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ASH-THROATED FLYCATCHER STILL HERE



Well, this Saturday afternoon was the first chance my wife Pat and I have 
had to bird in NC since before Christmas.  We had alot of catching up to do 
considering the rarities being reported.

We headed straight to Southport, where we spent 4 hours looking for the 
Green-tailed Towhee (from 1:15pm - 5:15pm) and came up empty handed.  
Anybody heading to Southport this week, please put some bird seed in the 
pile to try to pursuade that bird to stay around until next Saturday 
morning!

Instead of investing the entire weekend on this bird, we decided to head to 
the Outerbanks on Sunday to try our luck there.  Today (Sunday), we headed 
straight to Alligator River NWR to look for the ASH-THROATED FLYCATCHER 
where it had been previously reported.  It took over an hour, but it finally 
made an appearance around 9:30am.  We were able to photograph the bird.  
Steve Schultz joined us for some great looks at this bird.  The ASH-THROATED 
FLYCATCHER spent a significant amount of time sitting in the sun low in the 
ditch out of the wind.  The bird was successfully catching large insects, so 
I expect it will continue there for some time.  We did not see any 
Rough-legged Hawks in the area, but we did observe three BALD EAGLES and one 
ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER.

We continued on to meet Jeff Lewis at Elizabethan Gardens to see if any 
Western Kingbirds are still around.  Unfortunately, they either moved on, or 
were just not very cooperative.  We spent around 1 1/2 hours in the area 
between 10:30 and noon, and then another 1/2 hour just before sunset on our 
way home.

In between then, we made a quick trip down to Cape Point to look at gulls 
for the afternoon.  There was not a very impressive number of gulls at the 
point.  There was approximately six (6) LESSER-BLACK BACKED GULLS and one 
wintering LAUGHING GULL.  At this point in time, I expect the Laughing Gull 
is a better find.  There were lots of Bonaparte's Gulls, but nothing very 
exciting amongst them.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for rarities at the Winter CBC, and please 
keep that Towhee in Southport until I can get there next Saturday morning!!!

-Brad & Pat Carlson
Winterville, NC
BradCarlson1@hotmail.com



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