Here’s a familiar sight found on North Carolina’s beaches, the Black bellied Plover. I spotted this one looking for a snack in the sand along the shoreline of a small cove near Oregon Inlet in the OBX. It was quite amicable to my presence and walked up to me a couple times which allowed for some good close up photo opportunities.
The bird featured here is likely a juvenile or non breeding adult due to the streaky pattern on it’s breast and overall spotty appearance. Adult male Black bellied Plovers display jet black plumage on their face, running down the front of their necks and down across their breast and belly. The adult females look similar to the males but showing less contrast in their appearance.
Black bellied Plovers are a wintertime visitor to coastal areas of the Tarheel State. That being said, a small population of non-breeding birds will spend the summer months here too. They are best found on our beaches but also in tidal mudflat areas and on short grass lawns searching for a meal. They’ll stick around until April before heading north to their nesting grounds in the tundras of Alaska and Canada so we’ve got plenty of time to enjoy these sweet birds for the season ahead.
Back home after my trip to the Alligator River NWR & the OBX this past weekend and thinking about the importance of pre-bird tour groundwork. Because nature is somewhat unpredictable, I’ve found it useful over the years to do a little location scouting a day or two before my tour dates. This time allows me to check the conditions of the trails and routes plus be able to confirm that all of the seasonal bird species are where I’d expect them to be. Most of the time it’s all good but in this case, yikes! Thank goodness I headed out to the Alligator River NWR earlier in the week before my guests where scheduled to arrive because apparently the impoundment areas were bone dry.
Dry as a bone at the Alligator River NWR
Normally the fields are flooded in October to provide safe haven for migrating waterfowl over the winter but due to dry conditions, a shortage of workers, and a beaver dam stopping up the pumps, they were unable to start the pumps to flood the fields this year. Thus, aside from a small flock of Tundra Swans, a half dozen Northern Harriers, Red-tailed Hawks and Bald Eagles, there were hardly any birds to be found along the first stop of my tour. Not exactly the best conditions to start off a birding trip…
Red-tailed Hawk at Alligator River NWR
So, I contacted my guests before the tour day and explained the situation on the ground. My new plan was to spend less time at the Alligator River NWR and add an extra stop at the end of our tour on to find a rare species of bird (a Snow Bunting) on Pea Island. I don’t like to have to change things last minute but I always want to make sure that my guests are getting in the most birds (and the most fun!) out of the time we spend together so this felt like the right move.
Black Bear at the Alligator River NWR
As it turned out, Alligator River NWR was still worth the short visit as there were plenty of opportunities for my guests to spend time photographing the resident Black Bears which was pretty cool!
It was such a joy to see so many happy bird loving photographers getting their first ever shots of a bear. Plus, I got to show the group a family of Bald Eagles hunting Swans in the fields.
All in all, not a bad way to start the day 🙂
Thankfully our next stop on Pea Island came through with thousands of ducks and swans to see swimming on the ponds in the refuge.
American Wigeon at Pea Island NWR
There were Redheads, American Wigeons, Ringnecks, Scaups, Pintails, Gadwalls, Black Ducks, Mergansers, Buffleheads and more including American Avocets, Clapper Rails, Godwits, warblers and sparrows! Plus uncountable numbers of Tundra Swans, geese and American Coots to round out the day’s list which you can see in the photos below.
Lesser black backed Gull
Common Merganser
Savannah Sparrow
Hooded Merganser & Bufflehead
Clapper Rail
Black Duck
Red winged Blackbird
White Ibis
Redhead Ducks
White Pelicans
Pintails, Redheads & Gadwall
American Avocets & Godwits
Tundra Swans
American Coots
Pintail Duck
American wigeon
Assorted Waterfowl
Yellow- rumped Warbler
Ruddy Turnstone
Black bellied Plover
Oh and yes, I was able to deliver that Snow Bunting too (a new lifer-bird for every guest!) which was a total cherry on top.
Snow Bunting at Oregon Inlet
All in all and despite an unexpected start, a wonderful day 🙂 I can’t wait to get back out there for the next tour later this month!
All smiles on the OBX!
If you’d like to join me this winter on a birding trip, click on the dates shown in green on the calendar below for tour availability, locations and booking info.
PS. Shout out to my friend John Carter who completed his goal to go birding in all 100 of North Carolina’s counties!
He say’s that he is now officially retiring from birding (to focus on his Raleigh - Durham Real estate career) and that his last bird of the year was the Snow Bunting we found on this trip 🙂
CONGRATULATIONS JOHN! Hope you come out of bird retirement again someday. Never say never my friend 😉
This past weekend, I led a birding trip to the OBX and was pleased to show my guests a rare wintertime visitor to NC, the Snow Bunting! It was such a joy to see how happy this bird made the people on the tour, so many big smiles, what a great way to cap off the day.
