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NC Big Day



Carolinabirders,

Taylor Piephoff and I did an official North Carolina Big Day back on Sunday 
May 5th.  We actually planned to do it the 4th and started that day, but we 
got rained out around 11:30am, so we called it a day and started over on the 
5th.  

We started in the South Coast section of the state, hitting Twin Lakes, the 
Ocean Isle Wastewater Treatment Plant, and the Green Swamp before catching 
the Southport ferry to Fort Fisher.  We started at 4:30am and had 121 species 
by the time we left the Green Swamp at 10:30am.  Pretty good, but we missed 
some species that we normally get at the swamp, including Red-cockaded 
Woodpecker, Anhinga, and Black-throated Green Warbler.  On the plus side, we 
got the Reeve (that Taylor reported on Carolinabirds) that we had found on 
Saturday at the wastewater plant.  That was an ABA area lifer for me!  We 
also added some very "missable" species such as Yellow-crowned Night Heron, 
Bank Swallow, late Blue-winged Teal.

After birding Fort Fisher and the NC Battleship Memorial, we headed inland to 
try to pick up some migrants not found on the coast.  We left the Memorial at 
3:00pm having added 20 species to get our total to 141.  Again we missed a 
couple birds we had expected - particularly Wilson's Plover and Saltmarsh 
Sharp-tailed Sparrow (we got great looks at about a dozen sharp-tails, but 
they were all Nelson's).  Marbled Godwit, Great Cormorant, Red-breasted 
Merganser, and Great Black-backed Gull helped make up the difference.

We decided to head back towards our hometown Charlotte since we got rained 
out Saturday, so we made our way to Pee Dee NWR.  On the way, we stopped by 
Laurinburg but couldn't locate a Mississippi Kite.  We also stopped at the 
Pee Dee River bridge where we added Cliff Swallow, a nice Broad-winged Hawk, 
and some migrants along the river (L. Waterthrush, Scarlet Tanager, Am. 
Redstart).  We entered the NWR at 6:30pm with 148 species.

Pee Dee filled in a few spots, but didn't give us the migrant warblers we 
needed.  However, some easy misses (Field Sparrow, E. Phoebe) some very 
cooperative birds (Kentucky Warbler, Grasshopper Sparrow), and one nice find 
(Blue-headed Vireo - looks like they breed in the refuge) added to our total. 
 As night fell, we waited for Barred Owl and Whip-poor-will to round out our 
list.

We made it back to Charlotte with our final count of 155 species.  Not bad.  
This was our best total in three attempts, but we still missed several easy 
species by not getting to appropriate habitat (House Wren and Song Sparrow 
being the best examples!).  We may totally revamp the route next year to try 
to get in the 160's. 

Best birds:  Reeve, Blue-headed Vireo, Bank Swallow, Y-c Night Heron, 
Biggest Misses:  B. Kingfisher, Swainson's Thrush, House Wren, Song Sparrow 
(yikes!), Rose-breasted Grosbeak (had several at our feeder back in Charlotte 
during the entire week.)  We also missed many migrant warblers and other 
passerines.

Total miles in the car:  338
Total miles by foot:    1.5

Good birding,
Rob Van Epps
Charlotte, NC
vaneppsnc@aol.com