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Back in Durham; re: mammals, mergs, and bonies



Hi Carolinabirders,

I'm home! And very happy about it, despite not being able to bird Lake 
Murray from my mother-in-law's kitchen. The waterbirds returned before 
the snow had completely stopped, with the coots numbering over 350, and a 
few Scaup and Ring-necks and Bufflehead still attending. Better yet, one 
or more American Pipits appeared, foraging on the little strip of mud at 
the water's edge, the only ground not covered by snow.

On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Marsha Stephens wrote:
> 
> Re: What happened to...
> the squirrels?

Saw one in a snowy Red Cedar, presumably munching on the berries, during 
the Lake Wateree SP CBC. Donna Bailey and I enjoyed seeing a multitude of 
animal tracks in the snow, including Raccoon, some kind of fox, and even 
a Bobcat, in addition to the bird she's already mentioned. Many thanks to 
Lex for bringing us back to see his Red-necked Grebe; sorry I couldn't 
make that siskin stay put... and more thanks to Donna for organizing the 
whole thing.

On Sat, 5 Jan 2002, Sandy Cash wrote:
> 
> The second nice sighting was a *huge*
> raft of several hundred (rough guess) Hooded Mergansers - strange
> b/c I've never seen Mergs raft together in these kinds of numbers. I 
> am guessing that these had wandered to the lake from the many
> smaller ponds which had frozen over.  Strangely enough, I was
> unable to find any other duck sp. in my brief search, just a few
> Pied-Billed Grebes and Cormorants.

This actually sounds a lot like my experience a few years ago, the first 
time I helped with the Durham CBC. I was assigned to the Will Suitt Road 
railroad bed into Falls Lake, and the only waterfowl I saw - not sure if 
I even had Mallards or Canada Geese that day - was a flock of 2-300 
Hooded Mergs. I eventually picked a female Common Merg out of the flock, 
which turned out to be the first ever for the Durham CBC.

>  A good number of
> Bonaparte's Gulls were fishing and squabbling noisily (I personally
> think Bonies are really beautiful and graceful birds).

Me too! The sunset gull flyover that Donna described from the Wateree 
count was mostly Bonaparte's, 33 of them vs. about 5 Ring-bills. I had 
trouble getting used to seeing them from underneath, they usually fly so 
low....

Good birding,

Josh


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

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