Snow Bunting at Oregon Inlet on Pea Island in the OBX, North Carolina
Dedicated cold weather birds, Snow Buntings breed in the high Arctic. They nest in the crevices and deep cracks of rocks which provide protection from the Arctic winds. Though their nests are thickly lined with grass, feathers and tufts of fur, due to the extreme cold temperatures the female is unable to leave the nest so her mate is wholly responsible for feeding her while she is incubating the eggs.
Often seen with flocks of Longspurs and sparrows, Snow Buntings feed on the ground, foraging for a variety of seeds and buds as well as insects and other small invertebrates, including small marine crustaceans when spending time in coastal areas. This particular bird spent most of its time either on the rocks overlooking the water or on the ground eating grass seed under the bridge along Oregon Inlet.
The Snow Buntings normal wintertime range extends from southern Canada down to Pennsylvania on the east coast, across the upper Midwest over to western Oregon. They are also an infrequent visitor to the coastal areas of Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina. Look for them hiding on the low dunes, short grass/ sand flats, and on rock jetty’s in the OBX from November through February.
Finally colder weather has arrived and with it, new birds are making their way to North Carolina to spend the winter. I’m so excited because this means my favorite time of year is here, weird duck season lol!
These are some of my favorite birds from my trips to the OBX last year. As you can see it’s mostly about waterfowl like Wigeons, Northern Shovelers, Redheads, Tundra Swans, Pintails, Eiders and Scaups but there’s also giant American White Pelicans, Coots, American Avocets and more to find too! And oh yes, there are LOTS of them out there. The barrier islands of the OBX in eastern NC offers superb habitat conditions for visiting migratory waterfowl with large, shallow freshwater ponds and brackish water marshes for the birds to feed in. Every autumn, thousands of ducks, geese and swans arrive to settle in these areas which offers excellent viewing and photographic opportunities for birders and bird photographers alike to get up close to these gorgeous feathered gems.
This means that starting on November 28th, I’ll be making several trips to the coast to lead birding / photography tours in the OBX at Pea Island NWR and the Alligator River NWR from now through February 2022. These trips are an opportunity for us to connect with like-minded bird loving photographers who enjoy the chase as much as we do. On a personal level, I mean where else can I hang out with groups of people who actually want to hear more random bird facts along with chatter about F stops and shutter speeds? Do you know how hard it is to find people like you IRL off of the net? Talk about a “rarity”! Lol! At the end of the day, it’s just nice not to feel alone in this pursuit and incredibly rewarding to know that I can help others move forward on the journey with me. Yeah it’s corny to say out loud but it’s how it is haha 😉 Anyway…if you’d like to join us out there check the calendar below for the Birdwatching NC tour schedule. Book your date today before space is gone.
I’m looking forward to meeting you to go birding this winter!!!
Now that cold weather is right around the corner, it’s time to be on the lookout for our wintertime birds like this Swamp Sparrow. These lovely little ones arrive in North Carolina in early October and although they mostly hang out in our eastern counties their found in varying numbers throughout the state.
Though their name would suggest otherwise, Swamp Sparrows inhabit many types of different habitats including marshes, wetland thickets, bogs and damp fields. The main thing is that they tend to avoid dry forests so look for them in open areas near a water source with tall grass and dense scrub.
As it goes with most species of sparrows, these guys eat a ton of insects during the spring and summer. Unlike others though Swamp Sparrows have extra long legs which they use to wade into shallow water to hunt for aquatic insects. Once autumn arrives and insects become scarce, they’ll switch to eating weed and grass seeds which makes them a little easier to find in accessible field areas vs. their wetland summer habitats. In fact, during the winter Swamp Sparrows will congregate with flocks of Song Sparrows to venture to the edges of agricultural fields and suburban parks to find a snack. They’ll stick around until early May so we’ve still got plenty of time to enjoy these feathered gems in the season ahead.
It’s always a delight to catch a couple photos of a Field Sparrow. I caught a glimpse of this little gem on Friday afternoon at Mid Pines Rd in Raleigh. This species has that prominent white eye ring making them easily identifiable which is a very good thing when trying to figure what kind of sparrow you’re looking at. Plus the white feathers around their eyes give them a sweet faced look that never fails to make me smile whenever I encounter one.
Field Sparrows are a year round resident of North Carolina, yet here in the central part of the state they appear to be found more numerously during the autumn and winter months. Although they are known nest across the state, the numbers of Field Sparrows sighted in the breeding seasons have been in steady decline over the past 20 years. The exact reasons for the dip in are still unclear but the downward trend seems to follow a similar path to the decline in Bobwhite numbers which I would suppose has to do with the loss of rural & agricultural habitat that both species rely on.
