The day after my trip to Carteret County, I was enjoying a late morning at home waiting for the rain to pass when I got a notification that The Cape Fear Women's Birding Festival had found a Heermann's Gull at Wrightsville Beach so I made a beeline for the beach. I spent a couple hours at the north end in some drizzle and fog checking every gull that flew by. I decided to reposition and head down to the pier, when I got a text that Sam C and Liling W had just seen the Heermann's fly by north from about a quarter mile south from Shell Island! I quickly drove back to the parking lot at Shell Island and ran out on the beach. I must have missed it by 30 seconds or so.... I texted with Derb C who had it sitting in a flock of gulls down on the south end of Figure 8 Island so I ran up to the inlet. I was trying my best to find it from the north end of WB when Jacob joined me. That's about when the huge flock of roosting gulls got spooked and flew up in the air above the inlet. I started scanning the flying gulls looking for the Heermann's but didn't get a good look. Jacob was smart and simply sprayed the aerial flock with his camera which is what I should have done. In looking at his photos a couple minutes later he found the Heermann's in the picture but it was now gone.. ARGhhhh... I waited a couple more hours but it never showed again...
My only consolation was this Ipswich Sparrow.
iNat submission of the day, a Southern Magnolia I planted my yard! I always thought this "gem magnolia" was a different species from the Southern Magnolia but it turns out it is a dwarf variety of the same species. I know some people hate magnolias because they drop leaves everywhere and the leaves seem to never compost, but the birds love them and so I do by extension. I don't mind raking every once in a while, it is quite meditative actually. I did learn that the leaves have a substance in them that when released on the ground is an herbicide. I have noticed that typically not much grows under Magnolias and this is probably why the grass in my back yard is so poor as I have a ton of them in the back. The other thing I don't like is that the leaves form natural cups that gather fetid water where mosquitoes breed, but again more food for the birds.
Cabbage Palmetto at Wrightsville Beach - not quite sure why I did two submissions on this day.
Bonaparte's Gull - I spent sunset looking for the Heermann's again but no luck.
My scar from my surfboard accident is healing but looks like it might be permanent. There goes my modeling career.
This Panoramic sunset at Shell Island is dope!
In the morning I headed back to the beach to try for the gull again.
iNat submission for the day - Sea Purslane - this stuff will grow happily in pure sand.
I ran into David W on the beach and he was headed back to Brunswick County to a private residence that is hosting a Western Tanager so I asked if I could tag along and met him there.
Brown-headed Cowbird
Gray Catbird
Boom! Western Tanager! That was easy.
Another try for the gull at Mason Inlet and another miss with a nice sunset.
American Goldfinch on my feeder through my office window.
I headed to WB in the afternoon to see what was getting pushed in ahead of the cold front and impending snow storm.
Earleaf Greenbrier growing out of a planter at Johnnie Mercer Pier. Apparently it is edible as young shoots as an asparagus substitute! Who knew.
Ominous looking clouds! It was very cold.
Forster's Tern and little else. Everything must have been hunkering down.
The next day in front of my house! The most snow we have had in probably 10 years.
The main road down the street! No snow plows in Wilmington so the roads get dangerous.
The Yellow-throated Warbler continues on my feeder. I decided to head down to Carolina Beach State Park to look for Woodcocks and I did end up finding a couple but they disappeared into the undergrowth before I could photograph them.
Northern Cardinal
Pileated Woodpecker
American Robin
Saw Greenbrier! Another in the Smilax family. Note the variegated leaves.
Northern House Wren
Carolina Wren - I was getting all the wrens I wasn't looking for...
A very unhappy Hermit Thrush. The ice and snow was making it tough for these birds to find food.
Red-shouldered Hawk
Wilson's Snipe at the retention pond down the street from me.
Common Gardenia in my yard! Not native but you have to love the white fragrant flowers in the summer.
Groundsel Tree back at CB State Park. This is a very important tree/shrub for birds in NC.
Another day ends with no Woodcocks photographed but more seen.
There had been reports of a huge Lapland Longspur flock up in LaGrange about 1.5 hours North of me, but I was waiting for the roads to be safe before I could make a visit plus I had to work. Saturday dawned a sunny day and most roads were in good condition so I set off for Lenoir County.
Vesper Sparrows were everywhere at this spot.
A couple Red Foxes strolled out into one of the fields which seemed a bit strange to see in broad daylight.
Most of the Horned Larks stayed very distant but we did eventually get one that came in close.
American Pipits too...
Lapland Longspur! Although most of the time was spent seeing these at a very long distant we had a couple come in close enough for some marginal shots.
A local farmer came and asked us what we were looking at and he told us that we could walk out into the fields! So we did.
A more drab looking female gave us our closest looks of the morning.
A couple of the people at this spot told me about a continuing Lark Sparrows in Kinston which was quite close so I headed over.
It took some time to find them but when I did they were confiding.
Lark Sparrow
While I was up in Kinston Liling W texted me that she has an American Woodcock out in the open at CB State Park so I jetted down knowing I would probably not get there in time but you never know unless you go. I remained Woodcockless again.
Turkey Oak - CB SP is full of these.
On the next day I finally found the wren species I had been looking around for...
Winter Wren! Love these little babblers.
Cardinal
Golden-crowned Kinglet
While I was kicking around in CB SP again on Sunday, a text alert came through for a Ross's Goose in northern New Hanover County! A short while later I was looking at this petite white goose.
Ross's Goose
Sam C and Jacob were also there and they told me they had just been at the Battleship which was hosting tons of Virginia Rails and Sora feeding out in the relative open because all the habitat was frozen over.
Sora!
The Virginia Rails were a little more hesitant to come out past the ice, but I figured if I waited long enough they would get used to me and come closer, and they did.....
Virginia Rail
So nice to see these normally reclusive species so close up.
After some Wingspan & lunch with Melissa, I got word from Sam C and Jacob that there was a possible Common Merganser flock way in the distance at Lake Sutton in New Hanover County. We never get them in our home county so it didn't take long for me to get myself motivated to load the kayak on my truck and head over to the lake.
By the time I got there, it was past 4pm and I had limited time before sunset so I high-tailed it out to the far side of the lake and found some large rafts of ducks but no mergansers.
Several thousand American Coots.
A hunter came over as I was photographing them and scared them all off.
I gave hime the stink-eye and moved a bit down the lake to photograph some of the Tree Swallows that were feeding in awesome evening light.
Ruddy Duck
Tree Swallow
It was super fun shooting from my kayak, I think I will try again sometime soon.
I checked the weather forecast for this weekend and it looks like the OBX will be having some nice weather on Sunday so I signed up for an impromptu pelagic trip and will be heading up later this afternoon. Hopefully we luck into some alcids!
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