Red-eyed Vireos are the most common bird at Burnt Mill Creek in early October before the yellow-rumped horde comes. They are the vanguard or the cavalry, whereas the butterbutts are the infantry.
White-eyed Vireos come in second as far as Vireos go.
Black-and-white Warbler with plenty of crevices to explore along a lichen encrusted oak.
Don't ever take a Tufted Titmouse for granted, they are one of the coolest characters around.
Red-winged Blackbird
If you see a warbler in the undergrowth along the creek, chances are it is a Common Yellowthroat but I still diligently check them all.
Yellow Warbler playing hard to get.
Meanwhile at Airlie Gardens, a small flock of 4 Wood Ducks are still hanging around and they are more bold than most of this species.
A Sleepy Orange, love that name.
October 8th was the Big Sit Day. The weather was setting up to be perfect for Battery Buchanan at the end of the road in Fort Fisher. A cold front pushed Northwest winds overnight which promised to push migrants out to the Cape Fear area. New Hanover County is basically a big funnel.
When you get strong NW winds, the birds migrating overnight get pushed towards the coast. For the ones that stayed over land, when the light comes they descend to feed and generally keep working their way south while they do so. For the ones that got pushed offshore overnight, they see their mistake when light comes and fly back to the coast. That concentrates all the birds as they move south and get hemmed in by the Cape Fear River on the west and the Atlantic on the east. Before you know it, they are all amassing at the very tip of where the trees end which is Battery Buchanan. Obviously Bald Head is south, but there is a lot of marsh between Fort Fisher and Bald Head, so many of the birds probably don't want to cross. When they get to Battery Buchanan, if the NW wind is blowing hard enough, they don't want to cross the Cape Fear River in a headwind so they circle around to feed in the trees at Fort Fisher. Some of them drop down in the few Red Cedars at Battery Buchanan to take stock and figure out their next move.
I arrived at the Battery a little late to hear owls, but Sam C was there and he didn't hear any. The first bird was probably also the last and certainly the most vocal.
This Northern Mockingbird was posted up in the Red Cedar tree that sits on top of Battery Buchanan. This cedar was the focus of much of our Big Sit as the biggest tree within a few yards of our 17 foot diameter circle. The Mockingbird would chase many of the birds that landed in his tree much to our chagrin. Very early we had several species of warbler land in the cedar including Black-throated Blue, Cape May and Yellow but most of them only stayed a few seconds and then split.
We had a few Sharp-shinned Hawks - the squared off tail and small size made ID relatively easy.
Eastern Phoebes are sweet and cute.
We had huge numbers of Northern Flickers.
An adult Bald Eagle came in to check us out.
Some Merlins buzzed us as well. In the end we tallied 87 species of bird which is 10 better than last year and I would guess enough to take the NC title for the year. I know this spot has good potential and we could push 100 if we keep at it.
A couple of Burnt Mill Creek sessions were fun but didn't bag anything super interesting.
Blue-headed Vireo
Northern Parula
Chestnut-sided Warbler - these little birds are basically a totally different bird from what they look like in the Spring.
Clouded Skipper
Indigo Bunting - my buddy Curtis has set up a nice natural looking feeder in an old log at Burnt Mill Creek. Various of the usual feeder type birds come down to feed here but this Indigo was a treat. She was having a bad hair day.
Ah that's better.
Downy Woodpecker
Meanwhile at Airlie Gardens....
Yellow Warbler
Ovenbird
Black-and-white Warbler hanging out in the Sequoia they planted in the back of the garden. I think it has grown 20 feet in the past year, the tree not the warbler.
The Blue Mistflower at my house is blooming its heads off.
A couple of weekends ago John F, Marty W and friends found a Gray Flycatcher at the old coast guard station on Cape Lookout. Unfortunately they didn't realize it until a couple days later when checking photos. The next weekend looked prosing for another cold front which can be really fun at Cape Lookout so I headed out hoping to find the Gray Flycatcher but mostly just to see what we could turn up. Trevor S joined me on the first ferry and we slowly birded our way from the ferry landing at Cape Lookout to the CG station.
We had many Cape May Warblers.
And a Tennessee Warbler which is a good warbler for the coast. In fact we had about 12 species of warbler. When we got the CG station, we stayed around the area where the Gray Flycatcher was for a couple hours with no luck at first. Finally we picked up an Empidonax Flycatcher with what looked like short primary projection in the wings so we started to celebrate thinking it was the Gray. We snapped some poor photos and then quickly lost the bird.
We checked the photos afterwards and were really disappointed to find some field marks that were not right for Gray Flycatcher. Namely the bill was not dark-tipped like the photos Marty posted.
The bill was quite small and all orange underneath.
Here is a picture Marty posted in eBird of his bird:
The bill looks totally different.
So we had to call in an Empid sp. Probably it was a Least.
Brown-headed Cowbird - overall it was a fun day but a bit disappointing that we didn't get the Gray.
A trip to Fort Fisher last week was mostly uneventful except for some nice looks at Blackpoll Warblers.
