This installment of "Where in NC is Jamie Adams?" is brought to you by Chatham, Guilford, Lee and Harnett Counties. This week's county romp was mainly revolving around several birds I was hoping to pick up in neighboring counties near RTP and then meandering back home in some under-birded counties on the way home.
As is customary, here are a few pics from earlier in the week at home.
Pied-billed Grebe at Carolina Beach Lake
One evening I watched sunset at the Johnnie Mercer Pier and found 3 Razorbills in the distant gloaming hanging out with a Boney.
This loon at a distance looked like it could have been a Murre but when it drifted closer it looked like a Common Loon that had fluffed its feathers for the night?
One morning I headed with Sam and Jacob to a local's house for a chance at a Western Tanager visiting a jelly feeder but all we saw were Baltimore Orioles.
This male had probably been visiting some camellia bushes as his forehead with dusted yellow.
Gray Catbird
Another morning I headed to Fort Fisher first thing and only came away with this Western Sandpiper on the rocks at Federal Point.
Later that day Sam had a Long-tailed Duck at the River Lights community on the cape fear river and I couldn't resist the chance at some close up pics.
Snowy Egret at River Lights.
Little Blue Heron
Great Egret
Long-tailed Duck
Belted Kingfisher
I was hoping to get the duck in better light so I walked around the area with a plan to come back in 20 minutes. The light was really good in the area behind the retention pond/lake.
Chipping Sparrow
House Finch
Palm Warbler
House Finch
Palm Warbler
Long-tailed Duck - patience isa virtue! The duck was now foraging near the bank with the sun behind me. Birding is hard but taking decent photos of birds is even harder, but someone has to do it.
Saturday morning I headed up bright and early with my first stop at Transis Camp Rd in Chatham County. This area is one of the many green spaces set aside for recreational use in the piedmont bordering lakes or other water features. The road is basically a dead end that travels along a peninsula jutting out into Jordan Lake.
This can be a good spot for waders when the lake levels are low but the real reason for my visit was to get some decent pics of Red Crossbills. They have been visiting this area for a couple years in the winter feeding presumably on the many Loblolly Pine cones. I didn't really know the exact spots where they had been seen so I just parked at the first power line cut parking area and pulled on my boots for a semi wet slog through the woods.
I had one tree with 6 Fox Sparrows in it! When it rains it pours.
Fox Sparrow - I was having fun but I was burning valuable time with no sign of Crossbills so I headed back to the truck and as I was getting ready to leave saw a bird pop up in a tree in the parking area!
Red Crossbill! This is a very long distance cropped shot. I tried to get closer but it flew. I decided to look around some more and eventually found a small flock in another distant tree.
This one a male but still too far for a decent shot.
This Field Sparrow was more accommodating.
By the time I got to my next spot, it was already getting late and the sun was making it difficult to find my target. The Seaforth Boat Ramp is another spot on Jordan lake. An Eared Grebe has been hanging out with a flock of about 100 Horned Grebes.
Unfortunately most of the birds were pretty far out and resting presumably after a morning of foraging so it was really difficult to get decent looks at the subtle differences between them.
Usually I don't like raptors scaring all the ducks but in this case it got the birds looking up so I could check them all. Unfortunately the Eared Grebe was no where to be seen so I figured it was out foraging somewhere and I took it as my cue to move on.
Some quick facts about Chatham County... It's actually the 18th largest county at 682 square miles but much of that is water or protected land. It only has 62k people which is surprising considering its proximity to RTP.
The county seat is Pittsboro. You can see Jordan Lake on the far east side of the county. Its pretty huge.
After Jordan Lake, I made a pit stop at City BBQ and got myself an amazing brisket sandwich. I can't get enough of that place.
My next destination was Guilford County and specifically Howerton Rd which is a birding hotspot in the northern part of the county. I was headed there to see if the long running Say's Phoebe was still around. It hadn't been reported in several days so I was skeptical but I thought if I was persistent I would pick it up eventually.
Guilford is mostly taken up by Greensboro but has plenty of green spaces and rural parts too. It's NC's 22nd largest county and has over 500k people! I am pretty sure I will spend some more time there before the end of the year as it has some good hotspots for migration and some good breeding birds too.
The Howerton Rd hotspot is also called Guilford County Farm and is strangely an old prison that is now a public park. There are still fences around part of the property with razor wire around it but I don't think they have inmates any more.
White-crowned Sparrow
They have Donkeys and Cows among other critters.
Black Vulture
I had fun walking around but didn't ever get on the Say's Phoebe. At this point I was pretty bummed after dipping on two targets in a row. My original plan was to head up to Brevard County but the two birds (Brewer's Blackbird and Greater White-fronted Goose) I was hoping to target up there were also not seen in a couple days and it was a really long drive so I decided to instead stay in Raleigh and then try for the Eared Grebe in the morning.
When I arrived first thing in the morning it took all of 5 minutes to find the Eared Grebe!
Eared Grebe - the light was much better.
The bird stuck out like a sore thumb among the larger Horned Grebes.
Yay! I birded Jordan lake for an hour or so more and decided to make my way home slowly over the course of the day and hit up some counties I have never birded in. I randomly selected Lee County as it was just to the south and looked to have some potential.
Lee County is the 89th largest county or another way to put it, its relatively small. The population is likewise small, comparable to Chatham County. Here is an interesting fact, all of the counties I was hitting up are in the Cape Fear drainage basin which eventually spills out in my home city of Wilmington.
Guilford County is where the Haw and Deep Rivers flow down to where they converge and become the Cape Fear in Chatham County. The Little River flows across the northern reaches of Lee County into the Cape Fear too and that eventually flows into the last county I visited - Harnett.
In Lee County I randomly searched for Parks on my phone and found a park called San-Lee Park. It was a very sleepy park maybe because everyone was at church? I actually walked a mile of trail and didn't see one person the whole time.
There is a nice lake and a trail bordering a stream which spills into the lake. The birding potential looked good for a spring hotspot. I bet waterthrushes would love it.
The park is full of nice mature pine forest with a nice understory of Beech trees and Laurels.
Mallards
Abominations
After about an hour, I headed out and decided to check out what all the fuss was about at Raven Rock State Park in Harnett County. In fact Raven Rock is probably the most well known part of this county. When I arrived the weather was overcast but I didn't even think about rain and forgot to bring my rain jacket on the hike. The Raven Rock loop trail is about 2 miles and the highlight is a big cliff overlooking the Cape Fear River. I guess if you live in the Piedmont, you get excited about any kind of rock. In the mountains this cliff would be unremarkable.
I guess it was pretty cool, but I didn't see what all the hype was about. The trails were crowded with people even in the crappy weather and the birds were few and far between. Perhaps I was just getting tired...
The weather was warm but there were still icicles hanging from the cliff.
The mighty Cape Fear!
It started to rain pretty good so I had to walk briskly back to my truck.
Harnett is about twice the size of Lee and has about double the population so I imagine they are similar in population density.
Lillington is pretty small but I was about to find a decent mexican restaurant for lunch!
Yum!
It really started raining hard while I was eating so I decided to stop my slow amble through these counties and got back on the 40 and headed home. However, just when I started to get back into Wilmington it cleared up and I decided to use the last hours of light looking for some birds in the Blue Clay area.
Wild Turkeys!
I checked out the sparrow fields near Blue Clay Bike Park but it was quiet.
Not a bad weekend! I picked up some decent birds and hit up 4 more counties for my year effort.
Larry Birds now has 15 counties out of 100! At this pace I should be able to finish 100 by the end of the year but I still have some far flung counties to go to!
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