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LARK & CLAY-COLORED SPARROWS
- To: carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: LARK & CLAY-COLORED SPARROWS
- From: "Brad Carlson" <bradcarlson1@hotmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 21:41:07 -0400
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
My wife Pat and I just arrived home from a fantastic weekend on the NC
Outerbanks. We thought we would take in possibly the last really nice warm
weekend on the beach before Fall sets in. It was everything we hoped for!
Saturday morning we did a little birding in the area surrounding Elizabethan
Gardens. There was not a migrant to be heard or seen. The only warblers we
saw were a couple of Pine Warblers. We tried to stir up some activity by
performing some pathetic Screech Owl calls, and much to our surprise, we
ended up with three Screech Owls calling back to us! Unexpected in broad
daylight, and I guess our calls were not that bad after all.
We stopped next at the Old Coast Guard station. Here we immediately had a
LARK SPARROW perched on the fence in front of the building. It then worked
through the bushes in the adjacent area. Also in the vicinity were three
Baltimore Orioles, about five Prairie Warblers, many Palm Warblers and a
Red-breasted Nuthach.
We moved further down Pea Island were we saw the recent influx of waterfowl.
Large numbers of Northern Pintail are in the refuge. Mixed with them were
other puddle ducks such as Shovelers, American Wigeon and Teal. A large
group of Marbled Godwits were in North Pond. The trees near the rest area
had male and female Redstarts and a Northern Parula. On the way back to the
car, we found a second LARK SPARROW in the grass by the two Purple Martin
houses adjacent to the parking lot. This bird had apparently also been seen
by Jeff Lewis earlier in the morning. The Lark Sparrow was very
approachable, and did not seem bothered by the numerous hikers strolling by
it. I took some nice photographs. These we only my 2nd and 3rd Lark
Sparrows in NC. Not bad at all for one day!
At Buxton Woods, the only migrant we saw was a male Black-throated Blue
Warbler.
At lunch time we took the ferry to Ocracoke where we spent the rest of the
weekend. On Saturday we had a female Merlin in the southern ferry terminal
parking lot. This morning (Sunday), we had a CLAY-COLORED SPARROW at the
southern ferry terminal parking lot. Near the town proper and the Ocracoke
lighthouse, a few other migrants were around such as Northern Parula,
Red-eyed Vireo and numerous Palm Warblers.
All in all the birding was slow, but a couple of nice sparrows. The beach
and sunsets were great!!!
-Brad & Pat Carlson
Winterville, NC
BradCarlson1@hotmail.com
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