Tag Archives: ft fisher birdwatching tour

Field Notes, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

Catching a good photo of a Whimbrel

By Sally Siko

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.

Photos by @sally_siko of @bestlife_birding on my beloved full frame 50MP beast, the mighty @canonusa #5Ds

Field Notes, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

American Oystercatchers at Ft.Fisher NC

By: Sally SIko

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?

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on my beloved beast, the mighty mirrorless @canonusa#R5

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina

Birding tour summery from Ft.Fisher North Carolina

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!

BIRDING TOURS AT FT.FISHER

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on the full frame beast of an SLR, the mighty @canonusa
#5Ds

Birding Trips and Tours North Carolina, Field Notes, The Adventures of your bird watching Admin

A clapper Rail sighting at Ft. Fisher North Carolina

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