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late migrants at Jordan Lake



Hi Carolinabirders,

I had to wake up at 5 AM this morning to drop my wife off at a bus so she
could ride to Washington with a horde of her fellow peaceniks and throw
dove-poop at the hawks. As long as I was up so early, and had the day free
of obligations, I decided it was time for some intensive birding!

I started at Horton's Pond. Unfortunately, the local owls were silent, and
in the darkness I couldn't follow the trail well enough to get back up to
the marshy end of the pond to listen for rails. The only audible birds
were a couple of Great Blue Herons who objected strenuously to being
awakened before dawn. On my way out, I heard a thunderous ker-splash! My
first thought was a tremendous fish jumping, but there was enough
moonlight to determine that instead I had been busted by the Horton's Pond
Neighborhood Watch, large aquatic rodent division. The beaver slapped its
tail 3-4 more times before finally letting me finish retreating in peace.

Having had only 4 hours' sleep, I took a short nap in the car until it got
light enough to visually ID birds, then headed to the Poplar Point
settling ponds. They were exactly 4 Mallards away from being totally
birdless! No Buffleheads yet, and not so much as a single Wood Duck. I
also realized at this point that, in a sleepy daze, I'd left the house
without my spotting scope! Fortunately, the landbirds kicked in around
then, the first of many uncountable hordes of kinglets and yellow-rumps
that I'd be running into the rest of the morning. This first one was
spiced with a singing Solitary Vireo and a flyover Hairy Woodpecker.

Ebenezer SRA opened then, so I headed to the Point. Saw my first Hermit
Thrush of the autumn along the drive in. The waters of Jordan Lake seemed
nearly as empty as the ponds, just a few cormorants, though without a
scope I might have missed a thing or two. The trees at the tip were VERY
busy, though, as dizzying flocks of kinglets and warblers were passing
through frequently. Almost as many of the warblers were Palms out there as
Yellow-rumps, and with some work I pulled out a Northern Parula. Saw the
first of the day's many Eastern Phoebes too.

I went into the bathroom, figuring to leave the Point afterwards and check
out someplace else. However, when I emerged, I spotted several folks with
binoculars: it was Judy Murray and the weekly Chapel Hill Bird Club
outing! I decided to link up with them and exchange reports. They related
that they'd seen a pair of Laughing Gulls back up at the Crosswinds
Marina; sure enough, a little while later, the same pair flew by the
Point. They had scopes and confirmed that the water was indeed pretty bare
of birds, but I led them to my favorite patch of trees to check out the
kinglets and Palm Warblers. On our way there I spotted a Cape May Warbler,
which turned out to be the first of several! We also found a few more
Parulas, lots of Pines, even a Black-and-White. Non-warblers included a
pair of Cedar Waxwings and a cooperative Meadowlark. Returning to the
water, we still couldn't find any waterbirds of interest, but I spotted a
pair of Tree Swallows coming across the lake, and someone else scoped out
an adult Bald Eagle. A couple of Northern Harriers migrated over the
point, accompanied by a few pairs of tardy Chimney Swifts, and later a
Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Eventually I decided (for the second or third time) that I'd seen all
Ebenezer Point had to offer, and I was hungry, and it was time to leave.
But first I went to check out the Brown-headed Cowbird that Judy had heard
calling; a couple of Common Grackles had flown from the tree, so I was
hoping for other blackbirds too. No such luck, but while circling back
toward the car from the cowbird's tree, I ran into another group of
kinglets and warblers, this time with a Black-throated Green Warbler! I
yelled to Judy and the CHBC crew, but they were a bit too far away and
didn't hear what I'd said. Meanwhile, I spotted another warbler, more
plain-looking, sitting very still; I finally spied its pink legs. A
Blackpoll! The CHBCers came over and re-found the BTG, but the Blackpoll
didn't return.

