Four More Counties in Charlotte Area (30Sep - 01Oct2023)

My son George had a regatta up at Lake Norman at the end of the month and needed driving hours so he can get his license, so I hopped in with him and spent the weekend watching him sail but also getting some more county birding in.

We made it late Friday evening and I set George's tent up at the Yacht Club and headed to my hotel room in Mooresville.  I suppose I am getting old and don't want to camp anymore if I can avoid it.  In the morning I brought George some breakfast and birded around the Yacht Club grounds which is in Iredell County.  Although Statesville is the county seat, Mooresville is actually the most populous town in the county.  The county is named for James Iredell who was one of the first Supreme Court Justices and was appointed by George Washington.  The Catawba River borders Iredell County to the west and the manmade Lake Norman is a huge part of the southern portion.  The county is 597 square miles large and has 187k people in it.  NASCAR is a big deal in Mooresville and some of its famous people are NASCAR drivers, although I wouldn't recognize any of them.

The birding was relatively slow with some Black-throated Green Warblers being the best finds but they stayed high in the pines.

My son's regatta began and I took off to explore some other areas.  The thing about regattas is that the boats sail way out and most times you don't know who is who, so it's not too fun to watch.

Not too far away, there were several reports of one or two Limpkins hanging around.  Mountain Creek Park sits in Catawba County at the very north end of Lake Norman.  It is a nice park with tons of trails and hills but a little too much activity for my taste.  Specifically lots of people with barking dogs.  If your dog is prone to incessant barking, why would you bring it to a park with other dogs?  

I hiked down one of the trails to the water's edge and saw a Park Ranger.  She said that she hadn't seen the Limpkin but heard it was around.  I scanned the shore over her shoulder and there is was foraging snails in the mud.

I hung out with it for a while trying to get it in better light.

It was especially adept at finding snails in the mud and then smashing the snails down on some hidden rock under the mud to get the meat out.

On the walk back to my truck, I did also find one flock of warblers including a not very cooperative Bay-breasted Warbler.

Bay-breasted Warbler - apparently the Spruce Budworm outbreak on the breeding grounds has led to a banner year for them.

Black Rat Snake

A little more on Catawba County....  

Much like Iredell, the county seat of Newton is not as populous as the city of Hickory.  The Catawba River borders the north side of the county from Hickory all the way down to Lake Norman in the southeast corner.  It has 160k people and 400 square miles of territory. Some historical info from Wiki:

"Catawba County formed in 1842 from Lincoln County, was named after the Catawba River. The word "catawba" is rooted in the Choctaw sound kat'a pa, loosely translated as "to divide or separate, to break." However, scholars are fairly certain that this word was imposed from outside.^[4] The Native Americans who once inhabited the region known as the Catawba people, were considered one of the most powerful Southeastern Siouan-speaking tribes in the Carolina Piedmont. They now live along the border of North Carolina, near the city of Rock Hill, South Carolina."

Much like Iredell, the most famous person from Catawba was a race car driver.  Bobby Isaac was apparently one of the top 50 best NASCAR drivers and was inducted into the NASCAR hall of fame.

He was famous for his bad temper and frequently would start fist fights after races with people that bumped him during the race.  He actually died of heart attack caused by heat exhaustion while racing. RIP Bobby. 

After a couple of hours at Mountain Creek Park, I had some time left before heading back to my son's regatta for dinner so I headed over to my last stop, the South Fork River Rail Trail in Lincoln County.  This particular trail continued on my theme of birding around the Catawba River, but this time the south fork which really is a completely different river and lies a good way south and west of the main Catawba.

An interesting factoid is that Lincoln County NC is the most populous Lincoln County in the USA even though it only has 86k people.  The county seat is Lincolnton, not very imaginative.  The area is 304 square miles.  I couldn't find any recognizable names from Lincoln County.

The Rail Trail was about a mile long but then linked up with another trail on the far side that is part of the Carolina Thread Trail.  I didn't even know there was a Carolina Thread Trail.

