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shorebirds by canoe -- now's the time



Hi, all. Just a note to suggest that there's never been a better year 
to hop in a canoe or kayak and explore the drawn-down piedmont 
lakes for shorebirds. I tried this Sunday on Jordan Lake, and it was 
a blast. Also, for the first time in my experience, canoes and kayaks 
outnumbered jetskis and bass boats at the north end of Jordan Lake. 
Hallelujah!

At Jordan, where the water level is now below 210, there are big 
sandbar-islands just south of the tip of the peninsula between Morgan 
Creek and New Hope Creek. The bottom around the sandbars is firm, 
so you can get out of your boat and walk around in shallow water and 
not sink in. In fact, you can even set up a scope and tripod in the 
water. (Note: Farther north the floodplains of the creeks are silty 
and soft, so stick a paddle in the bottom before you decide whether 
to get out of your boat.) 

We landed on one sandbar loaded with peeps and plovers, 
and I got my official life look at Western Sandpiper after studying 
this species through my scope from 50 feet away. (I've been shown 
Western before, but it's nice to figure it out for yourself.) There were 
Least, Semipalmated and Pectoral Sandpipers motoring around, 
some as close as 10 yards away, as well as Semipalmated Plovers 
and one Ruddy Turnstone. Later, on another sandbar I saw some 
Lesser Yellowlegs too. Interestingly, we found the sandpipers the 
tamest of the birds perched on the islands; others, including 
a Great Egret, 4 Ring-billed Gulls, a Bald Eagle and a Caspian 
Tern, were flightier. 

Also seen:  4 Snowy Egrets (perched on snags just east of the 
tip of the peninsula separating Morgan and New Hope Creeks, 
along with tons of Double-crested Cormorants and 4 Osprey -- 
two on an old nest and two on snags), Killdeer, many Great Egrets 
and Great Blue Herons, a few Caspian Terns and 4 immature Bald 
Eagles in the air at one time. Fishing appears good for the eagles. 
We saw several large fish skeletons lying around the sandbars, 
plus two Osprey in flight carrying fish, and one immature Bald Eagle 
landing on a sandbar to pick at something, probably a fish carcass.

>From the Farrington Point boat ramps we went north under the 
Farrington Road causeway and made a four-mile roundtrip in a 
slow but stable canoe filled with scope and tripod, snacks, 
field guides and other essentials. (Cathy Packer has suggested
we may need to tow a trailer-boat in future, as we seem to add 
more and more stuff for our expeditions.) We put in at 7 a.m. 
and took out at 11. If it had been cooler, we'd have stayed longer 
and paddled another mile up to Hwy. 751, a shorebird hotspot. 

There are two sets of boat ramps at Farrington Point. The one 
preferred by paddlers is the one closer to the causeway.  

Cheers! I hope some of you try this at Jordan or at a lake 
near you in the next couple of weeks.

Ginger Travis
Chapel Hill, N.C.