This past week I have been birding Ft. Fisher every day before work and sometimes after work hoping to get some of the last migrants I still need to photograph like Blue-winged Warbler and Bay-breasted Warbler. These are birds I have seen several times this year but have been too slow with the camera. No luck but the birds have still been plentiful.
Least Sandpiper at Ft. Fisher
Semi-palmated Plover
Semi-palmated SP in middle.
Friday I made the trip up to Duck so I could try for the reported Wilson's Warbler. No dice but there were tons of other warblers to distract me. The yellow-rumps were in full force so I had to be careful picking out the other species.
Prime example above, could easily be mistaken for a Pine, but I am pretty sure this is a Blackpoll. The feet and legs were very yellow and the undertail coverts long and tail relatively short.
I had what I think was a Bay-breasted too but none of the photos were good enough to be conclusive. All of the Bay-breasted I have seen this year have been way to high up to get decent photos.
Parulas were everywhere.
I thought I had a Nashville but it took off before I could get a photo or a decent look.
Black-throated Green
They say Corvids are super smart, this one apparently did not like me.
Black-throated Blue.
This Carolina Wren felt bad for me with all the flitting warblers evading my camera so he posed nicely for me.
Friday night I stayed at Milltail Rd at Alligator NWR for sunset hoping the Short-eared Owls were back. Beautiful sunset but no owls.
So then I drove real slow through Washington and Beaufort Counties hoping for a Barn Owl on the telephone poles but no luck there. I even stopped at Terra Ceia Christian School to see if any Barn Owls where hanging out in the old structure across the street. Nothing.
So that's like 10 hours driving for no new birds. ARGGGhhhhh.
However, I had a back-up plan. Whenever in doubt, tag along with John Fussell and crew. John and Chandra were nice enough to let me know of a trip that one of their local bird clubs was taking to Shackleford Banks to look for Long-billed Curlew. Thanks to Bob G. who was organizing the trip for letting me on. We left Harker's Island on a small rented boat and the Captain drove us around some of the spots that John and the others had seen Curlews in the past.
First we found three Reddish Egrets which was nice in itself. The pictures came out bad so I will spare you. There were nice little flocks of other shorebirds like Oystercatchers, Dowitchers and we even had a couple Blue-winged Teal.
As we rounded the East side of Shackleford, I spied this baby horse doing his/her morning calisthenics.
Then we rounded the cape to the South side of the island and we found a nice grouping of birds on the shoreline. Of course we were all looking at this large group of birds but John knew better and had spied something way in back in a little tidal bay that was all to itself.
Long-billed Curlew!!!!!
At first glance it looked like a Marbled Godwit more than a Whimbrel with the exception of the long downcurved bill. The coloration was buffy or orange compared to the more gray brown of a Whimbrel. The most pronounced difference was the plain looking head compared to the streaked head with well defined markings on a Whimbrel. The bill was long and slender, but this was probably an intermediate age bird as the bills can get much longer.
Excuse the poor pictures, the captain was not allowed to beach the boat due to regulations set by his competitors and therefore there was quite a bit of engine shake and small wave action which prevented crisper images. If we were allowed on the beach I am sure we could have gotten fairly close to the bird.
So nice to get such a great bird after trying so hard to get something this week.
On the way back we looked for some more but only found some more Reddish Egrets, maybe the same ones.
To end the day I stopped by Willis, NC near the North East Border to Camp Lejeune and bagged this Sandhill Crane that has been there for a couple weeks.
I could have gotten much better photos but as I approached he let me know to back off so I did and left him alone.
Sandhill Crane with his Black Angus buddies.
Great Times.
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