You Can't Get Away From the Birds Down Here - Back to Carolina Beach Lake!

I had pretty much eliminated Carolina Beach Lake from my daily sightings as last year there were literally no birds but the ever present Mallards and a few American Coots.  I went down to check on the Coot population this year as the lake is covered with algae and the fountains are not going like they were last year.  I was shocked to see this Canvasback Duck which is a duck I have only seen one other time and that was up at Matamuskeet where all the ducks winter and even then I only saw one at a distance.  It is a relatively common duck but I just haven't seen them.  He likes to hang out in the middle of the lake though which makes photography a challenge!  You can see his defining characteristics here though, red head, black neck and top of head and beak and stark white back.  I have been down there each day trying to get the perfect photo without a lot of luck!

 Here he is with what I think are female Red-headed ducks and male and female mallards.

 A picture from another day but you can see his eye here.  It is very difficult to get good pictures of very  high contrast birds in the water and he is high contrast!!

This picture and the next were taken as he shook himself off after a dive.  He dabbles mostly but occasionally dives for some food.

His wings are back here.

These Mallards in the sun just were begging for their picture to be taken.

A couple of the American Coots with their friend the Killdeer were standing by the side of the lake.

This group of Ibis were standing around today waiting for the rain.  Rare to see them all with their bills out of the water!!

A couple were preening by the side of the lake with even more Killdeers.  You can see the black tips on their wings clearly here.  These are mature adults.  The juveniles are brown.

I believe these are female Redheads as they just look too light to be Scaups and their heads are too round.  There were three of these hanging out with the Canvasback.

Our house is a block from the beach with no obstructions.  the other day sitting on the porch reading I noticed a large number of Gannets diving at our beach access so I went down to see if I could get a closer look.  There were probably a 100 of them altogether, both adults and  one and two year juveniles.  They were diving like crazy.  You can see a couple of them have just left the water.  This went on for about an hour.  Last year there was a HUGE occurrence of these in January over a two day period -- 1000's of these seabirds.  They are one of my favorites down here.

They were pretty far out but this is a pretty good closeup of one.  They are large, mostly bright white with a beige head and black wing tips.  They are so large and striking, you can see then from a distance,

A just one more sunrise picture -- this doesn't happen very often (getting the pictures that is)!!

Now I Know Where the Birds are at Ft. Fisher!!

My birding friend Bruce said he was going to be down by the Ft. Fisher Ferry to try to spot the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher again so I decided that grocery shopping could wait and met him down there.  As I live so close by, I wondered down to the boat launch and saw all these kayaks waiting to go out on one of those guided tours to Zeke Island.  You can see what a beautiful day it was.  That is a Great Egret in the background (the white dot!).

There were five Ruddy Turnstones right by the ramp.

This lovely Snowy Egret was fishing in a little pond by the parking lot.  I see lots and lots of Great Egrets but not so many of the Snowy Egrets.

By the visitor parking lot (which I didn't even know existed), there is a large field with a fence keeping you out of a federally patrolled area.  There were lots and lots of Eastern Phoebe's perching on the fence.  I couldn't get too close without them flying off.  

I was still quite a distance but FINALLY saw the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher which has been hanging around for a few days now.  You don't normally find these in this area so he was a bit lost.  His tail feathers are not as full as they will be.  There were of course other birders there.  Bruce came down and joined me and pointed out a number of other birds in the trees.  During the migration, this is a good place to come.  It is a little late this year to see all the warblers, but I will know next year!

He is actually eating a fly in this picture!

As I got closer to him, he flew to the top of this tree where Bruce says he hides.  Amazingly while we were there, a hawk was casing him out but he saw the hawk before we did and flew away.  He has been here for almost a week now.

Not sure what kind of sparrow this is.  The consensus is that this is a Song Sparrow, a bird I have seen a bit down here.

Again, I think this is a Palm Warbler. There were a ton of the Yellow Rumped Warblers around as well.

Bruce then showed me another pathway down by the aquarium where there is a small pond and several walkways.  We saw Yellow Bellied Sapsuckers, Flickers, Meadowlarks, Titmouse and a Merlin (we think).  There were no opportunities for good pictures though.  I truly can't believe I live right next door to this veritable bird sanctuary.

At least I was able to show him where I took all the butterfly pictures as he was going to try for some as well!

Another Visit to Greenfield Lake Park

This female Anhinga was really far far away but thought she was rather stunning and posed for quite some time!  I had seen two others earlier but they were also far away!


My daughter and  my husband wanted to try to walk around Greenfield Lake so I let them off and I explored around the amphitheatre area the whole time they were gone.  The bush where so many butterflies had congregated was over the hill so I didn't see all the beautiful butterflies I saw last week.  Thanks to a local butterfly guy, I did get the Skipper from the other day identified -- it is an Ocola Skipper which is fairly common in the south in the fall.  

I did see several warblers and the Redstarts were the most prominent but also saw a Palm Warbler as well as my old favorite the Yellow Rumped Warbler.  There may have been others but a wedding was being set up at the gazebo with a guitar player practicing with a microphone -- not conducive to seeing or hearing lots of birds!

I think this Great Egret is always in the same place at the lake!  He also posed nicely for me on this beautiful day yesterday.

Not uncommon, but the first time I have seen down here -- a Red Bellied Woodpecker  hammering away on one of the trees oblivious to the wedding prep!

Not sure if I have identified this correctly, but think it is an Oak Toad -- it was very small and dark.  They are identified by the stripe down the back which seemed very light but the other toads were all much larger.

I didn't see this at the park, but at my neighbor's on one of their bushes.  I included it as it is the first time I have seen a hummingbird down here on the island although my neighbor had kept telling me she was seeing them all the time!!  I had thought I was photographing one of the elusive dragonflies when I took this picture!

