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Will's web site, rare birds to our north, and West Nile virus
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: Will's web site, rare birds to our north, and West Nile virus
- From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
- Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2000 18:35:56 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
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/