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Outer Banks trip report



      My wife and I made our annual trip to the Outer Banks this 
pastweekend.  On Friday, starting from Williamston in heavy fog, we 
visited LakePhelps at Pettigrew S.P. and saw some land birds but no 
waterfowl.  Visibility on the lake was possibly 50 yards.  We stopped 
at Alligator River where, using the directions in Fussell's book, we 
saw some woods birds plus two harriers, a red-tailed hawk, an 
unidentified hawk, and a kestrel.  Our third stop on Friday was the 
Elizabethan Gardens at Manteo.  After visiting briefly with Jeff 
Lewis and getting a very brief glimpse of an accipiter (possible 
Cooper's or female sharpie, not the goshawk), we walked the garden, 
looking at the camellias in bloom.
      Our first stop south of Nags Head was Bodie Island lighthouse. 
The shallow flats on the lighthouse side of the pond were covered 
with shorebirds, including dunlin, a common snipe, and dowitchers. 
I've seen dowitchers elsewhere a number of times and they've always 
been silent.  These were noisy and matched the calls on my Stokes cd 
for long-billed dowitchers.  Again, Fussell's book had alerted us to 
the possibility.  We also saw both green-winged and blue-winged teal 
in addition to the more numerous pintails, etc.  On our way out, 
after admiring the meadowlarks, we stopped and got excellent views of 
an American pipit.
      There were no waterfowl at Oregon Inlet the three times we 
checked it during the weekend (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).  Pea 
Island NWR had lots of ducks, geese, and tundra swans all three days, 
but no rarities.  On Saturday after the rains let up somewhat, we did 
find some plovers and sandpipers in with the ducks and geese on the 
mud.
      There were redheads plus other ducks at the ponds at the parking 
area for Cape Point.  We saw them all three days.  We looked 
carefully for other diving ducks.  We saw a few hooded mergansers but 
NO red-breasted mergansers, scaup, or ring-necked ducks (on the Outer 
Banks).  Before the rains began on Saturday morning, we found an 
immature black-crowned night-heron at those same ponds.  We got good 
looks with binoculars and scope.
      On Sunday we stopped a second time at Bodie Island lighthouse, 
in spite of the wind and cold.  The dowitchers and dunlin were too 
far away for good ids, but we did see the teals again and added 
greater yellowlegs to our tally.  On the way out we saw a (the?) 
pipit again.
      We took the scenic route west, US 264, stopping at Stumpy Point 
and Lake Mattamuskeet.  On 264 in Hyde County we saw a harrier and 
more kestrels than I had ever seen on a single day in the past. 
Mattamuskeet had relatively few ducks and almost none out on the main 
lake, probably because the wind was kicking up waves.  We did find a 
cedar waxwing along the causeway across the lake.
      Our last find for the day came on the bypass around Greenville. 
We stopped at two ponds close to the intersection of US 264 and US 
13, finding hooded mergansers, ring-necked ducks and ring-billed 
gulls.
      Our total for the weekend was 67 species, including the 
accipiter sp.  Since we concentrate on waterfowl instead of small 
birds during our winter trips, we're quite happy with the total.

Bob

-- 
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Robert C. Perkins, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Methodist College, Fayetteville, NC 28311
910-630-7037     rperkins@methodist.edu