After over 11 years of birding all over North Carolina I still have a handful of counties I have not completed checklists for. I could have sworn I have birded in Robeson County before but apparently not according to eBird. So I made plans this week to hit up some spots in Bladen and Robeson, two adjacent counties only about an hour or so from my home. But first some local pics from the previous Sunday and during the week.
Early this week I checked the surf came to see it would be worth going for a surf and saw a bazillion gulls feeding in the surf so I changed plans and headed down to search for a rarity in the huge masses of Laridae.
This Royal Tern was about as close to a rarity as I got and its not even rare at all.
The only thing about my checklist that flagged in eBird was the shear amount of Lesser Black-backed Gulls. This photo has about 20 alone and the whole beach was like this from the Johnnie Mercer to Oceanic Piers.
Sometimes a Lesser Black-backed Gull will look interesting. This one appeared to have a dark gray back but also pink legs. Most adult LBBGs have yellow legs but this one appears to have changed its plumage without regarding for changing its leg color.
Looks pink to me.... made me think about Slaty-backed Gull...
But when it banked it lacked the obvious "string of pearls" so I had to abandon that pipe dream.
From the pier, it was easy to see what everyone was so excited about, a huge school of shad showing up as a dark mass.
Hard to believe nothing rare was in there somewhere.
House Sparrow at Wrightsville Beach.
Field Sparrow at Joseph Lewis Ryder Park in CB. I have been driving by the site of the previous White-crowned Pigeon sighting with no luck.
Pine Warbler at Fort Fisher.
Black-and-white Warbler - Fort Fisher
Eastern Bluebird trying to turn on the faucet.
Meanwhile Paco is sleeping most of the time these days.
Red-breasted Mergansers at Fort Fisher
Loggerhead Shrike at ILM Airport.
Eastern Meadowlark
Red-shouldered Hawk
American Kestrel
A huge flock of Rusty Blackbirds has been hanging out at the Battleship parking downtown. If this one wasn't hanging out with more obviously rusty ones, I would have almost thought of Brewer's Blackbird.
Brown-headed Cowbird at Greenfield Lake
Orange-crowned Warbler at Lake Sutton
Downy Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
During the middle of the week, we finally had a day without full sun and that made the ocean viewing conditions good first thing in the morning. On cloudless days, looking out at the ocean can be tough in the sun glare.
My only White-winged Scoter of this winter flew by really far out.
This loon looked really interesting but I wasn't able to make a good enough argument for anything other than Common Loon.
The flanks had some white flaring in the back and the profile just didn't look right for a Common Loon. But it wasn't a Pacific and probably not an Arctic. Just going to chalk it up as a weird Common.
But then....
A solid Pacific Loon swam into view. Proper profile and "chinstrap".
Everything was so far out but my new camera has been performing well.
My first Razorbills flew waaaaayyyyy out on the horizon but the camera was able to capture this shot good enough for ID.
Only the Horned Grebes came in close.
This Great Cormorant continued the theme of good birds that are too far for good pictures - Masonboro Inlet.
Trocolored Herons on the other hand have no problem with close views - Carolina Beach Lake.
There has been 4 Scaup hanging around CB Lake and I previously wrote them off as all Lessers. This one clearly has a small "nail" on the bill (the black tip) and so Lesser works.
However, this one has a large nail and his head appears to have a more round profile so I am going with Greater Scaup on this one.
Greater Scaup - Better look at the rounded profile. Lesser has a more peaked look.
Like this Lesser.
Sedge Wren at Fort Fisher.
Saturday turned out to be a colder but beautiful day so I set off on my journey. I stopped at the Battleship first thing but my poor luck at seeing a Sora or Virginia Rail continues. They were calling but not coming out where I could see them.
My next stop was Jones Lake State Park in Elizabethtown, Bladen County. I have birded Bladen before, mainly the roads east of Elizabethtown and west of Northwest (town name) which are great in the summer for Swallow-tailed Kites. However, I had never made it all the way to Elizabethtown so I was really interested in seeing this area. Initially I was aiming for Singletary Lake, but in looking at eBird the possibilities seemed greater at Jones Lake which had two shots on goal with a nearby Salter's Lake in hiking distance.
Map of Bladen County which as you can see is centered around the Bladen Lakes State Forest.
This forest is clustered around "Carolina Bay" Lakes which have some clouded etiology around the nomenclature. Some think the word bay was used simply because the shores of these lakes looked like bays but others because the lakesides have a lot of Bay Trees, mainly Sweet Bay Magnolia which is actually a magnolia and not a bay... I am most familiar with Lake Waccamaw which is closer to my home and has a great state park on the eastern side. You can just see Lake Waccamaw in the very bottom of the map. So when I pulled up to this park, it was immediately familiar to me as a smaller version of Lake Waccamaw but without any houses.
If your interested, read up on these Bay Lakes here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_bays
Jones Lake - I studies the trail map which consists of a 5 mile loop around the lake and then a 1 mile spur to Salter's Lake on the far side. I chose to take the trail counterclockwise heading up the eastern side.
