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Will's web site, rare birds to our north, and West Nile virus



Hi Carolinabirders,

At least three people in the past week or so have requested information 
on birding locations in the Triangle. Another has asked to be 
unsubscribed, apparently having lost the instructions. I just thought I 
would remind everyone that our listowner, Will Cook, has all kinds of 
great information on his web site at http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook/
This information includes the Carolinabirds info file, with all the 
instructions for unsubscribing and resubscribing and everything else you 
can do with your listserv subscription.

And Will's web site also includes the Triangle Birder's Guide. This guide 
has sections devoted to Durham County (including Falls Lake), Orange 
County (Chapel Hill and vicinity), Chatham County (including Jordan 
Lake), and Wake County (including lakes Wheeler, Crabtree, and others). 
There are also some condensed tips for seeking southern specialties, 
sparrows, warblers, ducks, and shorebirds in the Triangle area. Anyone 
either new to the list (hi Jason) or about to visit the area from 
elsewhere in the Carolinas, and looking for good birding spots, check 
this website out. This might also be a good source of knowledge for 
anyone thinking of volunteering on a CBC or spring or fall count, to pick 
the sites that seem most interesting.

Experienced Triangle-area birders might also want to investigate this 
site. Several well-visited birding spots still lack write-ups, including 
Umstead State Park, Dairyland Road, Cane Creek Reservior, Beaver Dam and 
Sandling Beach SRAs, Quail Roost, and RDU Airport and the adjacent Brier 
Creek Reservior. I bet, if anyone knew these areas well enough and 
volunteered to write something, Will would add it to the Guide...

And while you are there, he also has the Triangle Area Bird Checklist. 
If you are wondering how good your chances are of seeing some bird 
species or other in this area in any given week of the year, this will 
give you some idea. In addition, Will supplies his recommendations for 
plants to use in your yard to attract birds and butterflies.

The rare birds I mentioned: a hawk-watch in West Virginia reported a gray 
phase Gyrfalcon yesterday afternoon. Maybe it'll pay a visit to Mount 
Pisgah or Caesar's Head... And a Fork-tailed Flycatcher in extreme 
southern Delaware, just north of Ocean City MD, was found Friday morning 
and was still present through noon today. It's about 5 hours' drive from 
Durham. Hey, I drove 7-plus to see my first Fork-tail in Ontario... And 
an as-yet sketchy report of a Black-headed Grosbeak at Sunset Beach, on 
the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake.

On a less positive note, West Nile Virus has now been confirmed in 
Maryland. Sounds like it's spreading this way, even though New York and 
New England are spraying insecticides as fast as they can. You think 
eventually they might get the idea that, if the disease keeps spreading 
in spite of the insecticides, maybe the insecticides aren't worth what 
the government is paying for them? Anyway, see the BIRDCHAT on-line 
archives at http://listserv.arizona.edu/lsv/www/birdchat.html for more 
details (look for the acronym WNV).

Hope the icky weather is grounding some migrants for us. It forced a 
cancellation of my biodiversity class' planned trip to the Green Swamp 
for today, but maybe I can turn up a few warblers as compensation before 
it gets dark out...

Good birding,

Josh



Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)

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