Outing #17 - Lake Crabtree County Park - Southport Entrance

09/03/2016

It's September - time to start looking for migratory birds and the first of those winter visitors coming back from their breeding grounds. This past week on Friday, there were a number of reports of less-common birds having been sighted at Lake Crabtree County Park - Southport Entrance. This trail is across the lake from the main park facilities and is probably of little interest to anyone who is not a birder. It gets a little mushy after it rains, and the trailhead is very tricky to find the first time.

The main park facilities are bounded by Interstate 40 to the North, and Aviation Parkway to the west. The main park entrance is at 1400 Aviation Parkway.  To get to the Southport entrance, you must drive south from I-40, past the main entrance, past the lake itself, and then left onto Southport Drive. Continue down Southport Dr. until you come to a wide spot in the road.  In front of you there should be a low, curved white wall with the name of a business on it. Instead of entering the parking lot for the business, turn right onto the little side street. This will lead into a parking lot behind a big building. It looks all wrong, but keep going through the parking lot until you come to a place with a sign and an entrance to the trail. As you enter the trail, veer to the left. I turned right my first time and walked a long way before I realized I was moving away from the lake.

Some people prefer to enter the trail near a red fire hydrant if it's been raining, to avoid the worst of the mud. Either way, when you come to the area with large, vertical concrete pipes, keep watch to your right.  Hopefully the sand bar will be visible. It is right next to a large stump that should be visible even if the sandbar is not. See photo above. If the sandbar is visible, there may be a number of different bird species running around there.

Prior to the holiday weekend, birders had reported the following species at the Southport Entrance: Glossy Ibis (#267 on the Wake County frequency list), Red Necked Phalarope (#263), Stilt Sandpiper (#232), Short Billed Dowitcher (#208), Common Tern (#211), Pectoral Sandpiper (#169), Caspian Tern (#151), and Blue Winged Teal (#134). Any of these would have been new birds for the Wake County Project list, and several would be lifers for me. I was feeling pretty optimistic about this outing, and for good reason, it turns out.

There were several other birders already present by the time I arrived around 1 PM. It had been raining quite a bit that morning as the remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine passed through the area, so some birder friends and I waited until the weather improved to make our way to the trail. Also, the sun is in a bad position for viewing birds on the sandbar in the morning, so afternoon viewing is better.

As you can see from the photo above and to the left, the first species I noticed once I set up the spotting scope was Caspian Tern. There were five of them altogether, and they stayed out on that sandbar for most of the time I was there, except when a Bald Eagle passed overhead and made them take flight. Caspian Tern was a new one for the project list, but the more interesting bird was the little one to the right of the Caspians in the photo at left. That is a Common Tern (#211), which, despite its name, happens to be less common here in Wake County than is the Caspian (#151). This one is not in its breeding plumage. The Common Tern is also the first species I've seen on this project that is less frequent than the 180th bird. Given that my goal is to see 180 species, I either need to pick up some species that are less common than 180th on the frequency list, or else I have to manage to see every single species on the list up to the 180th, which I think is unlikely to happen. So picking up my first species that is even more rare than the 180th species bodes well for the future!

115)  Caspian Tern

116)  Common Tern

A small group of us spent a lot of time watching the shorebirds running around on the sandbar, hoping to spot the Red Necked Phalarope. It had been reported on Friday, and someone said it had been seen again on Saturday morning. We saw one bird that might have been it, but were never able to confirm an ID. We did, however, see several new species for the Wake County Project list, including Greater Yellowlegs (#164), Lesser Yellowlegs (#153), and Pectoral Sandpiper (#169). It was nice to have both the Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs to compare size.

117)  Greater Yellowlegs

118)  Lesser Yellowlegs

119)  Pectoral Sandpiper

My next outing will hopefully net some migrating warblers. Sometime this month, I'd like to head to Yates Mill County Park and see what might be lurking there, and a trip to the northern end of Lake Lynn might be productive for spotting warblers on the move.