As I said in my last post, my goal for the remaining weeks of March was to try to pick up any last aquatic species that I haven't yet seen before they leave for their summering grounds. I checked the BirdsEye App for notable sightings in the area over the past week, but found only two. One is a Wood Thrush reported at a personal residence, and the other a Prairie Warbler at Yates Mill County Park. No aquatic birds. So I used another feature on the BirdsEye App to find all of the species sighted within 10 miles of my house in the last two weeks (not just the notable ones) and picked out the aquatic birds that have eluded me so far this year. I then clicked on the bird to find out where they had been spotted. American Wigeon (#150 on the frequency list), Greater Scaup (#131), Red Breasted Merganser (#126), and Horned Grebe (#116) have all been seen within the past two weeks at either Lake Crabtree Dam, Lake Crabtree County Park, or the Southport entrance to Lake Crabtree. So it seems like Lake Crabtree is the place to go to try to pick up these species! I've never been to Lake Crabtree dam, so perhaps I'll start there and see where that leads.
3/26/2016
My mistake, I think, was to decide to walk the lakeside hiking/biking trail as a means of getting to the main Lake Crabtree County Park. I should probably have driven instead, though to be honest, I needed the exercise. It took longer than I expected to hike around the lake while birding, and although I saw a number of forest species on the way, including four different woodpeckers, I didn't see any new aquatic birds. I did eventually drive over to the first parking area at Lake Crabtree County Park (the one with the marshy area in front of it) but didn't see anything new over there. Apparently I was the only one to be so unlucky. When I checked BirdsEye on Sunday morning, I found out that nearly all of the species I wanted to see, plus a couple of new ones (Spotted Sandpiper and Semipalmated Sandpiper) had all been reported at Lake Crabtree on Saturday, though most of them weren't seen at the dam.
70) Northern Rough Winged Swallow
It turned out to be a good move. I saw a number of the less common duck species, including Lesser Scaup, Shoveler Duck, and Green Winged Teal. These are not new species for this project, unfortunately, but are nice to see in one place.
The only new species I saw there was Ring Necked Duck (#81). This duck is not as rare as the ones I had hoped to see before the end of the month, but is a new one for the project.
71) Ring Necked Duck
Two other species for the list were picked up a few days after my outing to Lake Crabtree. Near NC State University, I finally saw some Common Grackles (#32) while driving down that way, and on a quick morning stop at Crabtree Lake before work this week, I saw a Blue Gray Gnatcatcher (#44).
72) Common Grackle
73) Blue Gray Gnatcatcher
I don't expect to get much birding in over the next two weeks. I'm in Atlanta for a week and have visitors coming to town for another. It could be mid-April before I get out there again. By then, there may be a number of migrants around to chase. If not, then perhaps I will identify the ten most common birds that I haven't yet seen for this project, and try my best to find those (see species list on sidebar)
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