Finally my hunger got the better of me, and I said goodbye to Judy and
her group. Haven't heard from them since, if they found anything new after
that; they said they'd seen American Pipits before they ran into me, a
species I missed on the day. By this point I had seen eight warbler
species on Ebenezer Point, not too shabby for the end of October and 150
miles from the coast! I also had six of the seven expected woodpeckers
(all but Pileated) and five sparrows (Song, White-throated, Field,
Chipping, and Junco) in addition to all the other goodies. I headed for
the R&T Grill (which I still think makes the best burgers in North
Carolina), grabbed some lunch, and headed back down to Poplar Point.

Poplar Point was open for the first time in recent memory, but was also
posted with "campers only" signs in a couple of strategic locations. I
looked around for a ranger to ask about it, saw nobody, and decided to
gamble, taking my lunch to a picnic table near the end of the park road.
Sure enough, another behemoth bi-kinglet flock materialized before I
finished eating. Nothing new from the picnic table, but I finished eating,
walked to the beach, and there encountered a horde of yellow-rumps and
Pine Warblers. Then I heard a snatch of a nasal "yyyyank" call;
Red-breasted Nuthatch! Never could find the critter for a visual
confirmation, but did spot my first two Brown Creepers of the year in the
same flock. That flock trickled away, but before I left Poplar Point,
another passed through, including a Blackburnian Warbler, my ninth (and
final) warbler species of the day!

Made a quick stop at Crosswinds Marina, just in case the Laughing Gulls
had gone back there. They hadn't; just Ring-bills and cormorants on the
floating dock. However, just as I arrived, the gulls were getting flushed
by an immature Bald Eagle soaring above. I also spotted a Pied-Billed
Grebe diving in the marina. And I noticed that the feeders there had been
filled with thistle seed; nothing there today, but worth watching later in
the winter for siskins, maybe...

Hoping for a Common Yellowthroat or other warbler to add to bring me to
double digits, or maybe that last missing woodpecker, I returned to the
now-daylit Horton's Pond. No luck for warblers or the Pileated, but loads
of Swamp Sparrows, another Brown Creeper, a nice adult Red-headed
Woodpecker (we'd only seen a few immatures at Ebenezer), a pair of
White-breasted Nuthatches (to complete the nuthatch hat trick), and a
Red-shouldered Hawk that flushed off a snag up in the pond's marshy north
end and threw back a few half-hearted "eeeeeaahh"s as it retreated through
the forest. I also observed a scattering of very brightly colored fungi of
various hues. A walk down to the lakeshore didn't add anything new
(except my only dragonfly of the day, a Green Darner). The little white
Asters flowering in various places were densely populated with a variety
of moths, hover flies, and tachinids.

The bad news at Horton's was that some ATVers had discovered the place and
badly trashed a large portion of the forest and shoreline along the widest
part of the pond. Anyone know whom I can contact that might be able to put
up a gate to protect the gamelands from these people?

I wanted to visit Rolling View before the day was out; I've had some good
fall landbird migration days there before, and still half-hoped the
Wagtail would turn up. Fortunately, our new house is conveniently placed
between Jordan and Falls Lakes, so I stopped off there, added White-
throated Sparrow to the yard list, and grabbed my scope.

Alas, Rolling View was pretty quiet. The only new birds I added to my
day's list were a distant flock of a dozen or so American Black Ducks,
some Bonaparte's Gulls roosting on the water toward Sandling Beach (where
I saw no birders), and one Common-looking Tern feeding near them
(presumably the same one Kent Fiala reported a few days ago). The guy
manning the gate mentioned there having been "egrets" at the tip of the
peninsula, but I only saw Great Blue Herons. Two of them did engage in
battle while I watched: they flew in together and splashed noisily into
the water while I was looking away. I saw them floating like ducks on
their breasts, each with its beak held aloft like a bittern trying to be
camouflaged; then they leapt at each other, clashed a few times in the
air, and finally they flew off in different directions, the apparent loser
complaining as it did.

I tried to close out the day with some owling along Old Oxford Highway,
but Brickhouse Road and every other wildlife area along there had multiple
vehicles parked and folks in camouflage operating nearby. This wasn't
completely unexpected; I shared my lunch stop at the R&T with a bunch of
the same sort of folks. But getting out of my car and walking around in
hunter-populated gamelands at dusk didn't seem like a bright idea, so I
left the owls for another night.

Good birding,

Josh


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

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