Bird photography can be a challenge which is why I was so happy to get a couple decent shots of this Whimbrel while leading a birding tour near Ft.Fisher last month. The group and I stood on the rocks and watched him moving on the ground as he searched for a bite to eat in the grass. It was particularly satisfying to catch the photo of one in flight as it flew across the water towards an unseen mate! Whimbrels are such elegant creatures and it’s always a joy to see them hunting for a meal along the shore near the basin.
Like most shorebirds, Wimbrels are voracious eaters of invertebrates. Wading in shallow water, they’ll use their long, curved bill to probe deep in the sand and mud in search of crabs, fish, worms and mollusks. The tip of their bill is quite sensitive and allows them to quickly locate prey unseen and buried in the mud. Dedicated omnivores, they’ll also eat insects, seeds, berries, and leaves too when crustaceans are scarce.
Wimbrels are best found on tidal mudflats, including shallow salt or brackish water along the coast of NC. They can also be seen on oceanfront beaches, as well as fresh and brackish pools along the coast, jetties, and other places near open water. They’ll stick around the Tarheel state until early November so you’ve still got plenty of time to go see one this year.
Last week I made a trip down to the Rocks at Ft.Fisher in southeastern NC to do some birding and soak up the early morning sun. It’s wonderful to be out here in the winter when the temperatures are mild and the biting insects are gone. There’s plenty of birds to see too like this American Oystercatcher I found sitting on the long jetty.
I approached the bird carefully as the seaweed covered rocks were still quite slippery from the receding tide. One misstep meant a painful fall into the razor sharp oyster beds lining the sides of the rocks and a broken camera or worse. Luckily, the Oystercatcher stayed out long enough for me to get close enough to grab a few photos and a short clip before it took off towards the shore. Beautiful!
American Oystercatchers are a year round resident of southeastern NC with several hundred of them choosing to spend the winter in the Ft.Fisher area each winter. Each spring, they lay their eggs in shallow depressions in the sand among large nesting colonies of Terns, Skimmers and Plovers. Unlike it’s nesting neighbors who hunt for fish above the water and dig for shellfish and marine worms on the sandy shoreline, Oystercatchers prefer to look for it’s namesake snack in exposed sand bars and mudflats during low tides. They’ll also forage on rocks, such as those found at jetties and around bridge pilings. Aren’t they beautiful?
One of my favorite things to do when birdwatching in southeastern North Carolina is to hit the beach to see what birds are swimming in the Atlantic. I got lucky recently when I spotted this small raft of Black Scoters hunting just offshore. Normally these ducks are gone by April (headed to Canada & Alaska to breed) so I was pleasantly surprised to see them!
Black Scoters are best found swimming in the shallow ocean areas hunting for a meal of mollusks, crabs, and clams. They typically hunt as a group diving to the bottom of the sea floor to catch a snack. As seen in these photos, these guys are powerful divers!
On the surface of the water with their wings closed, they seem to leap above the water and neatly slice into the water, disappearing in the blink of an eye. Sometimes they propel themselves with their feet and then use their half-extended wings to help shoot themselves straight to the bottom.
Come October, these handsome ducks will return to the Tarheel state in greater numbers. They’ll spend the winter here and can be best watched swimming in the ocean by viewing on a pier or via a boat. Aren’t they cool looking birds? I love Scoters!
Here’s an immature male Orchard Oriole that I found in my own yard earlier this week. He was hunting for insects in the trees at the edge of a field along my property line. With as much traveling as I do, it was nice that I only had to walk a couple feet from my back porch to find this beautiful bird!
Orchard Orioles are the smallest species in this family of black and orange/reddish colored birds. Juvenile male Orchard Orioles like the bird featured in the first two photos are a orange-ish yellow color with a black beard of feathers running down their chests below their bills.
*The third photo in this post shows an adult male Orchard that I photographed at Harris Lake Park and the fourth pic is one that I photographed at Ft. Fisher NC. As you can see, there is quite a difference in appearance between the young and mature birds. In fact, it takes almost 2 years for the young males to molt into the reddish and black colored plumage of the adults.
Orchard Orioles are summertime residents of North and may be found throughout the state through late August. They are often spotted in groves of trees in the middle or edges of fields (like this one) looking for a six or eight legged snack. Although they primarily dine on insects, they will also eat fruit and will even sip nectar from flowers or hummingbird feeders when available too! Aren’t they lovely?
I had an excellent weekend birding with my guests during our recent trip to the Ft.Fisher SRA in southeastern NC. We saw a nice variety of species and although the Painted Buntings proved to be somewhat elusive to find, we finally spotted a few both at Ft.Fisher & Carolina Beach which was a win in my book ; )
It was a lot of fun to spend time with people who love this birding/photography life as much as I do. I mean where else can I relate to folks better when I say, “hey let’s go try for one more pic” or “do you mind if we travel to another spot to see if we can get just one more bird” and the answer is always a resounding YES!
