Christmas Bird Count blowout

["Will Cook" <cwcook@duke.edu>]

I sent out the year 2000/20th century/2nd millennium with an overdose of 
birding -- four Christmas Bird Counts in the last four days (and 7 in 16 
days).  While this isn't too impressive by Paul Sykes standards (he usually 
does 10 or so a year), it's a lot for me!  Here are some highlights:

Thu. 12/28 - Bodie-Pea Island CBC - Got the privilege of counting Wanchese, 
along with Allen Bryan, Norm Budnitz, Jeff Lewis, and Will Russell (the 
celebrity birder from Tucson AZ).  Wanchese is not the most fun spot to 
cover - it's mostly urban and has an incredible amount of traffic - but it 
tends to have more species of landbirds than the rest of the count circle, 
so it's a priority for the compiler, Paul Sykes.  The weather was brutally 
cold and windy and the birds were not easy to scare up, but we did add 
several species to the overall list, highlighted by Allen's find of a 
beautiful green Painted Bunting.  Will R. found a Y-b Chat, one of two on 
the count.  After lunch, Norm and I returned to the count area to look at a 
couple of spots we'd skipped.  We were surprised to see a large leaf blowing 
about in the middle of the road.  On closer inspection it turned out to be a 
Woodcock!  We watched it at close range while it gradually danced its way 
off to the shoulder of the road.  It was a spectacular show -- it held its 
head motionless while its body was violently bobbing (I guess we were 
supposed to think it was fluttering like a leaf in the wind).  Bizarre!  
Turned out to be the only Woodcock on the count, which totalled about 140 
species.  Normally oceanwatching is the thing to do in the afternoon after 
you've covered your territory, but this day was not only brutally cold and 
windy, but there was  nothing on the water.  We spent about 2 minutes 
oceanwatching before we gave up.  At the countdown, a highlight was seeing 
Tom Quay -- Professor Emeritus of Zoology at NC State and an elder statesman 
of NC birding -- interacting with his former students John Fussell, Wayne 
Irvin, Harry LeGrand, Paul Sykes, and Mike Tove.

Fri. 12/29 - Lake Mattamuskeet CBC - Another cold, windy day, but not nearly 
as bad as the day before.  Norm Budnitz and I had a great area -- the 
headquarters area, including the entrance impoundment, Sandy Dike Road (runs 
west of the causeway on the south side of the lake), and the wildlife drive. 
 Best bird was a Greenland-type Greater White-fronted Goose in with a flock 
of hundreds of Canada Geese on the back side of the entrance impoundment.  
Unfortunately it disappeared after a minute of watching and Norm never got 
to see it.  Not rare, but very enjoyable -- we watched a flock of 100 Tree 
Swallows working the impoundment.  Also near the entrance pond, two "Wild" 
Turkeys strolled past within a foot of the car.  Doubtless part of the 
restocking program and not really wild.  We didn't pish up any ultra-rare 
landbirds, though we did get a Merlin, four E Screech-Owls (responding to 
me), a Black-and-white Warbler, and a Blue-headed Vireo, ending up with 85 
species for the day.  Compiler Allen Bryan says the best birds were GWf 
Goose, Chat, Blue-headed Vireo, White-crowned Sparrow, Gnatcatchers, and, 
new to the count, Turkeys (two parties) and Seaside Sparrow.

Sat. 12/30 - Falls Lake CBC - Another cold, windy day, with intermittent 
snow flurries.  I counted with Jennifer Maher, who was new to the CBC 
experience.  Had many of the birds that Brian Bockhahn mentioned in his 
scouting report, including 1 Common Loon, 1 Horned Grebe, an incredible 83 
Black Ducks, 720 Hooded Mergansers (the biggest flock I've seen!), 3 Red-
breasted Mergansers, a female Common Merganser, a flock of 8 Wild Turkeys 
flying across the road, and 2 Blue-headed Vireos.  We had some unusual 
misses -- no raptor except for a Bald Eagle, no Blue Jay, and no Towhee.  
May be the first count ever I've missed those.  Ended up with 54 species for 
the day.

Sun. 12/31 - Jordan Lake CBC - Another cold, windy day, but the most 
comfortable of all four.  I counted the western fringes of Harris Lake and 
Seaforth at Jordan Lake.  One of the more exhausting counts, since I had to 
hike in about 3 miles one way with my heavy Kowa TSN-824 scope to get to the 
good duck spots.  It was worth it, though, as I found a Greater Scaup (first 
for the count) in a flock of Ring-neckeds, 4 Gadwall, 2 Bald Eagles, 1100 
Coots (new count high), a Common Snipe, 2 Sedge Wrens (second for the 
count), and a couple of Palm Warblers in with big flocks of Pines and 
Rubies.  Later on I stopped near the small pond on Christian Chapel Road and 
found a nice flock of 21 Fox Sparrows.  In general sparrows were hard to 
find -- only had 5 White-throateds all day!  Seaforth had 17 Horned Grebes, 
a Gadwall, and a Red-breasted Merganser.  Ended up with 60 species in my 
territory. There were incredible numbers of gulls flying around north of the 
64 bridge at the end of the day -- probably 6000 or more Ring-billeds.  My 
official last birds of the day/year/century/millennium: a flock of 8 
Canvasback at the Farrington Road bridge.

Mon. 1/1/01 - a day of rest.  I don't think I even made it outside. Heard a 
Carolina Wren to start off my 21st century list.  How does Paul Sykes do it? 
 :-)


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