I was immediately struck by the difference of this habitat to anything I have seen in NC. The trail led through an ancient looking forest of cedar trees which didn't look like the Red Cedars I am used to on the coast. It turns out they are Atlantic White Cedars which can easily grow to over 100 feet high and some of these looked it.
Atlantic White Cedar or Atlantic White Cypress - these cedars grow straight up and to great heights and apparently make great lumber hence why it's hard to find them nowadays.
The bark is similar to Red Cedar but more regular with less of the knots and gnarls that is seen on Red Cedar. Also, it is decidedly white.
Anyway the birding was very slow the whole 6 plus miles of hiking but it was really pleasant. Some of the trail runs alongside some gamelands full of Long-leaf Pines similar to what we have at Holly Shelter and there were tons of Red-cockaded Woodpecker holes but for some reason I couldn't turn one up.
Dark-eyed Juncos were plentiful.
I also found a bunch of wild Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus osteatus) which I was going to pass up but later in my walk I found a discarded paper bag so I decided to harvest some. Usually when I see them they are past prime, but these were perfect.
After my nice long hike, I was hungry and part of this project I have for hitting up all 100 counties is seeing some of NC I normally wouldn't bother with including some of the local eats. Elizabethtown was the closest town so off I went. I somewhat blindly drove down the main strip and parked my truck. Its actually a really cute small town, I think my wife would have loved it.
This place looked really popular so I went in and ordered a burger "All the way" which included coleslaw and chili. Delicious! I highly recommend it. Clearly its a favorite for the locals. I will be heading back here next time I hit up some spots in Bladen County.
After my burger and a coffee, I was ready to tackle Robeson County. Searching eBird, I couldn't find more than 1-2 hotspots so I picked one that looked promising with lakes and rivers nearby and close to the biggest town in Robeson, Lumberton.
Map of Robeson County
As I drove through Lumberton, it gave me the impression of an industrial town that has had some hard times. In reading the Wiki entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumberton,_North_Carolina) it seems the town was big in the shipment of lumber down the river to Georgetown, SC. After 1970 many of the businesses that were there in the town's heyday left. I probably didn't drive through the nice parts.. I might have go back and try again someday.
When I picked Luther Britt Park, I wasn't aware that it was essentially butting up to I-95.
The park looked a little tired and had some shady types walking around but it looked promising with a large flock of gulls on the far side so I headed over.
To my surprise, a Common Merganser was hanging out next to a Great Blue Heron! I checked eBird and apparently someone else had seen one a week or so earlier so apparently I didn't find it first. This is a great bird east of the 95 and usually is seen at a great distance so I was happy to have a photo shoot with it.
It flew around the lake a couple times but never went far.
Wow! Otherwise there was nothing much around except some guys that looked to be on drugs and staring at my camera drooling with dollar signs in their eyes.
Eastern Bluebird.
I looked at the maps and instead of just heading home on the main road, I took the road less traveled to see if some of the lakes or rivers were accessible and it didn't take long before I saw a large pond from the side of the road that looked promising. I couldn't tell if the land was private, certainly there were some private homes close by but the spot I was in was just some empty land overlooking a pond full of ducks. So I parked and took a peek. Tons of Ring-necked Ducks with some Canvasbacks and Redheads mixed in!
Canvasback and Redhead
A guy started walking over to me so I apologized and told him I was just interested in the ducks and we chatted for a few minutes. Turns out it was his property but he was fine with me looking. Moral of the story is don't pass judgment on a place just because you ran into some unsavory people in one part of town. I would wager that almost all 100 counties in NC have bad parts and some good parts, and this probably goes for most towns within the counties too.
When I got home I did a spore test on the shrooms I harvested and they were all white, eliminating some of the more toxic look-alikes.
That's a big Oyster!
I love the detail on Oyster Mushroom gills.
I found a good recipe online for Vegan Oyster Mushroom Soup and started to chop up some shallots and the shrooms. If your ever interested in making a creamy soup but need to use non-dairy products, pick up some Coconut Cream, it works great and to be honest probably is tastier than regular dairy cream. I added some Thyme and Garlic and Oat Flour and cooked it all up.
I made a small bowl for myself just to be sure it was going to pass muster and it was absolutely delicious!
I know, soup like this rarely looks appetizing but trust me it was really good. The whole family is getting set to eat the rest as I write this.
Bonaparte's Gull - today was a rainy and cold day but I didn't want to break my streak of at least one checklist a day so I went down to CB Lake and birded in the rain a bit.
This really dark-faced Pine Warbler made me do a double take. I suppose it was just really wet making the dark auricular patch appear more dark than usual.
Even the normal white panel on the wing seemed to be missing but again I think the bird was just wet and in rough shape.
Great times. Next week is my pelagic trip on the OBX if the weather forecast stays good.
8 Counties down, 92 to go! This is going to be hard once I start having to go further afield.
