The South end of Wrightsville is always good to me, especially as a way to prepare me for a day's work. There is no better way to clear my mind than taking a walk on the beach.
Bonaparte's Gull
Not sure what drove these Purple Sandpipers to roost on the beach with 2 perfectly good jetties not far away.
The Nashville Warbler at Airlie Gardens has been frustrating me on the regular lately. I have tried finding it probably 10 times, found it three but failed at getting a picture. However, the gardens are gorgeous this time of year with hundreds of camellia bushes in bloom.
Blue Jay
Blue-headed Vireo - I have probably seen 20 already this winter.
This Yellow-throated Warbler has been part of the mixed flock that the Nashville has been loosely associating itself with, so if you see this bird, keep looking.
Red-bellied Woodpecker
The Nashville was sitting next to this female Baltimore Oriole 2 seconds before I took this picture.
A quick drive to Wilkesboro (ha!) netted me the Greater White-fronted Geese that have been hanging out there.
I tried hard to find the reported Cackling Geese but was unsuccessful and I didn't have a ton of time to wait around.
This ridiculously blue bird consoled me.
So did this Field Sparrow
These Canada Geese were swimming in Chocolate Milk at Woodfield Way Ponds.
A couple female Common Goldeneyes were hanging in one of the ponds.
Over all a good week. What better way to cap a good week? Go birding on Saturday!
Sam C and I headed to Sunset Beach first thing on Saturday.
Birds were singing left and right including this Red-winged Blackbird.
Ospreys are back!!!
Orange-crowned Warbler! You can almost see a hint of orange.
As we watched a group of shorebirds at the Ocean Isle Beach Inlet, suddenly all hell broke loose. A Merlin had flown in faster than you can say bloodbath and absolutely demolished a Semi-palmated Plover right in front of us. Luckily the Merlin decided to have his brunch on a post not 20 yards from us.
Nom nom nom......
That is one badass bird...
A final stop as the Waste Water Treatment Plan got us some more birds and netted us our 100th species for the day and it was only noon!
Purple Martins are back!
Finally on the way home to my beautiful wife, already an hour late, I received a call from Dave W. Apparently someone had a possible Thick-billed Murre at the South end of Wrightsville. Arghhh...... Sorry dear wife....This bird I must chase.
We did not find the Murre, but we had Razorbills and Purple Sandpipers and Great Cormorants and White-winged Scoters...
Razorbill
Heavily cropped picture of a Great Cormorant. You can just make out the white patch on his right side.
Then I casually said, "we might as well scope the jetty for the Burrowing Owl". For those of my readers that don't know, we had a Burrowing Owl here last year and only a handful of folks got to see it and it disappeared..... until now...
To give you an idea of how far it was, take a look at this un-cropped photo.
A little cropped.... See the thing in the middle of the frame with the rounded head? Even with scopes it was hard to be sure it was the owl but we were fairly certain. But what if we could get out there..?
So we started trying to flag passing boats down to see if they would shuttle us over to the other side to check. That didn't work, people undoubtedly thought we were insane. Or just really nerdy. No one wants a couple of bird nerds on their boat. However we were stubborn. Sam and I went down to the boat ramp at the causeway and Sam asked a couple kids that were putting in their boat if they would give us a ride. They were two of the nicest teenagers I have met in a long time and before long we were under way.
Bingo!!! Burrowing Owl....
I hope folks don't bother it too much, in fact you can see it from the South end of Wrightsville which is easier and cheaper than trying to get over to Masonboro. But if you must go out there, just keep a respectful distance. These images are cropped, we did not approach very close although I am sure we could have.
Altogether a great week!
Cheers.
You are lucky to have blue birds - and that photo is a beaut.
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