[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Wings Over Water report



Birders,

I returned late Sunday night from 3.5 days of fun birding at Wings Over
Water at the Outer Banks last weekend.  The weather was great, and lots of
species of birds were seen.  (I saw 122 species personally.)  Many birders
and nature enthusiasts from all over the country attended this wildlife
festival.

Although there were no outrageously rare
birds like last year (Tropical Kingbird, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, Sprague's
Pipit, etc.), the birding was still quite good.  Ricky Davis found a
Western Tanager by the old Coast Guard Station on Pea Island Saturday
morning -- unfortunately it was not relocated later in the day.  A nice
assemblage of waterfowl was on South Pond: all of the dabblers plus Snow
Goose, Tundra Swan, and nine Surf Scoters!  One of the Snow Geese was
wearing a yellow collar marked "KE22".  Shorebirds at S. Pond included
Stilt Sandpiper, Western, Least, BAIRD'S (found by Eric Dean and Lex
Glover), White-rumped, Dunlin, Pectoral, both yellowlegs, and Marbled
Godwits.

Lots of passerines were reported from the dikes at Pea Island, Bodie
Island, the Old Coast Guard Station, etc, including Dickcissels,
Bobolinks, Baltimore Orioles, lots of warblers (including Connecticut
(seen very briefly along N. Dike N. Pond), Nashville, Cape May,
Black-throated Green, Black-throated Blue, Blackpoll), sparrows (including
both Sharp-taileds, Seaside, Clay-colored and White-crowned), raptors (all
three falcons seen repeatedly, Bald Eagle, etc.), to name a few.  Also, a
COMMON EIDER was found near the Hatteras Spit by Taylor Piephoff, and
Piping Plovers and Red Knots were reported from a couple of locations.
Other good birds reported were a Snow Bunting and a Buff-breasted
Sandpiper from elsewhere on Hatteras Island.

One of the highlights for me was spending a couple of hours on the beach
on Sunday afternoon.  Several flocks of Black and Surf Scoters cruised by.
(We'd seen a White-winged fly over the beach the day before.)  In a flock
of gulls on the water was a 1st year BONAPARTE'S GULL -- a tad early for
this species.  We also observed, one POMARINE, one unidentified, and two
PARASITIC JAEGERS flying south just off the beach.  Sitting on the beach
was a flock of terns with Royal, Caspian, Forster's, Common, and Sandwich.
And we'd seen a few Black Skimmers earlier at Oregon Inlet.

I'm sure there were lots of other good sightings that I'm forgetting about
right now.  Hopefully others will post their results and promote this
festival.  It's a worthwhile endeavor for North Carolina.

Overall, W.O.W. 2002 was very successful and folks should mark their
calendars for next year's Wings Over Water -- 14-19 October 2003.

Jeff


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Jeff Pippen   	 				 jspippen@duke.edu
Biology Dept. Box 90338
Duke University, Durham, NC  27708		PH: (919) 660-7278
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^