This patchwork of trails has been pulled together by the Catawba Land Conservancy, a grass roots organization with a mission to set aside land for public use and enjoyment.  Here is their website link: https://catawbalands.org/who-we-are/

There are 6 counties included and the plan is to have all of the threads meeting for one long continuous connected network of trails.  I wish we did more of this in our area.

The Rail Trail was a really nice heavily wooded trail adjacent to the river with some old ruins along the way which apparently were taken over by some shady vagrants, not of the avian variety.

An old spillway on the river that was at one time used as a mill of some sort.

Now that I have found my first Gemmed Satyr a couple months ago, I am seeing them everywhere.

White-breasted Nuthatch

One of the abandoned buildings had a German Shepherd on the roof barking when I passed.  Very strange.

Most of the trail was thick woods with not much birdlife, but some clearings provided edge habitat that birds like this Cape May Warbler liked.

I like Lichen!

After wrapping up in Lincoln County, I headed back to have some burgers at the Yacht Club and watched a Blood Moon rise over Lake Norman.

Apparently my camera is good for something other than birds.

In the morning, I had one more shot at some county birding and I picked Moss Creek Nature Trail in Concord, Carrabus County.  I unwittingly found another section of the Carolina Thread Trail to walk on.  https://www.carolinathreadtrailmap.org/trails/trail/hector-h-henry-greenway-moss-creek

The most common bird of the morning were Magnolia Warblers.  It was not a great day of birding, but they can't all be.  It was quite beautiful through with a paved trail cutting through some riparian habitat in an otherwise suburban landscape.  

Black-and-white Warbler

Some facts about Carrabus County....  The county sits on the northeast border of the beltway that surrounds Charlotte.

The county seat is Concord.  Here is some nice tidbit from Wiki about how the town was named:

"Catawba Indians were the primary inhabitants of the area until beginning about 1750, the county was settled mainly by immigrants: Germans on the eastern side and Scotch-Irish in the western area of the county. When it came time to choose a location for the county seat and county government, each ethnic group wanted the county seat located close to their populations and could not reach agreement on a site. Stephen Cabarrus wrote to the citizens pleading with them to come together in peace to choose a location for their county seat. A central area of the county was chosen in 1796 and aptly named Concord, a derivative of two French words "with" and "peace." Representative Paul Barringer introduced a bill into the state legislature to incorporate Concord; it passed on December 17, 1806."

How nice!  Then the Native Americans were kicked out and everyone lived on in harmony in Concord to the present day.  That's sarcasm by the way.

Before long the trail started to have lots of bike and walker traffic making it less enjoyable so I made my way back to the Yacht Club and watched George finish up his regatta.  Unfortunately they didn't podium but that also meant we could leave earlier so it was a mixed blessing.  On the way home we stopped in Rockingham and ate at the Taco Factory which is becoming our go to mexican restaurant half way home between Charlotte and Wilmington.  We were feeling adventuresome so we tried the Tripa Taco (tripe) and the Suadero Taco.  Both were delicious but I think the Suadero is now my favorite type.  The Horchata was a perfect thirst quencher as usual.

I have a little backlog of photos from early October developing so I will share those next.

Stay tuned.

Oh by the way, my year effort is falling way behind but it is still notable that I have visited and birded in 62 counties out of 100.  

Even if I don't make 100 this year, I will continue and finish the project next year.  It's not important that it happens in one calendar year.

 

Local Birding and the Death of a Best Friend (20-26Sep2023)

September is my favorite month of the year.  The temperature starts to cool down, the waves are usually good and the migration is getting into full swing.  I have been visiting my usual fall migration hotspot of Burnt Mill Creek (BMC) but lately Airlie Gardens has been really good.

Chimney Swift - a cigar with wings.

Eastern Kingbirds have flying through in huge numbers.

A female Black-throated Blue.

Every live oak at Airlie seems to have a couple American Redstarts.

I found this Blue-winged Warbler at Airlie and it stuck around for over a week with many people seeing it.

Here it is the next day in almost the same spot.

Prairie Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

American Redstart with a snack.

Yellow Warbler

Meanwhile, at Carolina Beach Lake, a big pink bird has been hanging out.....