As you’d expect, Field Sparrows are found in tall grassy open areas, overgrown fields, hedge line brush and maritime thickets. The roadside fence line along Mid Pines Rd. adjacent to the cow pastures is the perfect place to spot these guys. Grass seeds make up less than 50% of their diet in the summer, but more than 90% in the winter. In the summer they also take adult and larval insects and spiders. Field Sparrows forage on the ground, but look for flocks of them in the grass near some form of plant cover where they can quickly fly into if they need to hide.
So every now and then I goof up an ID…. Recently I was birding at Ebenezer Point at Jordan Lake SRA with a group of fellow bird lovers when we spotted a hawk being pursued by a crow. I was pretty sure it was a Sharp shinned at the time and even pointed it out to the folks with me. ( Ooof! 🤦♀️) Yet once I returned home and was able to get a better look at the bird in the photos, I realized that it was a Coopers Hawk, not a Sharp shinned!
My mistake was in looking at the bird as a whole and (incorrectly) determining that he was slimmer in appearance than he really was. The field marks that point towards Cooper’s hawk are it’s rounded off tail & somewhat larger head (in relation to its body). Plus, the most obvious fact that this bird was nearly as large as the crow which definitely points towards a Coopers Hawk vs. a Sharp shinned.
As it goes with any challenge worth pursuing, sometimes the quickest way to get something right consistently is to be wrong from time to time and learn from our mistakes along the way. Happy birding my friends!
Can you feel it? The cool breeze seeping in under the still warm sun and crisp blue skies. The leaves starting to lose those vibrant greens in the west, fading ever so gently into muted tones soon to blaze red & gold into brown. Yes. Autumn is here in the Carolinas and following on its heels, the most wonderful time of year… Weird duck season!!!
Today we’re all concentrating on the fall migrational movements of Warblers and other songbirds but in my opinion, winter will bring my favorite feathered gems to North Carolina. Redheads, American Wigeons, Green winged Teal, Blue winged Teal, Snow Geese, Tundra Swans, Canvasbacks, Eiders, Pintails, Northern Shovelers and more waiting to delight us once the weather turns cold.
I’ve made the decision to spend as much time as I can this winter traveling to our coastal counties this winter to photograph and share as many duck species as I can from November to February. Although I’ve got a pretty good idea of what I can expect to find out there, there’s always the potential to be surprised and delighted by something new floating out there in the water (or something furry hiding in a cornfield, lol!).
Wanna join me? After all, birding & bird photography is better with friends! Birders / Photographers of all skill levels are welcome and I’ll be sharing plenty of tips along the way. Check out the link below for my winter tour schedule to book your date.
Every once in a while, I start seeing certain species of birds more often than others. In this case I’ve noticed Yellow-throated Vireos seem to be flying around NC in greater numbers than in the past 5 years. I spotted this one snacking on a caterpillar at the Brumley North Nature Preserve this past weekend.
While I don’t know the exact reason for the influx (it could just be luck-right place/right time scenario) I’m certainly happy to to have the opportunity to photograph them again without much effort.
Yellow-throated Vireos favor a different habitat preference to their more often seen relative, the White-eyed Vireo. They tend to shun pine barrens are best found foraging in the high canopy’s of the treetops in old growth deciduous forests and occasionally near wooded streams. Interestingly, the Yellow-throated and White-throated Vireos share similar calls so finding one isn’t too difficult if you know what to listen for depending on if your in the woods vs. the field.
These cheerful little guys will stick around NC for just about a week or so before heading to their wintering grounds in Central and South America, south Florida and on through to the coast of Texas. Get out and enjoy them while you can!
Check out this set of photos from the nesting colony of Black Skimmers on Wrightsville Beach!
I captured these moments last month just after sunrise before the beach got crowded. There were several pairs of Skimmers there taking care of their chicks and plenty of space to observe these beauties from a respectful distance. With all the challenges faced by nesting seabirds, it’s such a joy to see new life thriving on the coast of North Carolina.
Black Skimmers typically nest as a large colony on the sand flats in between the dunes on our barrier islands. One to five eggs are laid into a depression in the sand and are incubated by both parents for around 23 days. The chicks break out of their eggs already covered in downy feathers and can even run around within a few hours of hatching.
During the first few days, one parent will stay with the chick but shortly thereafter the little one will be left alone on the beach while both parents go off to catch its next meal. Despite their mobility, the little ones rely solely on their parents for food and usually scurry off to hide under some beach grass to await their parents return. Aren’t they sweet? 🙂
