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another late migrant, plus the Chattooga!



Hi C-birders,

I just got back into town expecting all the landbird migrants to have 
finished moving through by now. However, while helping my girlfriend move 
out of her house late this morning, I heard the unmistakeable spiralling- 
upward song of a Swainson's Thrush! And not exactly in prime habitat 
either; this was at the north end of Iredell Street, a block east of 
Ninth and just south of Club Blvd in Durham, heart of the suburbs. I'm 
almost suspicious that I was hearing someone play one of those new-agey 
recordings with bird songs on them...

My recent trip was primarily to attend the "Dragonfly Days" festival in 
south Texas (I'll post something about that to the odonate listservs 
tomorrow). However, on my way back, I joined my girlfriend and her family 
to raft down the Chattooga River in the extreme NW corner of SC. The 
rafting was overwhelmingly oriented toward whitewater excitement, and the 
guides were pretty ignorant of birds and other natural history. However, 
the Chattooga River had the highest density of Louisiana Waterthrushes 
I've ever seen/heard, with a new bird singing about every 100 yards along 
the river! Black-throated Greens were also common. The habitat was 
gorgeous, with loads of Mountain Laurel blooming in the understory, 
Rhododendrons about to open up, and lots of large Hemlocks and other big 
trees. I recommend birding the area on land, the raft trips were not 
terribly suitable for it.

I was mostly focused on bugs in Texas, but not so focused that I didn't 
sneak out to see the very cooperative Gray-crowned Yellowthroat that is 
hanging around down there. I picked up two other lifers, both exotics: 
Green Parakeet and Red-crowned Parrot. Migration was still lingering down 
there, with Yellow and Magnolia Warbler at the LRVG Nature Center in 
Weslaco, and uber-lister Benton Basham (who was attending the dragonfly 
festival as well) spotted an Olive-sided Flycatcher at Santa Ana NWR.

Good birding,

Josh



Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology

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