Oddly a Yellow Warbler tripped up the rare flag on eBird.
Sometimes a Northern Mockingbird just can't be ignored?
Blue-winged Teal at Ashley HS pond.
Finally this past week I just had to go chase a Tropical Kingbird someone found at Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge up near the Virginia Border in Currituck County. Although we have had a handful of these vagrant prone Kingbirds in NC, most of them were quick sightings that disappeared, or they were birds that never vocalized. Both Tropical and Couch's Kingbirds are almost identical but have very different calls. This particular Kingbird at Mackay was calling the trill typical of a Tropical and some folks even got some recordings.
I arrived at around 9am and hoofed it in to the area where the bird had been seen and saw it immediately.
Tropical Kingbird - the notched tail is typical of Tropical/Couch's.
With this beauty in the bag so quickly, I decided to work on my county effort. I was still missing a number of counties from this corner of NC.
First stop was Merchant's Millpond in Gates County. What a gem! Some text from the website: "Located in Gates County 10 miles south of North Carolina's northeastern border with Virginia, Merchants Millpond State Park centers on a 760-acre millpond more than 190 years old. Hiking the surrounding trails or paddling the placid, shallow waters of the pond offer a great way to explore this wetland environment. Old-growth cypress trees adorned with Spanish moss create an "enchanted forest," particularly at Lassiter Swamp. Visitors have even spotted the American alligator here, at the northernmost point of its range. "
Bald Cypresses can also turn a nice red color in the fall.
The heavily wooded trails were gorgeous but lacked birds in a big way. It was fairly windy and all the falling leaves made it hard to find any birds.
I find that many heavily wooded areas are birdless. Birds prefer edge habitat.
Presumed Honey Mushrooms.
Gates County is pretty small at 340 square miles which makes it the 76th largest county in NC. The population is also small at about 11k people. Gates County was named after Horatio Gates, a Revolutionary Army general that was infamous for being part of the Conway Cabal, which was a group of generals that tried to remove George Washington as Commander in Chief.
Next county on the way home was Hertford. I chose Ahoskie Creek Recreational Complex as I have been doing with most counties, by targeting the eBird hotspot with the most species in the county. This recreational complex was basically a patchwork of ball fields and some extensive lawns with mature trees.
Chipping Sparrow
An interesting bear sculpture in the park. I tried to find some good birds, but it was the middle of the day and things were slow.
Hertford County is marginally bigger than Gates but has twice as many people (24k). Whereas Gates borders the east side of the Chowan River, Hertford is on the west bank. As with Gates, the ancient inhabitants of this area were Native American but this county was the hope of the Meherrin Indian tribe. Never heard of them? Me neither and apparently Siri didn't either because she keeps autocorrecting the word. I looked for some info, but even Wiki doesn't have much. Such a shame that so much of the Native American history is fading away.
Winton is the county seat of Hertford, but I think Murfreesboro has more people. I was super surprised to see that 66% of voters in Hertford County are Democrats. Not usually true of a more rural county.
Here is an interesting tidbit, Hertford County was the birthplace of Richard Jorden Gatling, the inventor of the Gatling Gun - the worlds first machine gun.
Good for you Dick.
The next county up was Bertie, and the eBird hotspot was Cashie Wetlands Walk/Zoo. This riverside walk also had the added bonus of a free outdoor zoo.
Unfortunately I can't count this Emu. I will have to wait to a trip to Australia for this one.
The Wetlands walk wound through some nice Bald Cypress and Water Tupelo forest but the birds were few and far between.
The Cashie River is a tributary of the mighty Roanoke River and flows through the town of Windsor. The county has a small population with 17k people but is 16th biggest in NC with almost 700 square miles. Windsor is the county seat and although the downtown area is nice looking, it was dead when I drove through.
This is also another heavily Democratic County. Searching for famous people from Bertie County, I found this on Wiki:
Parker David Robbins (1834–November 1, 1917) was a Union Army soldier during the American Civil War, among the first Black representatives to the North Carolina House of Representatives in 1868–1869, and inventor from Bertie County, North Carolina.
Photo courtesy of ncpedia.org.
My last stop for the day was Moratoc Park in Martin County NC in the town of Williamston. I am very familiar with this town because I frequently stop here to spend the night when I am driving home from the outer banks after a pelagic trip as it is about half way home. I was not familiar with Moratoc Park though, so it was nice to see. The park itself is not huge but has a nice deck looking over the Roanoke River. The birds were again slow, but I did find a small flock in the evening light which made for some good photography.
Carolina Wren
Martin County is middling in size and population with 460 square miles and 22k people.
The biggest town is Williamston. The most famous person from Martin is Wilber Hardee of the fast food chain Hardee's. Not sure if I should celebrate that.
Wow, that was a longer post than I thought it would be!
Larry Birds is up to 288 species of bird and 66 counties for the year. Not going to make 100 this year, but I am determined to finish this and visit all 100 soon, maybe by March of next year. It has been a fun project and I am learning a ton about our great state.
