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Frustrating day on the Outer Banks



Hi Carolinabirders,

I have to put this in perspective, though. After all, we WERE on the 
Outer Banks, so the day was hardly a disappointment...

Before I get carried away, I should mention that my Rufous Hummingbird 
was still around as of Thursday.

Frank and I took off early Saturday morning to try and fill a few more 
holes in his life list. I picked him up at 4:30 AM at a party thrown by 
another grad student. The party was still going. Cait Coberly and Tanya 
Rehse, two of my other sometime-birding friends, were also there dancing, 
but declined the invitation to come to the Banks with us. We picked up 
Frank's aunt and headed east, whereupon they slept most of the way while 
I drove. Only birds of note en route were a large flock of Tundra Swans 
on a marshy pond beside US 64, at the Scotland Neck exit, and a few very 
nice Wood Ducks in the roadside ditch as I drove through Alligator River 
NWR.

I stopped at Pea Island NWR just to wake them both up. North Pond was 
loaded with waterfowl, mostly Tundra Swan, Pintail, Gadwall, Green-winged 
Teal, Black Duck, Ruddy Duck, and Northern Shoveler. We checked the bird 
sightings clipboard and confirmed that the Harlequin Duck and Western 
Grebe had been seen the previous day, along with THREE Red-necked Grebes! 
None of the gulls had been reported since the previous weekend. I bought 
a cassette of frog calls, and we set off for Avon, planning to return to 
Pea and Bodie Islands if we had time later. South Pond was absolutely 
loaded with Snow Geese, many more than had been evident during Wings Over 
Water. Just before we reached the sign indicating that we had driven out 
of the NWR, a Peregrine Falcon winged into view and raced up route 12 in 
the opposite direction, back into the heart of the refuge.

At Avon Pier, however, life was unkind. The pier was closed for the 
winter, and big waves with deep troughs made viewing difficult from the 
beach. No Harlequin ever showed up, and we spent quite a while trying to 
make IDs out of the many grebes (all Horned, as far as we could tell) 
bobbing offshore. I also had false starts with several Red-throated Loons 
that stretched their necks out, looking surprisingly grebey. I finally 
spotted a non-Horned grebe flying past the jetty and out of sight; on the 
far side of the jetty, after much effort, I finally spotted one 
Red-necked Grebe with a pair of Red-breasted Mergansers. A pair of Surf 
Scoters and a string of a dozen or so Black Scoters flew by going north, 
as did several of the Red-throated Loons, making me worry that the 
Harlequin had had similar migratory thoughts...

After a lunch break at the Hatteras Sandwich Factory (really good crab 
cake and baked beans, woohoo!), we headed for Cape Point. Having gotten 
stuck two of the three times I drove my Explorer out there, and having 
since sold the Explorer for a vehicle with better gas mileage but less 
ground clearance (an Outback), I opted for hiking the beach rather than 
driving. On the one hand, I'm glad I did; there were astonishingly few 
vehicles on the beach, the fewest I've seen in at least 5 visits there, 
so getting towed out might have been much more difficult. On the other 
hand, as I've been warned before, the gulls flushed from the beach before 
Frank and I got anywhere near close enough to scan for subtle rarities 
such as California, Thayer's, or Yellow-legged Gull. As usual, the huge 
flocks of Bonaparte's Gulls which were previously reported had vanished 
without a trace (we didn't see a single Bonnie all day!), taking the 
Little Gulls with them. I'm starting to suspect that y'all are making 
them up to tease me... We did see a small mob of gulls following one 4x4; 
the vehicle turned out to contain Brad Carlson and a friend, and the mob 
of gulls to contain "Snowball", the first-winter Glaucous Gull who's been 
seeking handouts from fishermen all winter. We later found a Lesser 
Black-backed Gull in a flock roosting next to one of the smaller salt 
ponds. A Brant was grazing along the edge of the main pond, while a 
Canvasback was out in the middle amidst many American Coots and 
Ring-necked Ducks and a few more Tundra Swans.

During our hike on the beach, Keith Watson and his crew (Jeff Lewis, Pat 
Moore, and Joan Kutulas) pulled up to say hello, and told us they had had 
no better luck with gulls in their car than we had on foot, but they had 
found the Harlequin further north at the Rodanthe pier. So Frank and I 
rounded up his aunt (who was off beachcombing) and drove up that way. En 
route (sort of), we joined the others in viewing the Painted Buntings in 
Buxton. Alas, the Harlequin was no longer at Rodanthe when we arrived; 
Kieth, Jeff, and Joan pulled in just as we were leaving, and told us that 
it wasn't at Avon either. But what WAS in Rodanthe was a fly-by alcid, 
that Frank saw while the two of us were scanning for the Harlequin from 
separate vantage points. Frank, who has never seen a Harlequin Duck but 
has seen all the Atlantic alcids hundreds of times, quickly ID'd the bird 
as a Common Murre and returned to looking for the duck; by the time I 
linked back up with him and told him how rare that species was in NC, the 
alcid was long gone, so we couldn't confirm that it wasn't a Razorbill or 
other species.

The alcid was going north, as was a steady stream of Northern Gannets in 
strings of three to dozens of birds. We decided to make a last-ditch 
effort; if the duck had moved north from Avon to Rodanthe, and the alcid 
was flying north, we might catch one or the other at the jetty at Oregon 
Inlet. No such luck; nothing at Oregon Inlet but more northbound gannets. 
No Harlequin, no alcids, no eiders, no Purple Sandpipers, no Great 
Cormorants, not even a Ruddy Turnstone! As I returned to the car, a 
Black-crowned Night Heron flew overhead; I could almost hear the 
curmudgeonly creature squawk "God didn't put us birds here just for you 
to see us, y'know!"

After we broke for dinner, there was no sign of moonlight either, so we 
decided to skip looking for Short-eared Owls at Alligator River and just 
drive home. To put the frosting on the cake, Frank got pulled over for 
speeding on the way back to Durham. But the officer let him off with a 
warning...

Good birding,

Josh


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

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