What better way to start the new year than with a new North Carolina lifer. A Harris's Sparrow has been hanging out at one of my favorite birding spots for the past several weeks and Monday was conveniently the first real opportunity I had to chase it. Warren Wilson College is a wonderful farming school teaching sustainable agriculture in Swannanoa, NC. It is adjacent to a regional park which offers easy access and parking. The farm fields are bordered by riparian habitat and hemmed in by mature trees so it is an ideal place to find all kinds of good birds and has hosted quite a few rarities over the years. I drove up Sunday night and stayed in Marion before heading over first thing Monday morning. It was pretty cold with frost blanketing the fields and ice on the puddles from recent rains. It didn't take long for me to find some sparrow flocks near the farm compost heaps.
Field Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
However, I wasn't seeing the Harris's. Several other birders arrived and long story short, someone found the Harris's Sparrow mixed in with a massive flock of 30 plus White-crowned Sparrows feeding in a pig sty.
Harris's Sparrow are in the Zonotrichia genus which includes White-crowned, White-throated and Golden-crowned sparrows. Most of them are found in the middle of the country. I had my first one in Nebraska on a work trip.
Its a damn good bird for North Carolina although there have been a handful over the years, just not recently.
It was shortly before lunch so I still had loads of time to play with. Many folks have been getting amazing pics of Short-eared Owls at Guilford County Farm which was conveniently on my way home relatively speaking, so I headed over. I arrived fairly early after lunch hoping to get some views in broad daylight but quickly found out that the reason other people had been seeing them during the day is that they were deliberately walking the fields and flushing them. I was torn on whether that was acceptable behavior. There is nothing that prevents people from walking the fields legally in this particular spot, but if everyone did it, the birds would eventually be harassed to the point of leaving the area. So I decided to wait for dark instead when the birds would naturally be hunting and easy to see. Perhaps if they continue throughout the winter, I will go back later and try for some daytime shots.
Eastern Bluebird at Guilford County Farm.
Song Sparrow
American Robin
Another White-crowned Sparrow
Finally around 5:30pm well after sunset but before total darkness, the Short-eared Owls put on a show flying their moth-like erratic but graceful dance over the fields. Alas, it was too dark for photographs.
Not a bad way to open up the new year!
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