The birding marathon begins

After finishing up exams on the 13th, my birding "marathon" of Christmas break began two days later, after a day of recuperation. On Dec. 15, my dad accompanied me to the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, NC where we were hoping to find Lapland Longspurs. To our surprise we instead found a SNOW BUNTING! This is a very rare species inland in North Carolina, and the discovery was even more surprising considering the lack of any sort of cold front in previous days.

After leaving the speedway, we drove about a mile to the Concord Mills shopping mall pond where we easily found the female-type Surf Scoter that has been hanging out there for several days previous. This tiny pond in front of a major shopping mall is about the last place in the world one would expect to find a Surf Scoter, but lo and behold...

We then stopped by Greensboro (well, a little detour) on the way back to Southern Pines that afternoon and after about 20 minutes were able to relocate the Red-necked Grebe at the Lake Brandt Marina.

I followed this up with a relatively uneventful day of birding with Ali Iyoob on the Rocky Mount, NC Christmas Bird Count. After the post-count dinner countdown that evening, Brian Bockhahn asked us if we would want to ride to TN with him and Kyle Kittelberger to see the Hooded Crane...sure!! It didn't mean much that we would miss the Raleigh Christmas Bird Count the next day. So, after driving the hour back to Raleigh, we hopped in with Brian and left shortly after midnight for the 7 hour one way drive. Hooded Crane is an Asian species, and much speculation regarding the origin and "countability" of this individual bird can be found on the Tennessee birding listserv. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful bird.

We arrived at Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge in Meigs County, TN shortly before 8AM. A gaggle of birders was already on scene, and the Hooded Crane was already in numerous scopes. We spent the next hour and a half watching this guy, an immature Whooping Crane, and 1000+ Sandhill Cranes. A crane trifecta!

                                                     Hooded Crane

                Very distant immature Whooping Crane (surrounded by sandhills)

                                                       Sandhill Crane

After arriving back in Southern Pines about 9PM that night, I was preparing for the Southern Pines CBC the following morning. I had persuaded Ali to count with me this year, and a somewhat quiet morning of birding in east Whispering Pines was highlighted by a drake Canvasback (count exclusive) and 2 Palm Warblers. Oddly enough, a Barred Owl we heard while owling pre-dawn was a count exclusive. We ended with 64 species for the morning, and after meeting at Weymouth Woods with all the other count participants for a midday countdown/luncheon we booked it up to Durham where a Greater White-fronted Goose was seen earlier in the day. This species is a somewhat rare winter visitor, with only several reports coming throughout the state every year. We found the bird with no trouble, and it was a lifer for Ali. The next day, we were off to Carteret County for a 3-day birding jaunt with a group of around 10 people...more news and updates coming soon!