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washed-out ponds as otential Black Rail habitat
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: washed-out ponds as otential Black Rail habitat
- From: "Frank Enders" <fkenders@hotmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 13:42:20 EDT
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
I guess I am trying to get people to try to elicit resonses from Black Rails
in inland areas. No danger, I think, of overuse of tapes, until such a rail
is located.
The best habitat I have seen so far are the marshy beds of two ponds whose
dams were washed-out from Hurricane Floyd.
Bunn Lake on 64 east of Zebulon is big (50 acrea?) but will fill up within a
year, since dam rebuilt. Too far from me (50 miles), but obvious from the
road (how about winter Short-ears?).
A local lake (4 acres) isn't being worked on, and has cattails invading
grass and smartweed and sedge. Found this by looking at all ponds on
Delorme map.
I know of no large reservoirs filling up that are similar to the Farrington
Marsh described by Bob Lewis as holding Black Rail in 1979.
My county's soil conservationist described to me some "Wetland Reserve Plan"
land in my county which is growing up in nice mushy herbaceous stuff around
the tree seedlings, plus a cow pasture (not seen yet) that is flooding due
to beavers.
Perhaps other birders can find similar sites near their home counties. Such
sites would be good for stuff other than Black Rail (Sedge Wren, Short-eared
Owl, etc.). I suspect 30 birders checking their local sites once each year
in the spring using a tape would show Black Rail continues to exist inland.
But, I do not know.
Help and suggestions welcome.
Frank Enders, Halifax NC. fkenders@hotmail.com
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