No, unfortunately not a Flamingo, but a Roseate Spoonbill.

A bedraggled Black Skimmer has also been scooping up fish in the sludge that is CB Lake.

Oddly enough, the Roseate Spoonbill didn't trip the rare flag but this late young Least Tern did.

Tricolored Heron - CB Lake is probably the best place in Wilmington to shoot herons at close range.

This time of year all the Yellow-crowned Night-herons have post breeding dispersal which usually is evident in the marshes around Fort Fisher.  These were at the Aquarium pond.

Fort Fisher is also home to one of the closest things North Carolina has to a point break with the waves off the gazebo rocks.

This particular day was small which is why I didn't even bother to bring my board, but you can see that it gets crowded.

Back at Airlie another day, another Prairie Warbler.

One of these days I will find a Gray Heron, but until then here is another Great Blue Heron.

American Redstart

This Hooded Warbler was hanging around Burnt Mill Creek for several days.

Northern Parula

Nashville Warbler!  BMC seems to be good for 1-2 Nashvilles every fall now.

Presumed Acadian Flycatcher

GBH

A young White-eyed Vireo

The Hooded Warbler was still around several days later.

This young Acadian Flycatcher was vocalizing and Merlin confirmed ID.  Merlin sound ID should always be taken with a grain of salt, but it is a good tool for confirming what you already have come to based on visual factors.

One evening I had to go pick up George at WB for his sailing practice, so I decided to take a walk on the North end of the beach first.

Western Sandpiper

Then as I was scanning the gull and tern evening roost, I saw one gull that looked different.

I immediately thought Franklin's Gull but it was nice a slam dunk because it was a young first year bird and did not have the adult white wing markings that make it easy to ID.  Some Laughing Gulls can get a dark hood, so it was necessary to look more closely for the ID.

The nape contrasts nicely with the hood and mantle.  On a young Laughing it would be more uniform.

Although the wings did not have the white crescents in the wings that an adult would, it showed some hint of it.

The bill was a little more petite than that of a Laughing Gull.

The under-wings were relatively white compared to Laughing Gull.

The tail band is relatively neat.  Laughing Gulls with tail bands are usually messy, not straight across.

He/she was relatively smaller compared to the nearby Laughing Gulls, although this was negligible on its own.

One interesting field mark is that Franklin's Gulls will sometimes show some pink in the legs which this one did.

Regarding the black band in the tail, although it is neat, it does not extend to the other most tail feathers which is another confirmatory field mark.

This Sandwich Tern was kind of interesting.  I have never seen one with a pink bill.  I suppose young birds can have them, but not in that pattern.

Marbled Godwit

Whimbrel

I know Common Terns can have dark carpal bars, but this one was ridiculously dark.

The Forster's Terns are starting to get their Pirate patches.

Meanwhile, we had been loving on our dog Paco as much as possible as he had been struggling as of late with debilitating arthritis which made it painful for him to walk.  We have been feeding him people food for the past couple of months and giving him tons of treats to make his last days as pleasurable as possible.

Well last week was finally the time to say goodbye as he could hardly stand sometimes and clearly was not  enjoying life anymore.  We all took the day off from work and school and had a vet come and euthanize him at home.  A very tough decision to make, but I think it was the right one.  

He was one of my best friends and certainly my most loyal.  We had him for almost 14 years which is about as long as a Whippet can live.  He got into trouble sometimes, as evidenced from the scar under his eye (I can't remember if it was from a squirrel or a fence), but overall he was an awesome dog.  He never barked, he was always friendly to people and other dogs and he loved to play frisbee.  He loved eating mole crickets in the back yard and also my lantana bushes among other plants.  I spend a ton of time tinkering in the yard and Paco was always game to spend his time with me while I worked.

Here he is back when he was a pup and I still had some hair.

Ever since Rosa (his doggie sister) died, we have been carrying him up the stairs to sleep in George's bed.   

He will be sorely missed.  I buried him next to Rosa and Ruby in the back yard.  Ruby has a Live Oak, Rosa a Red Cedar and Paco an Arrow Wood Viburnum.   

RIP Paco, we love you!