Cottonmouth is Bad, Goatsucker is Good (30Aug2015)

I had two target birds today both of which I missed.  However, a trip with John and company is always fun.  We started at North River Farms bright and early.  Last year we had 30-40 American Golden Plover in the plowed fields.  This year there is no freshly plowed fields and in fact all the fields were way overgrown.  Ugh...

This American Kestrel was missing a big part of his flight feathers.  Amazing.  A plane with this chunk missing would be a goner.

American Kestrel

I need to send this pic to : http://www.thismachinewatchesbirds.com

Check out his Birds Taking Dumps section.

John almost stepped on this Cottonmouth!

Pretty camouflaged if you take the mouth out of the equation.

The birding was so slow we started looking at butterflies.  Actually there was alot of birds but nothing new for me.

Red-spotted Purple (Brush-footed butterfly family)?

Female Clouded Sulphur

So at around 9:30 Steve H and myself decided to head over to Cape Lookout.  A Lark Sparrow was reported there last week and since then two have been spotted.  I only had 45 minutes since I promised the wife to be home in a reasonable time today.

Steve pointed out what he thought could be a sparrow and when I looked up instead of the sparrow I saw this silhouette which I immediately knew would be a goatsucker!!!

A closer look revealed.....

Common Nighthawk

Not a bad consolation.  We never did find the Lark Sparrows.

I stopped briefly at Willow Pond at Harker's Island and was murdered by Mosquitos.  At one point I couldn't see 2 feet in front of me due to the dark cloud that descended on me.  It will be a miracle if I don't get some disease like Chikungunya or worse.

Little Blue Heron

Great times.