It's been a busy year on the birding front. For one thing, I finally topped 300 life species, but I did a few other things I hadn't done before. I made it to South Florida for the first time, visited Cape May for the spring birding festival, saw my first American Peregrine Falcon, and kept my first year list, which, barring some new arrival in the next week, will end up at 166 species for calendar year 2004. In some ways, though, I was happiest about the way I ended my birding year: by visiting some past haunts with old friends and family.
Kelly's mom holds her annual family Christmas celebration on the Saturday before Christmas. Our plan was to drive down on Friday evening and return on Monday, which meant I'd have a couple of days in which to unwind from the classroom grind, but I was unsure how best to do that. On a whim, I decided to call Mary Stevens, my former colleague at Pine Forest Senior High, who first got me out and counting birds over a decade ago. I was wondering if Raven Rock State Park might be holding its Christmas count over the weekend.
As it happens, I'd hit the jackpot: Raven Rock, in Harnett County, was holding its count on Saturday, while the Cumberland County count was scheduled for Sunday. All I had to do was get up early on Saturday and drive to Mary's house in Lillington.
This sounded much easier to do when I went to bed in Fayetteville after a five-hour drive than it turned out to be when the alarm went off at 5:30. Fayetteville is about 45 minutes from Lillington, but I managed to stagger to the car, swing by a gas station, load up on unleaded and caffeine, turn Cake's
Comfort Eagle up very loud, and pull into Mary's driveway at more or less the agreed-upon time of 6:30. Mary met me with the traditional hug and the traditional cup of coffee, though in celebration of my return to the fold, she had brewed up a pot of Jamaica Blue Mountain. Smooooooooooooth. Thus fortified, we set out for our count area in her Toyota minivan, accompanied by her friend Molly, who carried our Official Clipboard and served as scribe for the entire morning; this alone should get her enough karma points to avoid several cycles of reincarnation.
We first went to some spots I didn't recognize, logging dozens of Kinglets (both Ruby-crowns and Golden-crowns), plus a Pileated Woodpecker and a flock of Cedar Waxwings. At one man-made pond we logged six male Mallards and a pair of Wigeons, but we were somewhat puzzled by the conspicuous absence of some very common birds: where were the Grackles? The Cowbirds? How had we gone all morning without seeing a single Turkey Vulture? The latter may have been laying low--literally--because the cold, clear weather might be providing little in the way of the thermal air currents they use to soar, but we couldn't figure any reason for the lack of Grackles. (We did eventually see one behind the McDonald's in Angier when we stopped for a bathroom break.)
The most delightful feature of the day, however, was the presence of birds of prey in great number, great variety, and great visibility. We pulled over beside a sweet gum tree when we spotted a Red-shouldered Hawk, its robin-red underparts practically glowing in the rosy light of morning. When it sailed over to a slightly more comfortable perch a few trees over, it was joined by its mate, and we were treated to perfect looks at their black-and-white barred tails. While we stood admiring them, the gum gree suddenly filled with small songbirds--winter-plumage Goldfinches, their faded yellow feathers given new brightness in the morning light, acrobatically dangling from gumballs and pecking at seeds. The hawks paid them no mind, perhaps worried that we were using the finches as bait, but soon we heard the call of a White-breasted Nuthatch on the same tree, then saw it spiraling down the trunk, headfirst.
We spotted a Cooper's Hawk across the street from a loudly barking dog that Mary had met before, and then we made our way to a place I remembered well: Pope's Pond, the fishing pond where Mary had taken me to see my first Prothonotary Warbler. (She remains generally pleased with her portrayal in
The Verb 'To Bird', I think, but she does insist that whenever possible I make it clear to everyone that the name "Pythagorean Warbler" is a
joke. Got it?) The pond owners no longer rent boats or charge for fishing, and there's now a housing development up the hill from it, but it's still a stirring sight. Unfortunately, we were there at a time when every single bird in the cypress swamp below the dam was completely backlit, leaving us with no field marks whatsoever with which to identify them. Well, yes, we were able to ID the Great Blue Heron with no real difficulty, but the dozens of sparrows in the flooded forest were completely anonymous. Perhaps even more oddly, the pond itself (actually a good-sized lake) was almost completely devoid of bird life. We saw one Ring-necked Duck land on the water, but nothing else.
A need for some quick bladder relief sent us to Angier, but after we came back, we passed near the turn-off to Pope's Pond again and Mary pulled the van over with a cry of "Hawk!" Sure enough, in a small tree just across the road was a large Cooper's Hawk, its barred underbelly, yellow eyes, rounded tail, and long yellow talons clearly visible. It held its position for a long while, then sailed across the road to settle in an even smaller tree that was even closer to the van--no more than thirty feet away. There it sat, showing itself off in its full predatory glory, determined that no mere minivan would drive it away from its hunting ground.
From there we went to a pony farm, one which Mary and Molly had apparently visited before; indeed, Mary kept talking about one pony that had taken a more-than-passing interest in Molly, and referred to its home as the "Horny Pony Farm." We didn't mention that name when we arrived, which is one reason the kindly owner let us wander his pasture freely. There was one pony on whom we kept a close eye, but he behaved in a gentlemanly fashion while we logged Bluebirds, Pine Siskins, a few Pied-billed Grebes, and one unidentifiable sparrow who sat on a post in plain view for five minutes, but wouldn't turn toward us enough to show any useful field marks. After strolling around the pond, we scared up a long-billed shorebird that my Sibley Guide called "Wilson's Snipe." This gave me a bit of excitement until I realized that it was just the new name for the Common Snipe, which I'd seen with Mary some years before.
On our way back to the car, however, we spotted an upright bird of prey perched atop a bare tree beside the pond. Even before I brought my binocs to bear, there was no question about its general size (larger than a Kestrel) and tail shape (squared); moreover, it had vertical streaks on its pale breast. It was a Merlin, sort of the economy-sized version of the Peregrine Falcon. I've seen them before, and I didn't feel any doubt at all when I called out "Merlin." When it took off, its long pointed falcon wings and dark back made the call even more obvious. Nonetheless, Mary insisted that I'd have to fill out an report for the count, and as it happened, she was right. I wrote Ranger Paul Hart a good-sized paragraph detailing my reasons for the identification, and they were copious. The only uncertainty I have is the bird's sex; the rosy light made it hard to tell whether its back was dark brown (which would make it female) or grey (male). I think it was female, but hey, I'm not going to make a call on something I'm not sure about.
We finished the day with 55 species, including several I hadn't seen in some time (a Loggerhead Shrike and a Spotted Sandpiper), and Mary and I agreed to meet the next morning for the Cumberland County count. The catch: this time I'd be bringing along my brother-in-law!
IN OUR NEXT INSTALLMENT:
Swift Bird Veterinarians! 9:28 PM
