Deformed Osprey and an Interesting Pelecaniformes EDIT that's Sulidae (13-16May2015)

This week was mostly work, but I was able to get out a couple afternoons to search for Swallow-tailed Kites.  My primary quarry was missed but I did find some decent consolation prizes.

Mississippi Kite - Flying very high in Northwest, NC.

Prothonotary Warbler - Lock and Dam 1 in Columbus County.

Northern Parula - Lake Waccamaw.  I went to Lake Waccamaw to look for an Arctic Tern which was not there.  So I was 0 for 2 at this point in terms of targets.

Orchard Oriole

Acadian?  Pewee?  This bird was mute.  It had fairly long primary projection but just was not sitting like I would expect a Pewee to sit so I think it was an Empi.  Anyhow it will remain unidentified unless anyone has any strong feelings about it.

I jammed down to Sunset Beach one night to get Wood Stork and dipped again!!! Maybe this gator ate them all.

Green Heron.

This next bird was sitting high up on the edge of the lake and it was getting dark so pardon the poor quality.  It's been a long time since I saw a Brain Bird.  A bird that just confuses you so much that you don't know how to explain it.

At first glance I knew it was an Osprey, but then I had to do a double take.  The white area above the eye line was entirely too big for a normal Osprey.  In fact the whole head was just too big for the bird.

When it looked down it became evident that this bird had two huge bulbous white areas separated by a dark line down the middle.  It gave it the appearance of having two huge cartoonish eyes. Its beak was kind of dwarfed and hidden by the top of it's head whereas on a normal Osprey the beak is big compared to the rest of the head.  Also it appears to have a very long right wing but short left wing, but this may have been an illusion in how it was folded.

Anyway the photos do not do it justice, but I believe this was some kind of deformity.  Maybe Mad Fish Disease or something.  If someone heads down that way, look out for this weird bird.  Maybe it was just getting late and I was tired. It never did fly off its perch and I was running late for heading to Lee Buck Rd for nightjars.  I did hear multiple Chucks but the Whips eluded me again.

Canada Goose - Greenfield Lake

Saturday morning I was helping on a bird survey at North Topsail and saw a gannet looking bird but it just looked different.  I know immature gannets can be seen quite late.  My buddy Greg always says if you see something that looks like a gannet in the Spring/Summer/Fall you should look carefully as it may be a Booby.

It was chocolate brown which is not a color I am used to seeing on immature Gannets.  Also the bill was quite yellowish which you can almost see in this heavily cropped photo.  If I did not know better I would have called this a Brown Booby.

The wings had dark edges in patterns that I am not used to for gannets although they can vary greatly.

Bill is quite yellow.

Anyone want to support a Brown Booby diagnosis?

Great times.

Storm Birds (11May2015)

Yesterday there was still quite a few reports of shorebirds and pelagic birds in weird places due to Tropical Storm Ana.  I went to Wrightsville Beach early hoping to tap into it.

This Red-throated Loon threw me for a bit of a loop.  The white feathers on flanks was so high up it had me thinking Acrtic loon.  However nothing else about the bird recalls this vagrant species.  So Red-throated it is.

Piping Plovers complete with jewelry were present in numbers.

My obligatory stop at Oleander Gardens Cemetery on the way home yielded this Northern Rough-winged Swallow.

Later I was minding my own business working in my home office and Sherry called with news of Bobolinks at Ft. Fisher.  So naturally I jammed down there and picked up this elusive bird.

Bobolink

Black-necked Stilt

Another Bobolink

Red-necked Phalaropes!!  Don't ask me where these birds were as the access is tricky and they are probably gone now.

If you can believe it that was all a quick lunch break then it was back to work only to get a call from Sherry later in the afternoon that two Hudsonian Godwits were hanging on the spit.  Well I was finished with my conference calls for the day so I jammed back down.

Royal Terns doing their bit to keep the species alive.

Lesser Yellowlegs

Semi-palmated Sandpiper

Common Tern - bill more dainty than Forster's and more deeply red.  You can almost see a carpal bar too.

Red Knot

There was thousands of shorebirds but the Hudsonian Godwits were not to be seen.  Would have been a lifer for me.  At least I still have something to live for.

Cheers.

Phalarope Frenzy (10May2015)

I know when I get a call from Sam C that he has something good for me.  I had spent time with the family all day and decided about 5:30pm to drive down to Fort Fisher to see what Tropical Storm Ana had blown in.  I made it all the way down to FF and I got a call from Sam C saying he was looking a Red-necked Phalarope at the UNCW athletic fields.  20 minutes later I was sharing scope views through Sam's scope with his Minivan's back hatch blocking the torrential rain.

Red-necked Phalarope

The pools were almost deep enough where he was thinking about spinning.

There was a White-rumped Sandpiper and some other shorebirds but the phalarope took the prize.

Sam had a Leach's Storm Petrel earlier at WB too.  He is a vagrant magnet.

Thanks Sam!!!!

