Thursday, March 2, 2017

Outing #26 - Umstead Big Lake & Brookhaven Nature Park

03/01/2017

It's great to have friends! One of my birder friends read my last post and gave me some tips for finding the winter species still missing from my Wake County Project list. The weather is warming fast here in Raleigh, and many of these winter species will probably be gone soon, so I've been trying to up may game and get as many as I can before spring migration begins. In the past two weeks, I've been out birding six times! That's pretty unusual for me.  But the trips have paid off as I have three new species to report - one from Umstead Big Lake, one from Brookhaven Nature Park, and one from the backyard of a birder friend.

I went out three of the four days of the Great Backyard Bird Count. My first outing was to Brookhaven Nature Park, where I hoped to see a Red Breasted Nuthatch. Apparently I was there too early, as I didn't hear them call nor see them moving around among the pines. The next day, I went out to Umstead Big Lake, where three American Black Ducks (#141 on the Wake County frequency list) had been reported just the day before. When I pulled into the parking lot and got out, I discovered that a very good birder I know had just arrived in the car right next to me! We had been out birding together a couple of times before, so I followed him to the spot that everyone prefers for seeing ducks. After a bit of looking around, we caught a glimpse of two American Black Ducks (see photo at left). They were too far away to get a decent photo then, so I decided to stay on, head into the woods next to the lake, and see if I could find a spot from which to take a decent photo through my scope. I must have spent at least 90 minutes in there. Got photos of several other duck species, but no really good looks at the American Black Ducks. Then, as I was retracing my steps on my way out of the woods, I stopped at a spot I'd visited before and saw them out on the water.  I hurriedly set up my scope, put on the PhoneSkope attachment, and snapped a few pictures. This one is a little bright, but it shows the features well enough. Note the lighter head on the darker brown body, the dark line behind the eye, and the yellow-green bill.

138)  American Black Duck

On Saturday I joined a Wake Audubon outing that went to North Wake Landfill Park and then Abbott's Creek Greenway. A Lincoln's Sparrow had been spotted at Abbott's Creek a couple of weeks back, and we hoped we might get the chance to see it. We spent quite a long time on one of the bridges in small groups, hoping to get a good glimpse of it. Some of the group did manage to spot it, but it was only up for a moment and I was at another part of the bridge, so I missed it. Close, but no cigar.

My next Wake Audubon outing was more successful. It was a short hike at Brookhaven Nature Park (see photo at left) with the primary purpose of finding a Red Breasted Nuthatch (#108). I had already tried here twice, and once at another location where I heard the nuthatches, but wasn't able to see them. This time, we both heard them and saw them. Well, we heard two of them, and saw one. It was in the pine trees just southwest of the small lake within the park. I hadn't laid eyes on one of these in more than a decade, and was happy to finally check it off the list.

139)  Red Breasted Nuthatch

Outing number five took me to a place I had never visited before - Wilkerson Nature Preserve. A birder friend of mine said she had possibly heard and seen a Vesper Sparrow (#196) there, though it was not a definite sighting. She wanted to go back and have a second look, especially after someone else reported seeing a sparrow there that might have been a Vesper. So three of us headed out there one morning to try to find it. We did hear a sparrow with a call that sounded unusual and might have been the Vesper, but did not get visual confirmation. Sparrows are tough for me, and I'm realizing that if I want to learn to ID these rarer sparrows, I need to learn the calls of all the common sparrows and be able to ID them in a couple of seconds. In many places, they don't spend much time out in the open, so if a sparrow lands, you have to be able to ID them at a quick glance to tell if they are typical or not. If not, you need to quickly assess the markings and be able to remember them before the sparrow is gone again. I think I have some work in front of me if I want to be able to spot the likes of Lincoln and Vesper Sparrows without help.

This morning I visited the house of a birder friend who had reported seeing Baltimore Orioles (#138) at her feeders this week. She told me they weren't very reliable, but she knew I didn't have these yet for my Wake County Project and was nice enough to let me come stand in her living room for an hour and try to spot them. And it took almost exactly that much time for them to make an appearance. When they did, they put on a good show. I saw two mature males, one immature male, and at least one female. They apparently like the suet feeder, and the jelly feeder. It was great to have a chance to see them so up close and personal! I was sure I had seen Baltimore Orioles once before, on a Christmas Bird Count here in Raleigh many years ago, but if so, I never reported it on my lifelist, so either my memory is faulty, or this was a new lifer for me. It brings my Wake County Project list up to 140 species.  Only 40 more to go!

140)  Baltimore Oriole

There were seven species spotted in Wake County in the past week that I don't yet have for my list.  They are: American Bittern (Prairie Ridge Ecostation), Canvasback (Lake Betz), Wilson's Snipe (Lake Johnson), Herring Gull (Shelley Lake), Blue Headed Vireo (Lake Johnson), American Pipit (Yates Mill County Park) and Orange Crowned Warbler (Lake Betz). Unfortunately, I will be out of town until March 10th, so I will have to hope that they are still around when I get back.

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