Leach's SPs were more accommodating.

Pomarine Jaegers tend to the the ones that follow the boat the most.  The Long-tailed and Parasitics mostly fly by quickly.

Leach's

Cory's Shearwater 

Pom

Black-capped Petrel

Band-rumped Storm-petrel

Pom

Arctic Tern

I was loading my pics to the communal eBird list and saw that someone else had the identical picture! And I thought I was special for getting this shot.

A good shot of the deeply forked tail of a Leach's Stormie.

Fea's Petrel in the rain

Fea's ventral view with the trademark dark underwings.

Red Phalarope

Pom Jaeger - You could eat a bowl of cereal with those spoons.

Audubon's Shearwater

Atlantic Spotted Dolphins

It was a great trip but the elusive Bermuda Petrel is still my nemesis pelagic bird.

Back on terra firma, Matt J had a Red-necked Phalarope in Buxton basically right off the main road.

Red-necked Phalarope

Lesser Yellowlegs

I was exhausted and didn't feel like driving home the same night so I camped out and did a little birding around Cape Point in the morning.

Least Bittern at Ramp 44.

Gull-billed Tern

A Dunlin, Red Knot, Sanderling and White-rumped Sandpiper walk onto a bar.  The Red Knot says "I don't like you guys".  The Sanderling says "Why Knot?".  "Your just not my type of Peeps".

White-rumped Sandpiper

Laughing Gull

Bank Swallow!

It was a great trip and I hope I can get out again before the summer is done.  White-faced Storm-petrel is my other pelagic nemesis and they usually show in August if at all.