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Charlotte birding results



Dear Carolina (and especially Charlotte) birders:

Besides all of you who responded about Charlotte birding sites I also have
INS to thank for getting me out of the house for a great day of birding
which yielded 8 year and two state birds. And any day that yields two state
birds is just fine.

Recently I discovered (just as I was getting ready to plan my India trip)
that my Alien Registration card was in need of its 10 year renewal and that
the only INS center in the entire state was in Charlotte. Now, a visit to
the Immigration is never an occasion for joy, but this was as close to a
joyful visit to the INS as I have ever come. The secret: combine it with
birding. Hence my query yesterday.

I zoomed out of the house at 5 this morning and hit Lake Don T. Howell just
as the sun was trying to warm the thin crust of ice that had the lake in its
grips. I was first in pain and then gradually benumbed as I tried focussing
on the waterfowl, but the GW Teals and Ruddies seemed to be having a ball.
The great find, however, was this incredible patch of brambles by a farm
field at the north end of the lake. I have never seen a White Crowned
Sparrow in N Carolina and was thinking that when I do finally see one it
will be just that--a lone individual mixed in with a flock of White
Throateds. But no, this patch was bursting at the seams with them--all ages
and all sexes. In fact, just as I was beginning to be sure that Song
Sparrows are THE most numerous bird around here in the winter along came
this battalion of White Crowneds and wiped out any such notion. There must
have been at least 20 White Crowneds that I counted (and probably many more
in the brush). For once the Songs were outnumbered. And the more I pished
the more the brambles spewed forth a constant stream of White Throateds. I
know that people see White Throateds in the piedmont but aren't they a
relative rarity?

Then to INS, which was miraculously swift. So swift, in fact, that I emerged
in a shock and stumbled over to Mc Dowell Prairie. It was really great to
see an emerging grassland and I talked to the rangers there who showed me a
little pond they have created (besides the one already there). It was a
great, isolated little pond that I imagine will throb to the songs of spring
peepers in just a few months. Obviously the rangers are very busy cutting
down the dense hardwood forest and opening up the landscape here. I would
love to return in about three years and see the grassland. There were
hundreds of Savannah Sparrows here, but the prize for me was a Vesper
Sparrow which I have also never seen in N carolina. It sat and posed and
showed me every field mark on itself. This brings my N Carolina total to
240. I am creeping up on my California state list which will soon be
dethroned. Watch out Golden State.

Thanks to all who responded. Judy, I have a suggestion. The Macedonia Church
Road access to lake Don Howell is no longer as it is described in the
website. In fact the Road does not even have a sign on it. From Davidson
Highway (exit 55 off of I-85) you have to make a right onto something called
Gateway Drive (which is an entrance to a bleak Industrial Park being
planned) and then an immediate left onto a little unnamed road (which is
Macedonia Church Road).

Just one question for local Charlotte folks: Who on earth was Don T Howell
and why do we have to suffer his name (with its middle initial) on a lovely
lake which already had a perfectly pleasant and very homey name: Coddle
Creek?

Shantanu Phukan