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Long-billed Curlew and others at Shackleford Banks-Cape Lookout, NC



This past weekend I spent 24 hours (midday Saturday to midday Sunday) at
Cape Lookout, NC, staying at the "Cape Lookout Environmental Education
Center".

I had several birds of interest:

In the shrub thickets at the cape, Saturday afternoon, I had several winter
and a few summer birds and a couple of migrants.   The most interesting were
a Louisiana Waterthrush, which is very rare (maybe unprecedented) in the
National Seashore and a Yellow-throated Warbler (feeding on a lawn), which
is also rare on these barrier islands.

At the point, on Sunday morning, we saw 4 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, one of
which was in full breeding plumage.  Royal Terns are now common and there
were at least 25 Sandwich Terns (but no other summer terns).  Of interest,
the beaches of the point had much Sargassum and numerous Portuguese
man-o-war jellyfish that had washed in--in a Gulf Stream eddy I guess.

On the spit, we saw a Piping Plover, and on the rock jetty, a Purple
Sandpiper was a surprise.  Purples are rare at this site, undoubtedly
because the jetty is completely submerged during high tides, and during
certain weather conditions, habitat may be available only for an hour or
two.

A couple of Great Cormorants were on a channel marker in the bight.  There
were large numbers of Common Loons in the bight, many of these were in
breeding plumage.

The best bird I saw was on the ferry run back to Harkers Island.  There was
a Long-billed Curlew at the east end of Shackleford Banks (along with
Marbled Godwits and a couple of Whimbrels).

                                              John Fussell
                                              Morehead City, NC
                                               jfuss@clis.com