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birding Brunswick Co. 12-8 sightings



Birders,

I spent most of today poking around Oak Island and the greater Sunset 
Beach area in Brunswick Co., NC.  Although I had some embarassingly 
pitiful misses (e.g. semi-palm plover, phoebe, goldfinch, b-h nuthatch, 
etc.) I still 
managed 98 species for the day.  (I guess I should submit this for an ABA 
Big Day, eh Josh?)

I found no real rarities, but some highlights included:

-- 3 Whimbrel (it's getting late for them)
-- 1 Black Rail (how lucky can you get?!)
-- 24 Common Moorhens (pretty high one-day total, I think)
-- 1 Merlin (flying down the beach)
-- 4 Loggerhead Shrikes (a good count; all within a stone's throw of the 
ocean, Eric!)
-- a flock of nearly a thousand scoters, sitting on the glassy-surfaced 
water off Sunset Beach!  The vast majority were Black Scoters, but there 
were a handful of Surf Scoters and 2 White-winged Scoters.  Also mixed in 
were R-t Loons, L. Scaup, Bufflehead, H. Grebe, cormorants, etc.  And the 
winner of the Most-Out-Of-Place bird goes to the drake Northern Shoveler 
on the ocean in the flock of scoters!!
-- also saw Sedge Wren, both Sharp-tailed Sparrows, an impressive 9 
American Alligators (seems like a high count for December), and hundreds 
of Canonball Jellyfish were streaming by the Yaupon Beach pier.

Next time maybe I'll plan the day ahead of time and break a hundred . . 
.  :-)

Good birding!


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Jeff Pippen   	 				 jspippen@duke.edu
Biology Dept. Box 90338				
Duke University, Durham, NC  27708		PH: (919) 660-7278
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^