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Lapland Longspurs and other Chapel Hill birds



I've started to hear some results from the Chapel Hill (NC) Christmas Bird 
Count, which was held on Sunday, Dec. 22.  The best birds of the count were 
two Lapland Longspurs found by Derb Carter in a recently plowed field across 
Rocky Ridge Road from the Mapleview Farm dairy store, which is at the 
intersection of Dairyland Road and Rocky Ridge Road west of Chapel Hill.  
They were seen with a flock of Killdeer.  Doug Shadwick and I looked for the 
longspurs this morning before work, but found only the Killdeer, which were 
still huddled up - the longspurs should be easier to find when things start 
moving later on in the morning.

The longspurs are the first ever for the Chapel Hill count, which was first 
conducted in 1924, and the first report I know about for Orange County.

Other outstanding birds from the count so far include our second Black-and-
white Warbler (Pippen and Rexrode), third Orange-crowned Warbler (Cook and 
Brewster), and third Least Sandpipers (Bockhahn).   I'll post a summary 
after I receive all the results.

Jeff Pippen and Toni Rexrode are featured in today's Chapel Hill Herald -- 
see the online version at http://www.herald-sun.com/orange/ or 
http://www.herald-sun.com/orange/10-302087.html  (a fun article, though 
Toni's name is consistently misspelled).  I had a team from the Chapel Hill 
News tagging along, so there should be an article there in the next issue.


-- 
Charles W. "Will" Cook                  w 919-660-7423
http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook            cwcook@duke.edu
Biology Dept., Duke Univ., Box 90340, Durham, NC 27708