One of the best moments from the trip was trying to see the Clapper Rails at the Rocks at Ft.Fisher. When I’d call out to them those darn birds would answer me loudly in unison like a crowd of drunk hecklers at a stand up show. Yet, they stayed hidden and we only saw one once when it briefly flew out of the tall grass before landing again. So frustrating lol! I wish I could have got a photo of those guys (there were several of the Clapper Rails hiding in the marsh) but gosh it was such a funny thing for us to hear them laughing at us that I can’t help but think that’s a moment I’ll never forget. Truly a colorful happy memory as good as any photo I could have caught.
I can’t wait to return here next week! If you’d like to join me out there check out the link below for booking information!
arrived about an hour early to my birding location to do a bit of scouting as is my habit before my tour guests were to arrive. While walking along the path through the salt marsh at Ft.Fisher N.C., I heard a familiar noise coming from the grass. “Keccckk, kecckkk, keccckk”. A Clapper Rail! I haven’t seen one of these in years! Picking up the pace, I jogged over to a pile of brush (possibly an overturned tree) and there, standing nonchalantly right next to the path on a pile of dead grass, was the sweetest juvenile Clapper Rail I’d ever seen.
Now normally these birds high tail it away once their spotted but this little one couldn’t care less that I was 10 feet away. As I stood there taking these photos, what I presume to be a parent bird called out from a hidden space in the grass nearby. I tried to locate the second bird but it was well concealed.
Clapper Rail
Clappers are staple bird of the eastern seaboard of the United States, calling home at a distance stretching from New England down to Florida and even reaching into the Texas coast. You’d think that with such a wide range these handsome brown birds would be seen more often than not, but their sneaky behavior and appearance aid them in avoiding detection. This bird was one of only a handful that I’ve ever seen in my life and I could not be happier for it 🙂 Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on the mighty @canonusa #5ds
While birding at Ft.Fisher N.C. last weekend, I spotted a handsome Willet sitting on some rocks along the shoreline. These medium sized shorebirds are commonly found along the coast of North Carolina throughout the year. During the summer breeding season, they are a warm brown color. In the cooler months they are dressed in a mottled gray plumage.
Willet
You’ll often find these birds in marshes, bays and at the beach where they are scavenging for small crabs, worms, snails and various invertebrates. They hunt for their food by probing into the sand and gravel with their bill, using their sense of touch to find a meal as much as they do using their sight! Because Willets use the sensitive tip of their bills to search for food, these birds are able to eat during the night and daytime which I find fascinating 🙂 I’m looking forward to returning to Ft.Fisher tomorrow morning and hope that I’ll be able to photograph one of these lovely birds again! Photo by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc @canonusa #5ds
A few days ago, I had the chance to head down to the Surf City, N.C. area to photograph a home for a real estate listing. The interesting thing was that the owners and the real estate agent from Intracoastal Realty specifically wanted me to photograph the birds found in their yard and in the local area too!
A Red-winged Blackbird black-birding as hard as he can in a backyard of a home in Surf City N.C.
Knowing that this property was a fantastic place to view all kinds of shorebirds as well as Painted Buntings and Boat-tailed Grackles made me the happiest birder/ photographer ever! I couldn’t wait to get started
Love this view! Could totally picture sipping coffee and spotting winter migrants moving around in the marsh from here.Great EgretsGreat Egret Brown Pelican
I arrived at sunrise to capture pictures of the home, then spent the morning photographing the birds in the inter coastal marsh which was the backyard.
I thought it was really cool that this house was just a short walk away from the front door! No need to worry about finding a parking spot for 24/7/365 beach access. Priceless!
I also took a 3 min walk right across the street to take some photos of the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous out there! From Snowy Egrets to Pelicans, a Painted Bunting and Purple Martins, I ticked 15 different species in under 10 minutes so all in all, a wonderful to start the day!
Surf City beach home for sale on Sandy Lane. Any place that boasts Painted Buntings right in the backyard is a birders paradise in my book!
It would be pretty awesome to live at this home if you’re a birder, that is for sure 🙂 If you’d like to see the house & property, here’s a link below…
After finishing up at the house, I headed out to nearby Kenneth Batts Family Park in Surf City to see what else I could find.
Boat Tailed GrackleBlack Skimmers
About two minutes after I my feet hit the boardwalk, I spotted a pair of Black Skimmers flying low over the water hunting for food. Check them out in action in the video at the top of this page! So cool!
Hiding in the shadows, a Painted Bunting in a backyard in Surf City, NC
After a quick lunch break, I took a relatively short drive south to the Ft. Fisher SRA in search of the perfect Painted Bunting shot. I’d found a couple earlier that day in Surf City but they were hiding in the shadows so the photos weren’t great, lol!
White Ibis at Ft. FisherA Willet at Ft. FisherLaughing Gull
I chose Ft. Fisher because it offers the ideal habitat needed for finding Painted Buntings and other wonderful shorebirds.
Painted Bunting at Ft. FisherWell worth searching for, a colorful male Painted Bunting at Ft. Fisher, N.C.
Within just a few minutes of walking, the scrubby dense brush piles and open areas yielded me what I’d been searching for, a gorgeous male Painted Bunting singing away on his perch in perfect light. Success!
