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Chapel Hill Christmas BAT Count!



Hi Carolinabirders,

Because, you know, it just doesn't feel like Christmas if you don't have
bats...

I was assigned to areas 26 and 30 for the CH CBC yesterday. Both areas are
basically 100% private property posted with "no tresspassing" signs, which
means mainly car-birding. Fortunately, the DNHS has permission to visit
the Irvin Tract, a 40-acre patch of field and forest that used to be a
farm but will eventually become Triangle Land Conservancy property. So I
always start my Chapel Hill counts here, where I can get out of the car
and hike around.

Mike Swaim met me at 6:40 for owling, which unfortunately turned out to be
too late; the sky was already brightening in the east when I arrived. I
heard one thing that heard like a woodcock in flight, but no other night
birds, and the dawn chorus started shortly. We poked around the ponds and
fields and tallied the usual residents, topped by Fox Sparrow. After about
an hour Randy Emmitt and Roger Rittmaster joined us, and we worked our way
back into the fields and woods to the creek. We found some good normal
residents - Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Brown Creeper, Winter Wren, Hermit
Thrush, Cedar Waxwing - but nothing out of the ordinary as far as birds.
We did uncover a couple of hibernating critters under rocks, the first a
large skink (a male Five-lined I think), then a cyanide millipede with
bright yellow legs. We also happened upon some of the biggest Sourwood
trees I've ever seen, and a big patch of Oyster Mushrooms, and Randy
helped himself to a few Persimmons. And, sadly, several Mahonias (Oregon
Grape); I pulled up or cut off as many as I could, which was slightly less
than we actually saw. A Phoebe just as I was getting into my car gave us
29 species for the tract.

Mike, Randy, and Roger left around 11 AM, and I started cruising the rest
of my turf, stopping for a lunch break at Dockside seafood (aka Captain
John's) on 15-501. Still mostly normal things, highlighted by a small
roost of Black Vultures and a few Great Blue Herons scattered among the
many farm ponds I scanned. The bird feeder behind the trailer on Ford Road
- same place where I found the Loggerhead Shrike on a previous count -
gave me several firsts on the day, including Red-winged Blackbird,
Chipping Sparrow, and an American Kestrel in the adjacent field. Have to
remember to meet the person who fills that feeder sometime and thank
them...

The biggest surprise of the day came when I cruised Woodgate Road, one of
the many sprawling subdivisions that are eating Chatham and Orange
counties out from around the Irvin tract. I saw flapping above the road,
which then disappeared, but I couldn't see where the bird landed. Then
flapping again, and disappeared again. I cruised closer, and then saw a
BAT fly overhead! This being late December, and on top of that being 3:15
PM on a clear sunny day, I was mildly shocked. It looked reddish-colored
and fairly big, and so may have been a Red Bat; it patrolled the same
stretch of road for a while, letting me snap a few photos of questionable
quality, before zigging off into the woods and disappearing.

With the sun setting and 38 bird species tallied, I decided to end where I
began and give the Irvin owls another chance to make their presence known.
No luck there, but when I entered the tract, a male and female Hooded
Merganser were on the pond! They had not been there in the morning (just
a pair of feral hybrid Mallards), and when they saw me walking down the
driveway they flushed and headed for a different pond. And then, as I
checked the fields again, another bat flew over! Maybe the same one, as I
was probably less than a mile away, but maybe not. As I left the tract my
flashlight beam was crossed by it or other bats several times.

So are bats normally active here in December? Or did I see one or more
lost migrants, or hibernating critters that were woken up by a warm day?

Good batting... uh, and birding too...

Josh


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

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