Rare bird roundup

[srharris@mindspring.com]

Hi Everybody,
My wife and I took a bit of vacation time and made our way out to the Outer Banks.  On the way we stopped at the Goldsboro wastewater treatment plant.  The Cinnamon Teal was still in the pond behind the office.  The Fulvous Whistling Duck took considerable effort to locate in the pond across the street.  Just before I was literally about to give up and making my last scan a dark lump got up and started to preen.  Yes!  The Fulvous Whistling Duck had been sleeping on the mud flat facing away from me and presented not much more than a dark spot until the bird got up and started to move around.  I had been scanning through the hundreds of Green-winged Teal for an hour at least looking for him and he had been all by himself asleep on the mud flat the entire time it would appear.  There was also a Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher along the fence line at the wastewater treatment plant.  At Kinston the female Common Merganser was still in residence in the far right corner of the earlier reporte!
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d pond.  Also in a surprise to me (maybe not to locals) were 2 Anhingas.  At Mattamuskeet another Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, a Black and White Warbler, and a Common Yellowthroat Warbler. On the Outer Banks themselves the better birds were Purple Sandpiper on the groin at Oregon Inlet, a Lesser Black-backed Gull on the flats behind the groin, and a Glaucous Gull at Cape Point with the fisherman at the very end of the point.  The ponds at Pea Island and Bodie were absolutely stuffed with thousands of ducks, swan, and geese.  Weather was simply terrible at times but the area is simply wonderfull under any circumstances.

Happy Holidays to all,
Stephen Harris
srharris@mindspring.com
Charlotte, NC