Some winter birding highlights, and a reaffirmation

It's been over three years since my last real activity on the blog. With finishing up my BS degree and giving graduate school a stint, I guess I never really found the motivation to keep up-to-date posts on here even though I traveled fairly extensively and found numerous adventures during that time. However, now that I am out of school and embarking upon my quest for happiness, knowledge, fulfillment, and purpose I feel that I should transform this blog into a regularly-updated, helpful selection of writings that will inspire other birders, conservationists, and travelers alike.  Of course, birding will always stay a primary focus of my writings and musings but I look forward to expanding out to touch on other topics and experiences as well.

    To look back on the last few months, here are a few birding highlights from my winter travels in North Carolina and Tennessee.

Snow Bunting

    I spent a blustery day birding around Chattanooga, TN on December 7, 2014  in hopes of finding some good waterfowl on the surrounding lakes. My morning was going well after finding a super-late Osprey soaring over a local wetland and a handful of Common Goldeneye hanging out in their usual wintering spot in Chickamauga Lake at Booker T. Washington State Park. A dawn vocalizing Virginia Rail and Sora at Standifer Gap Marsh, along with a near sweep of all expected dabbling ducks, provided some good county birds. However, the real surprise of the day came when I stopped at Chickamauga Dam. Windy and blustery, I wasn't having much luck with distant waterfowl on the lake and was about to leave when a local birder, Tommie Rogers, pulled up. We had met briefly before, and engaged in some serious birding yik yak. About 15 minutes later, we caught a glimpse of a small bird fly in front of her parked Prius and land on in the rocky scree slope on the bottom of the dam. Curious, I peered over the edge to get an ID on the little guy. Lo and behold, a Snow Bungint was sitting on top of a rock about 20 feet away! I quickly got my camera out of the backseat and snapped a few documentary photos- surely this was quite an unusual bird for TN in general, particularly this southeastern corner of the state. Tommie and I got to watch it for about 45 seconds before it took off and flew over the lake to the NE, not to come back. She quickly got the word out to some local birders who arrived in ten minutes or less. But despite much searching, and subsequent visits by locals to nearby shorelines, it was never relocated. I soon learned that my photos of the bird would constitute one of very few photographed records from the state, and perhaps only the first or second accepted record from southeastern Tennessee. Cool!! And on the way back to Knoxville, I had to stop and enjoy the spectacle of the Sandhill Cranes at Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge again. I would soon revisit Hiwassee yet again in January with my parents. 5000+ cranes sure is an impressive sight to see!

Sandhill Cranes from January, 2014 (can you spot the Snow Geese?)

    Of course, I would do my usual round of NC Christmas Bird Counts in December. This year, I believe I did 7 (around my running average). Without running into too much detail, a few of many avian highlights were self-found Eared Grebe (Pamlico Co. CBC), Mottled Duck, Razorbills, and 5 Parasitic Jaegers (Southport CBC; Fort Fisher). It's a treat to bird with Ricky Davis and Jeff Pippen every year on the Southport count- Ricky has some of the sharpest eyes I've ever seen, and they are both great company. Matt Daw and I did our regular CBC rounds through Cape Hatteras (where we found 4 of the 5 continuing Snow Buntings, but the Lapland Longspur was nowhere to be found), Bodie-Pea Island, Lake Mattamuskeet, and Alligator River NWR again this year. Birds were plentiful as always, but we had no super-rarities here this year. Rainy and/or windy weather at Lake Mattamuskeet and Alligator River made viewing conditions difficult at times. We did our usually territory of Gull Rock Gamelands for the Mattamuskeet count again this year, and were joined my Kyle Kittleberger and Ed Corey. Despite a very wet day, we absolutely blasted away our previous high count for the territory with 105 species between us (our previous high was about 96 I believe), all before 2pm on a dreary, wet day. 

    It was also good to catch up with an old friend, Casey Setash, and do some birding around Fort Fisher NC for a day while she was on her way home from a productive jaunt to south FL. We found some solid birds, including killer views of all 3 marsh sparrows in the same patch (you don't get that too often!!) and a few lifers for Casey along the way. 

    One last highlight from December/January was a day jaunt up to the NC/VA border. Nothing special bird-wise that day, but it is significant in the sense that I then had submitted at least one Ebird checklist from each of the 100 NC counties. Next up, tackling my goal of achieving 10,000 NC County Ticks! That may take a while longer. For the non-birders reading this, total county ticks simply refers to the sum of the number of bird species one has detected in each county. So, when referring to NC total county ticks, the sum of ones bird lists from each NC county is therefore ones NC total county ticks. Trivial, maybe...actually, definitely. But, keeping track of statistics such as this (actually, Ebird does it automatically for you) can provide motivation to explore and bird areas of the state that one normally wouldn't venture near.