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Red Cockade, Green Swamp



Hi C-birders,

So what the heck is a "cockade", anyway?

Yesterday the Duke "Diversity of Life" class took its annual field trip 
to the Green Swamp and Lake Waccamaw. As usual, the trip was very thin on 
birds despite the time of year. The Green Swamp was populated mainly by 
Brown-headed Nuthatches and migrating Northern Flickers, with one Belted 
Kingfisher out front at the borrow pit. Finally, after the trail had 
snaked through three muddy pocosins, I was distracted from the ominous 
Fire Ant mound the class was examining by some quiet woodpeckery calls, 
and spotted a Red-cockaded Woodpecker foraging on a Longleaf Pine trunk. 
I'd seen one here before, but never with students along. We also saw lots 
of carnivorous plants (nine species, five genera!), other wildflowers, a 
fantastic Saddleback-like caterpillar which was bright orange, loads of 
Common Wood Nymphs and a few other butterflies, a few dragonflies, a 
few individuals of a brightly colored scorpionfly of some kind, a 
Brimley's Chorus Frog, and astonishingly few mosquitoes.

Lake Waccamaw was similarly slow, despite an abundance of berries on the 
native hollies and Black Tupelos along the boardwalk. Another kingfisher, 
a few Forster's Terns, and several Turkey Vultures were visible from the 
dock. We failed to find our usual alligator in the roadside ditches 
outside the park, but did see a Yellow-billed Cuckoo and a classic 
"confusing fall warbler": bright yellow-green, wing bars, and everything. 
I almost thought it was a Yellow-throated Vireo, but the bill looked more 
warblerish in silouette. May have been Chesnut-sided, but I never saw the 
head in the light... There was also a dead bird on the back deck of the 
park HQ which looked like an Empidonax. If only I'd brought along a Pyle 
guide...

Spent this afternoon at the Butner Gamelands with Norm Budnitz, Norm 
Douglas, Duke prof. Dan Kiehart, grad student Andrew Heidel, and visiting 
scholar Robert Ricklefs. Things were only slightly busier there; the fall 
migrants seem to be avoiding me quite effectively this year! Field 
Sparrows were quite abundant, and both Great Egret and Great Blue Heron 
were down on the beaver pond. We saw Red-headed Woodpecker and heard 
Pileated and Hairy along the swamp trail, and had a fly-over waterfowl 
that looked suspiciously like a Merganser of some kind as well as the 
usual Wood Duck. Last up was an Indigo Bunting that buzzed at us from the 
side of (she's a) Brickhouse Road as we returned to our cars.

Good birding,

Josh


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

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