Where the Birds Are

Once my finals were finished and our van was packed, myself, David Pavlik, and my dad were off to the outer banks of North Carolina to join a couple pelagic trips to the Gulf Stream. I will attempt to bold all of the birds seen to make this a little easier reading.

Our first day of birding took place on Roanoke Island, where we searched for a few southern/coastal birds to start off our trip. Brown-headed Nuthatches were conspicuous and easy to find at Fort Raleigh and with little effort we were able to pull out a few Seaside Sparrows at the south Roanoke Island marshes. The late afternoon and evening were spent searching fruitlessly for Black Rails in the fly and poison ivy infested swamps of south Roanoke Island. We ended up with a fine selection of marsh birds anyway including several Tricolored and Little Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, Virginia Rails, and a few Clapper/King sounding intermediates. As the night closed in we heard a Chuck-wills-widow and a Northern Bobwhite or two. On a side note, apparently two teenagers wandering through a salt marsh at night counts as suspicious activities, because someone decided they should call the cops on us...

We woke up early the next morning (Saturday, June 10th) for our first pelagic trip of the weekend. We were taking this trip through Brian Patteson's Seabirding company aboard his new boat the Stormy Petrel, which leaves out of Hatteras, North Carolina. It wasnt long before we saw our first Cory's Shearwaters of the trip and the occasional Wilson's Storm-Petrel would buzz by the bow. It wasnt until we reached the gulf stream that we started to get larger numbers of birds. Audubon's Shearwaters were fairly regular and we eventually gathered a small following of Wilson's Storm-Petrels (left) behind the boat. Certainly the highlight of todays trip was the number of Black-capped Petrels (top)that were present...although not overally common, we had fantastic looks at several as they glided past the boat. Occasionally a Band-rumped Storm-Petrel would zip through the Wilson's flock, but they didnt follow the ship and it was often difficult to get good views of them. At some point during the day Brian Patteson called out a distant tropicbird at "9 o'clcok", but unfortunatly no one else was able to get on the bird, which was apparently very far out and dissapeared immediatly. On the ride back to Hatteras we had a Black Tern and a few on board picked up on a flyby Bridled Tern. Once we were back on land, David and I drove up to Cape Hatteras in hopes of picking up a few Black Skimmers. Always an enjoyable site, we were able to see a few of the skimmers skimming across a small salt pond, where there were also a few Least Terns present. Several shorebirds were on a distant shore, including a few Piping Plovers, Short-billed Dowitchers, Semipalmated Plovers, and probably a few White-rumped Sandpipers.

The next day's pelagic proved to be a slightly more active and birds were a little more abundant. Shortly after reaching the Gulf Stream the water became really choppy and more birds were kicked out of the water so Cory's and Audubon's Shearwaters and Black-capped Petrels were a common site over the horizon. These high winds made it more difficult to pick out the otherwise distinctive arching flight of the petrels, because some of the shearwaters were flying in the same manner. A surprise find in the mid-morning was a Manx Shearwater who put in a breif appearence at the bow before dissapearing into the waves. Although a fairly regular winter visitor to North Carolina, Manx is dfficult bird to come across during the summer months and a lifer for a number of people on board. The water soon became calm again and bird numbers dropped off a bit. The following of Wilson's Storm-Petrels was much larger today with maybe 40 or 50 at a time feeding on our slick. A couple Band-rumped Storm-Petrels put in brief appearences again today, but a new addition to the trip list came in the form of 1-2 Leach's Storm-Petrels who showed up for a few moments at the bow. Later in the day a floating piece of wood was found and on that piece of wood was a single young Bridled Tern. We were able to follow him for 5 or 10 minutes and ended up with some great views of this tropical tern. A couple Greater Shearwaters (below) were found during the day and at least one of them came right in to the slick with the Wilson's flock and gave everyone on board steller views.

A couple ferries and a short drives later we arrived that evening in Morehead City, where we could again have access to a reliable Black Rail site. Early on Monday morning, June 12, we arrived at the North River marshes in search of a Black Rail. Unfortnatly we again left empty handed, but were able to find a sizable grouping of flies and mosquitos to entertain us for the morning. An unsuccesful stop at a small marshy boardwalk in the Croatan National Forest failed to produce any Swainson's Warblers, but we had great views of a few Prothonatary Warblers and a Yellow-throated Warbler. Our next stop was also in Croatan National Forest, but farther on the west end to find Red-cockaded Woodpeckers and the other species typical of the area. Just off the road in the Millis savanah area we quickly were able to locate an active nest and were able to watch 1-2 birds regulary bringing food back to their nest cavity. While we were watching them, we also saw and heard several Brown-headed Nuthatches, a Common Nighthawk, and a Red-headed Woodpecker who was often in the same field of view as the Red-cockaded. David picked up on an interesting butterfly here, a Georgia Satyr, which neither of us had seen before. A little farther down the road we walked north up FR168 to a small swampy area again in hopes of a Swainson's Warbler, but this was not to be. However, we had ridiculously good views of several Worm-eating Warblers (below) that were in the area, including two birds that started a territorial dispute and gave off some strange sounding songs that none of us had heard before. Returning to the Pine-oak Savanah habitat we were able to locate a small number of Bachman's Sparrows and managed to record two that were singing back and forth to each other. A couple of Blue Grosbeaks were seen in the area also, but not very satishfying views. The rest of our afternoon was spent searching with a local birder for Painted Buntings, but we never lucked upon any unfortunatly. I should also note here that we found out about all the recently mentioned spots in Croatan County from the advice of one of the locals and the excellent maps of John Fussels Birder's Guide to Coastal North Carolina, without all that help we wouldnt have been able to find half these birds. Unfortunatly our evening search for Black Rails was cut short because of a large thundrestorm moving in and we never managed to hear one of those elusive birds.

On our drive home we mangaged to pull out some more Brown-headed Nuthatches at a rest stop in Virginia, a bird I had only ever heard once before...so I was surprised at how common they were. We also picked out a few Black Vultures on the drive up, but they would not be the last interesting birds of the trip. Thanks to a few postings on the West Virginia listserve, we arrived at yet another Swainson's Warbler location along the Endess Wall Trail near the New Rivre Gorge bridge in West Virginia. Right in the immediate parking lot we had 2 Blue-headed Vireos, the farthest south I had ever seen one in the breeding season. The first half-mile or so of the hike was fairly quite with reletivly few birds. About 3/4 of a mile in we came to a bridge where we soon found a extremely territorial Swainson's Warbler. It was difficult to get any decent views, but we eventually manged to get a few quick looks and even some extremely dark and poor quality pictures.

Again, many thanks to everyone who helped us with directions to the areas we birded and of course Brian Pattesons boat trips into the Gulf Stream. It was an excellent trip and I picked up a good half dozen lifers, all of which were pelagics. The trip list follows this report, with the lifers in bold.