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Red Cockade, Green Swamp
- To: Carolinabirds@duke.edu
- Subject: Red Cockade, Green Swamp
- From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 19:35:37 -0400 (EDT)
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
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/