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We weren't totally successful at providing nice weather for our "fair weather" Florida relatives this past weekend! My sister and her hubby came up for a short visit and we tried to provide some birding for them and managed a little before they left. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the weather deteriorated but the birding improved just as they left!! Our first day we went to the Basin trail to see the Hooded Mergansers and down to Carolina Beach State Park.. We also made frequent visits to the boat ramp at Ft. Fisher as you just never know.... The second day we took them to Greenfield Lake and the Arboretum but both were free of birds for the most part. This scene is of some of the swampy part of Greenfield Lake and one of my favorite scenes with the cypress and the algae. The alligators like it over here but it was far too cold for any alligators!
The Hooded Mergansers were showing off their fine feathers and were doing all sorts of dancing behaviors and Bill and I watched for some time.
There were also some Ruddy Ducks mostly sleeping and a female Hooded Merganser in the foreground. No diving today!!
There were a lot of Horned Grebes down by the boat ramp.
We spotted this juvenile Cooper's Hawk sitting in a tree at Carolina Beach State Park.
Sunday morning brought extra icky cold windy weather which is perfect for sighting Northern Gannets from the porch!! Gail was the first to see them! They are a beautiful very large elegant bird which usually spends its time out over the ocean except for these stormy days when you see lots of them.
All we saw at Greenfield Lake were a Pied Billed Grebe and another Ruddy Duck. There was an area which was just filled with Great Egrets which only I got out in the cold and photographed!! I liked the background of the trees.
This is my sister Gail and her husband Bill in front of the most beautiful Japanese maple (which doesn't show unfortunately) at the Arboretum.
The Camellias were blooming and this is a nice pansy garden for all my northern friends!! It is cold but we have flowers here all year round!!
Tomorrow pictures of all the birds that came down to the boat ramp on the morning that they left (but fortunately which they were able to see on their way to the ferry and going home).
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!
It was a beautiful day for a walk down along the water at Ft. Fisher. The water was calm and a Caribbean blue.
This is one of the pathways leading down to the water. It is supposedly not safe for swimming here but people fish and the surfers love it for the long waves.
I have probably taken pictures of this view many times before but it is just so pretty!
As soon as I got down there, I noticed that there were 100's of butterflies all over. I have never seen so many butterflies congregated in one place outside of those museum exhibits!! I managed to identify 8 different species but I am sure there were others that I missed -- they do tend to flit a bit!! The most common one today was the Common Buckeye pictured here. I think all the butterflies know that cold weather is coming tomorrow -- it was glorious out today!
This is a male Common Checkered Skipper. You can see it is fairly small as it is resting on a painted daisy. I hadn't seen this one before.
This is a side view of an American Lady. I only managed one picture with open wings -- they aren't as pretty on top as they are on the bottom!
I now believe this is a Southern Skipperling as the European Skipper is really not found locally.
I believe this is an Ocola Skipper which I have seen at Greenfield Park Lake. Hard to tell but I didn't see any white spots on the side.
This is a Grey Hairstreak which I first saw just the other day at Carolina Beach State Park.
This is the Gulf Fritillary which was the second most common butterfly I saw today. I have pictured those many times and they do like to pose!
This is the Cloudless Sulphur, also very common around here and shows how butterflies got their name!!
This is a Buckeye and a Grey Hairstreak sharing a flower. I saw multiple butterflies inhabiting the same flowers, but usually the same species. The Buckeye looks very different from below as many butterflies do.
I believe this is a Grapeleaf Skeletonizer moth. Didn't want to leave the moths out altogether!
The weather has been truly wonderful down here with skies a deep azure blue -- the perfect backdrop for the sea oats and stones on the beach at Ft. Fisher. Ft. Fisher (and Wilmington for that matter) attained some notice because of the recent film Lincoln which talks quite a bit about those last battles in the Civil War during the first 30 minutes of the movie. My youngest daughter's FIL was extremely intrigued by the history of this area which he read up on after his last visit. Evidently Wilmington was (unknown to the North for much of the time) one of the main ports through which the South got their materials from foreign sympathizers. How cool is it to live in such a historic and also beautiful area.
I know I have showed pictures of the Live Oaks before but the lines are just so beautiful and they are all around the park.
Look at that blue sky!
This was not Photoshopped. I wasn't even sure that the camera would capture the gradation of the blue color in the sky -- not often you take a picture of 90 per cent sky!! I wanted inspiration for a piece I am going to make this winter using some lovely batiks I was gifted last year.
Again, I was just taking pictures of things that appealed to me. Here were Painted Daisies (which are everywhere down here) growing through the planking leading to the gazebo.
Another very tiny wildflower. I thought it was in the aster family and it is -- Youngia or Hawk's-beard. It grows year round and I think I saw it in the spring as well.
I was at the south end of the Ft. Fisher walk and saw what I thought were large black ducks in the distance. There were quite a few of them bobbing in the water. On closer inspection, however......
There were a lot of Laughing Gulls also which are now very easy to identify as they almost have their full summer plummage -- the bright black heads not present in the winter.
They have begun beach renourishment and this dredge has been up and down the coast in front of our house three or four times a day. They get the sand from way out and bring it in to renourish the shores. There are huge piles of pipes on the beach which will carry it onshore eventually. Warren says he has spotted huge bulldozers deep in the water.
I can't resist the live oaks down at Ft. Fisher on a nice day -- just such wonderful shapes.
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