More first of the season birds (12Apr2014)

This morning I woke at 3am and headed up to the Castle Hayne area to help David from the Wilmington Wild Bird and Garden with an area bird count.  David lives up near Sidbury Rd. and had heard Chuck-will's-widows recently, so we started up there.

Right on cue as I pulled up to David's house, a Barred Owl greeted me.  After some hunting around we came up with about 4-5 Chucks and 2-3 Screech Owls.  One of the Chucks dive bombed us or at least flew very close.  However it was too dark for pictures.

After checking Wade Park for Virginia Rails with no luck, we headed to Ft. Fisher and had some good birds.

Blue-headed Vireo.

Short-billed Dowitcher - tails did not have much dark barring and they are the more likely bird to be present here.  When we scared them off David thought he could here a more characteristic call of a Short-billed vs. Long. However neither of us are especially good at telling the difference.

 
Gull-billed Terns still around.

Whimbrel!

At CB State Park we had some good song birds.

Prothonotary Warbler -AKA Golden Swamp Warbler.

Summer Tanager.

Blue Grosbeak.

We probably had about 70 species, not bad.

Great times!