A Really Cold Blustery Day

Although the sun was shining brightly, the winds were probably at least 20 mph along the beach. I decided to see what I could see down at Ft. Fisher anyway both at the end and where the walking path is.  You can see all the white caps in the background here.  Without binoculars, it is really hard to pick out any birds in that kind of surf but luckily the Northern Gannets come closer to shore during this brisk weather so I was finally able to get some nice shots of them -- and there were a flock of them diving and flying.  They are a large bird with a wing span of about 27 inches and they look very regal.

Here you can clearly see his black tipped wings and his beige head.  I have seen a lot of these but none good enough to get anything but a picture for identification.

Another Gannet flying in the other direction.

This was a juvenile Gannet with his speckled wings.  I got a lot of good shots of him both from above and below!

I also headed down to the end of the island to see if the Hooded Mergansers, Horned Grebes or Oystercatchers were there.  The first bird I saw was this Red Breasted Merganser who moved away as soon as he spotted me.  He was having a bad hair day with all the wind!  I have seen these down here before but not this year.

There were a lot of Oystercatchers as well and I can't seem to get enough of this beautiful bird with his bright red-orange beak.  Warren said they were all over the stone wall at high tide the other day when he was out kayaking.

Here you see a couple of Oystercatchers, an Ibis and a Snowy Egret.

Last but certainly not least is a Forster's Tern.  I have seen a lot of these but they are always flying rapidly so I have had difficulty getting a picture to identify them for sure but this one did it!

In the morning of the super cold day, I again saw a phenomenon I have seen on several cool days -- rainbows in the clouds that spread out.  When the sun is low in the sky, it will produce "Sundogs" where the rainbows culminate in a couple of bright lights on the side of the sun.  This is caused by the ice crystals on the cold days.  I think I never saw them in Rochester as it is just so overcast all the time in winter where I am near Lake Ontario.  For fun, I just had Picasa take one of these pictures and applyed "I'm Feeling Lucky" to it which resulted in the picture below.

Now if I could just dye that.....you can see why this appealed to me!!!

Another Quilt Done....Only Two to Go

As I don't have a decent design wall down here, had to photograph the latest "serendipity" quilt on the floor so it is a little askew.  I have even finished another except for the binding as the weather has been a little chilly for sitting outside and reading which is how I spend many days when the weather is nice!  The temps have actually been in the 30s a couple of mornings -- I am getting to be a whiny southerner about weather these days and would prefer not to have to break out my coat at all!

We have had some beautiful sunny days though which did allow me to get pictures of some birds that I hadn't gotten good pictures of before as well as seeing some of my old favorites again.  A lot of those pictures will be in my next blog with hopefully the next finished quilt!

This is one of the frequently seen sparrows down here -- the Savannah Sparrow which I have seen each winter.  He seems to be building a nest somewhere.

Can't believe I saw another Kingfisher, this one down at Ft. Fisher where I see my Oystercatchers!  It is another male.  They are turning into what my BIL calls "flivers" or frequently seen birds not worth taking pictures of!!

The other day I spotted this juvenile Black Crowned Night Heron on a perfectly beautiful day sitting up in a tree.  A treat to see one awake while it is still light out.

I even got a good enough photo so you can see a closeup of his beak and eye here.

Even the Boat Tailed Grackles are pretty on a nice day.  Here are Heckel and Jeckel down at Ft. Fisher.

This is a collage of pictures I took of the live oaks and the path down at Ft. Fisher.  I love the curves and color of this canopy of trees.

One of My Favorites!

It was another very grey day down at Ft. Fisher but the parking lot was totally empty and I spotted a large flock of "ducks" so settled in to see what they were.  Turns out it was a rather large flock of Hooded Mergansers (one of my favorites), both males and females mixed in with a flock of Horned Grebes (which I had only seen one other time at Carolina Beach Lake).  It was very dark but you can get an idea of the coloring and marks.  This is the male Hooded Merganser with his crest up which they do when doing courtship moves -- I actually thought there were two different kinds of ducks initially as I didn't realize the crest went up and down, depending on their mood.  They begin their courtship patterns in mid-winter according to the Stokes.

Here is crest is down so you see  he does look a bit different.

Here are several of the males with one of the females who aren't as pretty.  There is also one of the Horned Grebes (kind of fuzzy) in the foreground.

You can see the females and two Horned Grebes in this picture.

This is my "one of each" picture with a male Merganser, female and then the Horned Grebe in front!

This gives a side view and a front view of the Hooded Merganser.

You can see how many Horned Grebes were there in this picture.  They were frequently under water.

I saw this behavior several times and couldn't quite figure out why they were laying on their sides like this.  They did this for awhile and they were in a bit of a feeding frenzy at the time.  As soon as I approached them, they swam way out but when I went back to my car and waited, they slowly came back into view.  I think the secret is to get down there when no one is around.  These were all at the foot of Ft. Fisher where the boar ramp is.

Not to be outdone, a male Kingfisher also came to visit!

A nice Tricolor Heron also came to visit along with a beautiful Snowy Egret (first one I have seen down here this year although a very common bird).

He was heading toward the Tricolor.

He was sitting up on the dock here and you can see his coloring clearly.

I am actually working on machine quilting another of the Serendipity quilts as sitting outside reading just isn't nice on these dreary "Rochester" days.  I have also been working on the hand quilting on the Baltimore Album and am starting to doubt that it will be done in time for the quilt show but another month should give me a better idea of timing.

It was a good birding day but not a good day for photography!!  These pictures were taken with the Canon SX40 with a zoom of about 88x (it has an optical zoom of 35X and then you can increase by using digital zoom).  They were just too far away for my good camera!

One of the female Hooded Mergansers came in a little closer early on so you can see a bit more detail here.