My county effort had been languishing a bit as I have been spending more time in my yard planting things and cleaning up all the magnolia litter and pine straw. I love my big Magnolia and Long-Leaf Pines in my yard but they sure do make a mess. A couple months back it was the Live Oaks dropping their leaves, but now its all Magnolia and Long-leafs. The Magnolias drop old leaves which seemingly never decompose and can gather rain and cause little breeding pools for mosquitoes. So I have been gathering them up and using my mulcher to speed the process up and make mulch. Magnolia leaves have a special chemical in them that naturally deters anything else from growing, so it works well as a mulch if you don't want things growing in your beds but it probably does not help your lawn or plantings so its best to mulch and move them into areas you don't want growth.
Back at the end of May, our family unit took a quick 3 day weekend up in the mountains for some spring migration birding. On Friday we drove up to Forsyth County and stayed overnight so we didn't have to do the whole drive in one sitting, plus I wanted to check out Reynolda Gardens in the morning. Reynolda is a great place for spring migration with some lucky people getting upwards of 17 species of warblers in one morning. Unfortunately I got totally unlucky and although way better than Wilmington, it was kind of a disappointment in terms of warblers.
On the other hand, this Scarlet Tanager did not disappoint.
Forsyth County has 380k people making it the fourth most populous county in NC. This is despite it being middling in terms of size with around 400 square miles of land.
As you can see from this pic, most of the county is built up with Winston Salem taking up a good portion of it.
The most famous person I could find from Forsyth is Chris Paul the basketball player. He is nicknamed CP3 because his father and brother have the same initials. He is also recognizable because of his State Farm commercials, if you watch tv.
Not my photo.
We didn't stay too long and headed up to Blowing Rock before lunch. The family opted to go for a long run so I suggested Bass Lake for the carriage trails. They set off and I went ambling around the west end of the lake and took an offshoot trail through some good bramble habitat looking for Chestnut-sided Warblers.
Chestnut-sided Warbler
But then I found a lingering migrant Magnolia Warbler which was playing hard to get.
Unfortunately my camera has a hard time with autofocus in a bramble but I came away with this passable shot. I have only seen a handful of breeding plumage Magnolia Warblers in North Carolina, but we get tons of the post-breeding ones in the fall.
The shot that got away.
Hairy Woodpecker
Bass Lake falls in Watauga County which is where I have gone most years for my spring birding.
Watauga is 81st on the NC List of Counties by size and has about 54k people in it, not including 20k students at Appalachian State University in Boone. It has the distinction of being one of the most mountainous counties with Grandfather Mountain being one of the highest mountains in NC and certainly one of the most volatile in terms of weather. Grandfather has recorded a temperature of -32 F in 1985.
Not my photo, but you can see how cold Grandfather can get here, at the famous bridge.
Out of the most famous people listed as coming out of Watauga County, the most recognizable to me was Doc Watson of bluegrass fame.
He was born in Deep Gap and was an extraordinary fellow. He went blind at a young age which maybe helped him concentrate his musical talents. Check out his wiki page if your interested. Unfortunately he died in 2012.
We ate dinner early in Blowing Rock while it rained, and then tried to go up for a sunset on the Blue Ridge Parkway but the weather didn't cooperate.
I wonder why they call it the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Early in the morning before the family woke up, I headed to one of my favorite spots on the Parkway, Lewis Fork Overlook which falls in Ashe County. When I arrived, there was a veritable cacophony of birdsong and I tallied a pretty good list although most when heard only. For example, I had Kentucky Warbler and Hooded and Blackburnian but didn't come away with any pics.
American Redstart
Worm-eating Warbler
Ashe County is another mountainous county and has the distinction of not really having any big metro areas. In fact it only has 27k people in it which is only just over the amount of people going to school at App State! It is middling in size with about 420 square miles.
I couldn't find any famous people from Ashe, in fact the notable people section of Wiki talks about visits from famous people...
Perhaps that is why I like Ashe, it is relatively quiet and beautiful.
After meeting up with the family unit for breakfast, we headed out for one more hike before going home.
We selected the Sims Pond Overlook trail which is part of the Julian Price Memorial Park System on the BRP. I had never taken this trail and I was so glad we did. It was chock full of good birds, most of which I didn't get photos of, but here are a few I did.
Canada Warbler
Ruby-throated Hummingbird on nest.
Black-throated Blue Warbler
I had a Swainson's Warbler and Louisiana Waterthrush too. I highly recommend this trail for people looking for birds.
Back home during the week we had some low pressure systems move through and I just had to go look for some storm birds. Liling W found a Red-necked Phalarope at Carolina Beach Lake, and I had missed one that was at Greenfield Lake while I was in the mountains so I just had to go check it out.
Red-necked Phalarope
They usually drain the lake when there is bad weather so they don't get flooding, and that brings in birds looking to feed in the exposed mud and muck.
Tricolored Heron
Little Blue Heron
Semipalmated Plover
White Ibis
Lesser Yellowlegs
Later at the beach....
Common Terns have had a hard time with nesting at Wrightsville with some weather wiping out the nests.
Airlie Gardens is quickly becoming the best place to see Painted Buntings in the county.
A juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-heron
One night Melissa and I went to see Dave Matthews Band at the Live Oak Amphitheater in Wilmington. It was awesome! I had been listing to the DMB station on Pandora for the past couple years so I knew almost all the songs and he has some new ones too. Crazy that he has been in the game since 1991 and still rocks with the best of them.
So through the end of May, I have racked up 44 counties in NC! I imagine if I do make it to 100 counties by the end of the year, it will be surprising. I have already been losing steam lately. The Noel sisters are doing a county big year and they already have visited almost all counties and they have huge lists in each. Good for them! Maybe when I retire...
