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

Here's my tip on having a good birding day in the summer...



I thought I might chime in here.  My wife and I live in northern Chatham
county...we are in the deep woods, and therefore have the luxury of a
lot of neotropical migrants, although we are actually quite close to
"town" (Carrboro/Chapel Hill).  So far we have observed over a hundred
species of birds, the vast majority migratory, on our land.   The woods
are not first growth, but they're close...the rings on the trees that
fell during Fran told us that the trees, though not too large in
diameter (ground is almost total rock, as this was a volcano long time
ago) were older than the time when Sheman's cavalry camped here in
1865...whoda thunk it?  In other words, it's old woods, and the birds
seem to like it.

Last year, we used over a hundred pounds of sugar preparing hummingbird
nectar.  About a dozen feeders hang on our porch and trees, most of
which are refilled every day, or at most every two days this time of
year.  (Feeders are the 32 ounce size standard six "hole" or "flower"
Perky Pets, which I recommend...)

Does anybody know for sure how this translates into the average number
of hummingbirds we might be feeding?  Using the most basic math
(assuming that a hummingbird could eat it's body weight in nectar from
our feeder each day), I came up with an average of two hundred birds...
I can account a hundred as I've seen that many (after the second
fledge), but if I'm right, and I can accurately assume that, since there
are relatively few birds in April, and May, and the males leave early,
we may well indeed actually have two hundred ON AVERAGE in our woods
that come by at some point on most days.  (Our "development, if you can
call it that, along with the adjacent WUNC TV property, totals several
hundred acres, partially used by about eight houses that don't offer a
lot of edge effect.  The WUNC buildings and the TV tower together
probably use about five acres, so I guess there is room to "house" quite
a few hummers.

Along with our neighbors (deer, foxes, flying squirrels, various
reptiles and amphibians), we all have an interesting birding spot....
one which, occasionally, gets VERY interesting... as the WUNC tower is a
nice resting place for vultures and hawks in migration (it sits 1500
feet above our heads, and the "mountain" we're on, called Terrells
Mountain, is at about 725 feet, for a combined altitude at the top of
well over 2000 feet above the Triassic basin and points east.)  There
are also two other, smaller radio towers on a nearby portion of the
mountain "range" (cough).  Folks might want to come by during the fall
for a possible hawk viewing opportunity.  These are VERY unpredictable,
but when they occur, it's cool to watch, and you don't have to drive
hours to see it, if you're local to the Triangle.

In the woods, we also get the usual woodland birds: The usual grey birds
and little brown jobs, sharpies and Red tail and shoulder hawks,
Scarlet and Summer tanagers, various vireos, a panoply of migratory
warblers including cerulean, black and white and hooded nearly every
year...and my favorite birds...the Wood Thrushes and all the woodpecker
species except for the red headed (no water supply nearby, I think...saw
one, ONE time in ten years.)  Mating dances of the Pileated woodpecker
are amazing, by the way.  Sorry, no Ivory bills...   =;0(

Last thing: the two other "hotspots" for birds in the Chapel Hill area
are the Fearrington barn for barn swallows at sunset, and the chimney
behind the building on Franklin street that sits next to University
Florist, one building closer to the Carolina Coffee Shop...in other
words, the large, deep building that used to house "Town Hall" bar, for
those of you old enough to remember...now it has a T-shirt shop in
front.  If you go around to the back about an hour before dusk, you will
see about two hundred chimney swifts swirling overhead, and believe it
or not, all will be going into the little chimney at the Northwest back
corner there, every night in the summer.  It's a "Key West" kinda thing,
and I have never seen another birder there...although I only go maybe
ten times a year.  (The other best place to see Chimney Swifts that I
know of in the state is the huge chimney at the Grove Park Inn.  The
folks who park your car think they're "bats", of course...argh!!!

Fellow chimney swift fans, give me a shout for other places of note.

If anyone would like to have a unique birder's sunset party on Franklin
Street, or rather, just behind it, lemme know.

Oh...you all also know about the barred owls that live on the UNC
campus, I guess...?  They enjoy "showing off"...look up when you get to
Silent Sam, and they'll usually present themselves, eventually.  Look
for a gaggle of humans with their heads bent back...

Enjoy!

Fred Houk