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Great Backyard Bird Count weekend



Hi Carolinabirders,

Something new on the cat front: according to a post on the GA listserv, a 
woman in Bellville has had a female Western Tanager visiting her yard for 
all of this winter and a few in the past as well. Her cat just caught and 
killed it.

GBBC is under way. I helped the Cornell folks with their NC and SC 
checklists this year; least I can do for my alma mater... I notice, 
though, that as usual some hard-to-believe reports are making their list, 
even though they've removed most of the unlikely species from the 
fill-in-the-blanks forms and forced people to write them in. A Wood 
Thrush? In NC, in February? How about FIVE American Tree Sparrows, all 
together in one flock? And three separate reports of Black-capped 
Chickadee? This weekend hasn't exactly been the kind of weather where 
that many people go birding in the mountains, and I can't remember too 
many folks with backyards above 4,000 feet... I'm more inclined to 
believe the Western Tanager report than any of the species above, both 
because there have been multiple reports of WETAs at feeders in our 
region this winter, and because there aren't such obvious possibilities 
for error with the tanager. I'm guessing Hermit Thrush, Chipping 
Sparrows, and Carolina Chickadees unless further details come along. The 
GBBC folks do say, above the write-in box, that write-in species will be 
reviewed before including them in the database. I sure hope so...

I actually had time for tragically little birding for the first two days 
of the GBBC. Friday, the best I could do was note the Song Sparrows 
singing outside my girlfriend's house. Saturday morning was a washout 
after staying up too late Friday night. For unrelated reasons, Frank and 
I had already postponed our plans to hit the CBBT for the second straight 
weekend; and wouldn't ya know it, Ned Brinkley re-found the Western Grebe 
there yesterday!

Saturday evening, my friend Tracy Feldman invited me over to help him 
look for Chorus frogs in his backyard. We certainly heard plenty of them, 
and a Spring Peeper or two to boot, but couldn't actually *see* a single 
one! We did see lots of Song Sparrows in the grassy clearcut behind his 
house, and a Northern Flicker along the edge, and I heard some Swamp 
Sparrows in the same wet areas as the frogs. Most intriguing was a wren 
which Tracy thought sounded like a Sedge Wren, but darkness was falling, 
and Tracy had a gig playing fiddle at the ArtsCenter, so we had to leave 
without getting a good look at the critter (Tracy played a solo show at 
the Regulator bookshop earlier that afternoon, after which I found and 
purchased a birder's guide to northern California for my trip there this 
coming May). I left this one off my GBBC submission form.

I was up too late again on Saturday (doing laundry this time), and so 
Sunday morning was another loss. This afternoon, I spent a couple of 
hours walking around Occoneechee Mountain. I was hoping for some signs of 
spring. I was nearly shut out on insects: no odes, no leps, only a 
bee-fly (sirphid, I think) and a midge or two. The only herps were more 
Chorus Frogs. None of the spring wildflowers were out yet. The only hints 
of spring were the abundant catkins hanging off of the willow trees by 
the upper pond.

As usual, Occoneechee was frustratingly quiet bird-wise; the thick green 
tangles of Mountain Laurel look like great bird habitat, but they were 
silent; and the ponds harbored six Canada Geese, but no ducks or other 
waterbirds. I did find reasonable numbers of landbirds at four places. 
The back corner of the parking area harbored dozens, if not hundreds, of 
White-throated Sparrows; despite the huge numbers, I could pick out only 
one sparrow of another species, a Song. Many Golden-crowned Kinglets here 
as well. The trail along the edge of the overgrown field, uphill from the 
ponds, was loaded not only with both of these sparrow species but also 
Meadow Voles; I stood still enough to get several good looks at the 
rodents, and had a hard time telling whether the birds or the mammals 
made more of the leaf-shuffling noises in the surrounding brush. Just 
downhill from the observation platform, I came upon a number of 
Ruby-crowned Kinglets and a few Carolina Wrens, with one Hermit Thrush 
tagging along. The busiest spot was Brown Elfin Knob, with kinglets of 
both stripes, Pine Warblers, chickadees, titmice, a male/female pair of 
Eastern Bluebirds, and (believe it or not) the only two woodpeckers I saw 
all afternoon, a Downy and a Red-bellied.

I then swung by the house long enough to confirm that the Rufous 
Hummingbird was still around. My housemate Kristina Pfannes confirmed 
that it had been around Saturday as well.

Lastly, I led a few Duke students and professors to the Butner Gamelands 
in search of lekking American Woodcocks. We admired massive numbers of 
waterfowl and blackbirds flying overhead to their roosts as we waited for 
the light to recede to woodcock lekking levels. The blackbirds were 
mostly Red-winged, but with many Eurasian Starlings and Brown-headed 
Cowbirds mixed in, and probably Rusty Blackbird too. The waterfowl were 
mostly silouetted against the sunset, but we managed use their calls to 
ID Canada Goose, Mallard, Wood Duck, and Green-winged Teal. Finally, 
Tracy heard the first "peent" and we started seeing the rotund little 
shorebirds making their display flights. Before too long, we heard Great 
Horned and Barred Owls as well. We watched until the peenting stopped, 
then headed for Honduran food and home.

Good birding,

Josh



Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/