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NAMC, Re: Alligator River CBC, dragonfly talk



Hi Carolinabirders,

On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Jeff Lewis wrote:
> 
> 	I really need your help! First, I need to set a date for the upcoming  
> Christmas count of the Dare Mainland (most of the Alligator River National
> Wildlife Refuge) and it needs to be on a date that runs consecutively with
> the other nearby counts in order to (hopefully) recruit your help.

Maybe it's just me, but does having all the best counts in the state - 
Pea Island, Bodie Island, Portsmouth, Mattamuskeet, and others, now 
Alligator River - all on consecutive days *really* increase 
participation? I don't know about anyone else, but I generally wind up 
spending Xmas-to-New-Year's week out of town with family, either mine or 
my fiance's. I'd really love to participate in some of these counts, 
especially when Harry and others annually report the results and how few 
people participated. Might the low attendance at these counts be 
*because* they all happen that week? Or because they all happen in a row, 
and the people who are around then can't afford to attend CBC's for nine 
days straight? Have the state CBC coordinators ever attempted breaking up 
the really good counts, scheduling them for the weekends before Xmas and 
after New Year's, and holding the high-participation counts - the 
Triangle, Triad, Charlotte area, etc. CBCs - during the holiday week, to 
see if that evens out the participant numbers? Just wondering...

Another count-related question: I saw Donna Bailey's message recruiting 
folks to cover counties for the NAMC in South Carolina. Does somebody do 
this for North Carolina? I've already told Will that I'll help out with 
the Chatham County fall NAMC, but it sounds like most of NC - including 
Alligator River, the Outer Banks, Cape Lookout, the Blue Ridge and Great 
Smoky Mountains, Pee Dee NWR, most of the best birding spots in the state 
- don't have any NAMC coverage. It's too late to do anything about it 
this year, I guess, but I'm still curious; is Chatham the only NC county 
being covered? I would do someplace more exciting, or at least try to 
cover another Triangle county, if I had some idea to whom and how to 
submit information. Maybe next year?

I want to thank everybody who showed up last night for my talk to Wake 
Audubon, in spite of everything else that happened yesterday. I'm 
negotiating to give the talk again, maybe as an informal lunchtime 
seminar here at Duke, for all the people (my fiance included) who had too 
much else on their minds last night to attend a nature talk, and for a 
couple of my car-less friends. I'll distribute details when I know them 
myself.

Ginger Travis' observations from Jordan Lake reminded me that I, too, saw 
a couple of Yellow-billed Cuckoos on Sunday at Schenk Woods. Mine also 
looked like recent fledglings, moppy-headed and not nearly as shy or 
sneaky as their species usually is. And mine, too, were in the vicinity 
of ripe wild grapes; at least one (grape, not cuckoo) bounced off my hat 
as I was walking down the trail, dropped by some critter with more 
enthusiasm than dexterity. To complete the coincidence, my cuckoos were 
also on a lakeshore (if you can really call Richland Lake a lake anymore, 
it's more of a slough at this point), possibly in a willow tree. I 
brought home several grapes and a dozen or so clusters of ripe Pokeweed 
berries (I didn't see any signs at Schenk prohibiting this) and stashed 
them in and near our birdfeeder, in hopes that our locals birds or 
squirrels might poop the seeds out in our yard...

Good birding,

Josh


Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)

jsr6@duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/