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Chuck-will's-widow perching on a powerline



This past Sunday, 16 June, I ran the Merrimon NC BBS route.
I usually have to run this route later than desirable, because it is
mandatory that I do it on a Sunday morning.  This route is in
Carteret County, and begins near the community of Merrimon,
near the Neuse River, and runs down to US 70 and ends right
next to the Davis Waterfowl Impoundment, near the Davis
community.  The first 20 stops are nice on a Sunday morning--
virtually no highway traffic.  The last 25 stops are very unpleasant,
with much highway noise.

At the first station, I had an extremely tame Chuck-will's-widow
(these things happen when you are alone--this would never have
happened if I was trying to show a Chuck to someone who had
never seen one before).  The Chuck first landed on the dirt road
just a few feet away, then fluttered around a bit, and then perched
on a powerline just a few feet away.  If I've seen this before
(powerline perching),  I don't
remember.  Noted that the bird perched on the powerline cross-ways
(i.e. like most birds do), not parallel to the line like a nighthawk
does.
(I read somewhere of an account of a Chuck perching on a line, and
it was cross-ways).

I recorded 5 non-breeding shorebird species on the route this year--
Ruddy Turnstone, Semipalmated Sandpiper (40), Greater Yellowlegs,
Short-billed Dowitcher, and Black-bellied Plover.  The last four
species were at the Davis Impoundment.  Many birds were concentrated
here because of the impoundment is getting dry, and food is obviously
concentrated.  Unfortunately, this impoundment is closed to the public,
and you are limited to what you can see from the road, which has become
increasingly limited in recent years because of shrubbery growing up on
the
impoundment dikes.

John Fussell
Morehead City, NC
jfuss@clis.com

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