The Big Day (09May2015)

Hello birders and non-birders.  Yesterday was my first Big Day.  For the uninitiated, this is when you try and see as many species of birds as possible within a 24 hour period.  Initially we were scheduled to spend Global Big Day on Camp LeJeune but that was canceled due to threat of bad weather from Tropical Storm Ana.  Global Big Day is a bird count that has been organized over 80 countries to take a snapshot of bird populations on May 9th.  The weather did not look nearly as bad as all the doomsayers were predicting so I asked Sherry and Shun if they wanted to come with me to the Croatan and try for Black-billed Cuckoo and then if the bird count was doing well continue on and try for a big day.  Of course they were game so we set off at 4:45am in the hopes of getting a few nightjars but I planned it badly and when we got there it was already light at 6 am.

This fox kit was from Thursday at Airlie, sorry I could not let this cute pic stay un-posted.

We birded hard in the Croatan and were quickly racking up the species including what eventually was 13 species of warbler which is great for that area.  Bands of rain came every hour or so and dumped on us but the breaks in between were long enough to get some good birding in and it seemed the birds  were celebrating each break in bad weather by coming out saying hello.

King Snake?

Slayer of other snakes.

Our best bird in the Croatan was this Swainson's Warbler that was not shy and singing like mad.

Unfortunately we had a fly by of a Cuckoo that was backlit and although it flew directly over our heads we could not be sure it was a Black-billed.  If I could just relive that moment and snap a picture.

Since we did so well in the Croatan with close to 50 species, we decided to bird on.  We came out of the Croatan on the East side and so naturally I suggested we visit John's Cliff Swallows at the Hampton Inn in Havelock.

Cliff Swallow - it did not take long to find a good candidate.  Dark neck with a squared off tail and rump patch quickly eliminate all the other local swallows.

Cliff Swallow nest.

At that point we saw a report of a Magnificent Frigatebird in Wrightsville Beach and we had to make a decision.  Head home and try for Shorebirds there or head East to Cedar Island and try that vagrant magnet.  We chose wisely.

At Davis Impoundments we quickly found 4 species of Terns including Gull-billed, Forsters's, Royal and....

Caspian Tern!  Year birds for Sherry and I.  Shun doesn't keep track of such nonsense.  Dark patches underwing and clean white over wing were good field marks.  Davis impoundments are fresh water and Caspians tend to gravitate over fresh water in the spring for some reason.

They were quite far off and the light was weird with the storm so excuse the poor quality.

At Cedar Island the heavens opened up and we took a short break to wait out the rain.

Dunlin were showing nice colors.

The sun reared its head every now and again and the Purple Martins rejoiced.

Sherry and I were tricked into thinking this BB Plover was an American Golden but Shun was our compass and we quickly saw our error when it took off and showed us it's dark axillaries.

Gull-billed Terns were hawking over the pond.

A couple Black-necked Stilts were present.

On the way back we spotted this breeding plumage Horned Grebe.

Horned Grebe - eBird flagged this species as they are supposed to be gone.  I suppose he did not get the memo from the bird police.

Red-winged Blackbirds were signing and displaying.  Of course all I have to show for it is this substandard photo.

At Fort Macon we added Painted Bunting and some other feeder birds but we completely dipped on finding the pond that use to be there.  Did they fill it in?  That miscalculation cost us Black-crowned Night-Heron and some other species we were hoping for.

We drove back West on Emerald Isle hoping for a wayward pelagic bird but dipped and as we got back on the highway home Sherry did a tally and we were at 97 species!  I think Shun wanted to get home and did not want to make any more stops so he quickly found some Chimney Swifts while driving through Jacksonville.  In his defense he was worried about the approaching storm and wanted to get home so he could batten down the hatches.

However Sherry and I were determined to break 100 so it was not hard to decide to turn into Holly Shelter as dusk approached.

We quickly heard Brown-headed Nuthatches for 99.  Then a Chipping Sparrow popped up for 100.  I got us to a place where I know a Bachman's Sparrow hangs out and bingo we had 101!  But wait... as were looking at the Bachman's, I heard music to my ears in a first of the year Common Nighthawk..

Common Nighthawk - #102

At this point we were very close to a pond that I have seen Solitary Sandpipers at in years past so we checked it and Blammo one flew up as we approached.  He circled a few times and decided to leave.  Hopefully he made his way back after we left.

We heard a waterthrush chinking but we could not be sure it was a Northern so we left it off the final tally.

Just as we were leaving we heard the sad song of an Eastern Wood Pewee.

Eastern Wood Pewee in the fading light.

He sang his mournful dirge as if to say "don't leave me here all alone in this unforgiving wasteland".  Or maybe he was saying "I wish you would leave so I could wallow in self pity all alone".

What a great time and thanks to the wife for letting me have yet another weekend day birding.  Final tally 104 which is pretty damn good when a storm is overhead.

Great times.

Stilts Galore (06May2015)

I have seen some reports of good birds down at Ft. Fisher lately so I went down early today to see if I could find some of this goodness.  The notable reports include Stilt Sandpiper, Black-necked Stilt, White-rumped Sandpiper and Cliff Swallows.  Well I ended up dipping on the last two but found the first two. Pardon the title which is a little misleading as I only saw one of each species.

Stilt Sandpiper - pardon the horrible photo but this is not  a species you see every day unless you are a certain ND that lives in SC.

Stilt Sandpiper - heavy barring, rufous ear patch and slightly downturned long bill.

Black-necked Stilt - I played with the color a bit to make the legs pop which is why the water color looks different, but its the same location as the Stilt SP.

Hoping to chase an Eared Grebe later this evening after work, wish me luck.

Cheers.