A late afternoon trip to the spit got me some good shorebirds.
I was able to immediately pick out this White-rumped Sandpiper from all the Semis. Nice patterns on the flanks and slightly larger size helped and the long wings sealed the deal.
Picture did not come out like I was hoping but see bird in center of frame with longer wings and white rump patch.
The most obliging WR Sandpiper I have ever met.
Wilson's Plovers are very aggressive lately trying to drawn attention away from hatchlings.
All the California temperatures have been great but all good things come to an end. It has been hot and muggy.
When Black Skimmers get hot this is what they do to cool off. Check out that tongue!
Saturday was consumed by family time and Sunday I woke at 2am and headed out for a long day of birding.
Brown Booby standing on her graffiti laden rock shelf.
She was far enough away that the photos had to be heavily cropped and consequently suck. I hope to rent a kayak out there later if it sticks around, but I had other things to get up near Boone so I didn't stay too long.
In the short time I was there she preened then went out fishing then came back but never flew very close.
Up on the Blue Ridge I headed straight to Lewis Fork Overlook to hunt for Ceruleans again. This would be my third attempt and I know I am looking in the right places but I am just not getting lucky.
Plenty of other birds were around including Scarlet Tanagers.
Yellowstart speed blur as she leaves her nest.
I finally got a serviceable picture of a Black-throated Green Warbler.
You can just barely see this Red-eyed Vireo's red eye and bill peeking up over the top of this beautifully constructed nest. She never stirred in the 10 minutes I watched.
Finally captured a Common Raven picture after seeing many but not getting my camera up in time. Quothe the birder "Never more".
Classic wedge-shaped tail.
After a couple hours of looking for Ceruleans, I gave up and headed to Meat Camp ESA just North of Boone. It started to pour rain just as I arrived and I toyed with just heading home so I could watch the Warriors game with my family but a little bird told me to stick around. 20 minutes later the rain stopped and I started on my way around the loop.
Right away I head the reeBEEa of an Alder Flycatcher. This is what I came for. In fact I came to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. I needed Alder and Willow and usually you need to head to different habitats to get those birds. Alder prefers high elevation Alder thickets near bogs. Willow prefers lower elevation riparian habitats. Meat Camp ESA kind of fits both profiles although maybe a tab low for Alder. However, in the past couple weeks a couple birders have reported hearing both of these traillii flycatchers.
While trying to locate this singing Empid, I hear the distinct call of a Black-billed Cuckoo and turned around to see this beauty.
He looked to be in a foul mood, drying his soaked winged and tail out and letting out some weird croaking noises.
The dingy area under his chin was sloppy left overs from some Caterpillers he was dining on mixed in with some sopping wet feathers.
Then I heard reeBEEa! right behind me and was able to capture my quarry low down in some Blackberry brambles.
Alder Flycatcher - virtually indistinguishable physically from Willow Flycatcher but able to identify based on song. The call notes can overlap between species so I needed to be careful but this bird was doing the song so I was pretty certain.
There are some very minor differences between species like a slightly more olive colored back on Alder and more defined cap versus neck but I am not proposing to identify them based on that alone.
I took the path further down towards the back of the loop where the stream flows by with some larger trees and immediately heard a couple different birds calling FITZbew! Willow! Only problem is the singing birds were high in the canopy of some sycamores and I couldn't get a shot.
Luckily one of the young and dumb juvenile birds was lower down and I was able to get some shots. Now is there a possibility that a young Alder was in the same set of trees below where the adults were calling? I suppose it is a possibility but based on info on the Cornell website these two species tend to keep some distance between themselves so I am making the leap of linking the singing adults with this young bird that I was able to photograph. When I do a real big year (haha I know what you are thinking, yes these past 3 years have just been practice), I will get some good recording devices or maybe a good quality cam corder so I can tape singing birds and have visual/audio confirmation on these tricky birds. I tried with my Canon but failed to get anything recognizable.
Presumed juvenile Willow Flycatcher. Dingy and sparse breast feathers and buffy wingbars are diagnostic for juvenile traillii flycatchers.
Here you can see the large gape of a juvenile bird. Interestingly the outer tail feathers were really looking light colored but I think it was just an artifact caused by overlapping of the feathers and the terrible backlighting.
I hope to get a better picture of an adult bird later this summer but I wanted to get this monkey off my back now.
Redstarts were plentiful.
You may ask "why the heck don't you have an American Crow yet?". Fair question my dear reader. On the coast and even the Piedmont it is difficult to tell the difference in Fish Crow and American Crow based on morphology alone. Fish Crow is easy to ID based on the two part nasal call. So I know when I took a picture of one earlier this year that was calling it was a Fish Crow. However, American Crows don't have their own unique call. A Fish Crow can make calls that sound like an American Crow, at least to my ear. It is a little more nasal sounding but somewhat subtle. So I thought why not just take a picture of a Crow up in the mountains and then I can be sure it is an American Crow. Fish Crows rarely go up in the mountains although a few have been recorded but mostly on the East face of the ridges. Boone is over the West side of the Blue Ridge and it looks like there is only 1-2 sightings of Fish Crows in eBird. Besides this bird did not sound nasal at all.
Yellow Warblers breed here.
On my way out I ran into this guy again. He was totally tame but never really came out of the thicket so it was hard to get any totally unobstructed shots.
Last year I never got a Black-billed Cuckoo. This year I have already seen three!
Now that I have almost all the birds that are being regularly seen in NC, I have been able to change my Alerts filter in eBird to send me an email hourly when someone logs a species I don't have yet. Most hours I don't get anything because I have seen them all. However this time I did get one and also an email from a list serv member of a Dickcissel spotted during a Breeding Bird Survey just 4-5 miles from where the Brown Booby was seen. Perfect! I stopped on my way home and it could not have been easier. Monroe the birder that found the Dickcissel was standing on the side of the road when I arrived and was already on the bird.
Dickcissel!
Turns out there was at least two and both were singing.
This picture would have been perfect if not for that pesky weed.
Finally I swung by the Brown Booby spot one more time hoping to get a shot of it in flight a little closer. However it seemed to be pretty content and was not moving from it's perch.
I watched her preen for 30 minutes and then bid her adieu. I will be back if she sticks around. There is a possible Barn Owl perched in a train trestle not too far away so if I go back I will check out that lead too.
No comments:
Post a Comment