Shorebirds and More Shorebirds!

Today, we have been listening to large canons and guns going off since morning. Ft. Fisher, which is about a mile south of us, is having the 145 anniversary of the capture of the Fort from the Confederacy thus pretty much ending the Civil War as this was the last of the forts along the sea coast still held by the South. I was going to stop and see what was going on but their were cars EVERYWHERE and 1000's of people so I may try again tomorrow although it is supposed to rain.

So I turned around and stopped at the "secret" beach access which is just a short way from Ft. Fisher and ventured out onto the beach at low tide so that I could see the tidal pools and maybe glance the black "ducks" again. We have now positively identified them as juvenile Common Eider Ducks, a sea duck which is seen in this area although the pretty adults are generally further north.

I just love all the seaweed and moss covered sandstone rocks that are there. It is so different from the rest of the beach area down here. I walked a bit of the way down the beach and spotted quite a few different birds getting a bite of food from the exposed rocks. I tried to focus on all the different ones and get pictures of them.


I believe these are Red Knots as they were larger than the smaller sanderlings but certainly smaller than the willets. There was a fairly large flock that landed on the rocks.

There are several birds feasting here. They are all in the sandpiper family though. The large one is the common Willet, the one with the dark neckring is a Ruddy Turnstone and the others are Semi-Palmated Sandpipers. There were also a bunch of sanderlings here as well as Red Knots.

This was just one of the willets, I believe.

This was one of the Ruddy Turnstones. They have bright orange legs and get their food by turning over stones (which is obviously where they got their names!). I would love to come back in the summer when these birds have very different plummage -- everyone is more colorful then! I loved all these rocks just covered with seaweed and all different colors.

Of course, there was a large flock of Bufflehead Ducks but they were out away.

No Common Eiders today -- maybe just too many people down the beach!!