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Penny's Bend; vagrant/web report



Hi Carolinabirders,

The Virginia listserv mentions a possible male Barrow's Goldeneye at 
Kiptopeake SP. Also a Rough-legged Hawk in Culpepper County; has anyone 
visited Alligator River in the last month or two, in case the Rough-leg 
that spent last winter there returned?

To the south, a Western Grebe has been reported from Sanibel, only a week 
after we left there; I hate tardy birds... Curiously, the second person 
to see this bird was allegedly an unnamed member of the NC Records 
committee! Now who might that be? And there's a Scarlet Ibis near there 
in Fort Myers; maybe this wandering NC birder can report back on 
"countability" of this species, which like Barnacle Goose is usually 
dismissed as an escape.

Sometimes I'm sorry that Carolina birders are so low-key; for instance, 
I was very sad to leave the Green-breasted Mango at the feeder, on only 
its third day in the public eye, with not one single birder there to keep 
track of it. On the other hand, sometimes I'm very happy that birders 
here are less exciteable than those further north. The main topic of 
conversation lately on the Maryland listserv (MDOsprey) has been events 
at a Snowy Owl observation site. The owl showed up in a farmer's field. 
In the excitement over this bird, birders proceeded to block traffic, 
walk into the farmer's yard and field without permission, and even break 
the farmer's fence. The farmer has since vowed to press tresspassing 
charges against any birder who parks or walks on his side of the road, 
and to shoot anyone who enters his yard or field. This happened even 
though a similar situation occurred in Maryland only six months earlier, 
wherein birders trying to see a Sandhill Crane drove through a yard, 
blocked traffic, and enraged private landowners, and steps were 
supposedly taken then to prevent a reoccurrence. I'm glad that birders in 
the Carolinas are relaxed and rational enough to avoid such behavior!

Norm Douglas and I spent about an hour and a half yesterday afternoon at 
Penny's Bend, the little preserve of mostly botanical interest along the 
Eno River where it crosses Old Oxford Highway near Durham. We saw no 
rarities, but a nice cross-section of the usual winter fare: Fox Sparrow 
(my first of the winter, believe it or not), lots of White-throats, both 
kinglets (many more Golden than Ruby), Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Yellow- 
rumped Warbler. Beautiful day, much nicer than today; but at least 
there's still one day of weekend left for birding!

Good birding,

Josh



Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/