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Re: Tropicbirds from Dry Land



I was in Jacksonville, Fla during the much (on the Weather Channel)
balyhooed  "Blizzard of 96".  I was unable to get home to Kernersville
because airports up and down the East Coast were shut down.  So- I drove my
rental car to St. Augustine to make the most of it.  I saw several White
Tailed Tropic Birds flying in the the vicinity of the fort.  They made
repeated passes at  low level.  It was quite a treat.
                    Rob
----- Original Message -----
From: "Russ Tyndall" <fitzbew@redshanksoftware.com>
To: <carolinabirds@duke.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2003 4:32 PM
Subject: Tropicbirds from Dry Land


> Dave Hewitt wrote:
> <<I was down at Topsail Beach last weekend for a few days. While we were
> there, some friends and I took a walk down the beach looking at the
> terns, gulls, sanderlings, etc. Once i looked up and saw a largish white
> bird (similar to larger terns we saw) with very long tail feathers fly
> over. I could not retrieve my binoculars from a friend in time to sight
> it in! Looking through Sibley, i cannot find anything but a tropicbird
> with tail feathers that long and of that size. Any idea on species, or
> other bird it may have been? I am unfamiliar with their occurrence along
> the NC coast.>>
>
> Tropicbirds from dry land!  Now, that's a gift to a lucky observer!
>
> Presumably, it's just coincidental but another observer saw an adult
> White-tailed Tropicbird at Hammock's Beach SP (Bear Island), NC on Apr 19,
> 1986 "after a storm". This old report is only 6-7 days subsequent to
Dave's
> sighting calendar-wise.
>
> Within the last 50 years or so, there have been at least 9 other reports
of
> White-tailed Tropicbird or tropicbird sp. from NC where the observer had
> their feet firmly planted on dry land.  Surprisingly (at least to me),
only
> 3 of those were obviously associated with hurricanes (not counting the
> "storm" mentioned above). Of the hurricane-related birds, 2 were at Jordan
> Lake (9/6/79 - adult - Hurricane David and 7/25/85 - adult - Hurricane
Bob).
> The other inland report was an immature at Moss Lake (I think near Shelby,
> NC) on 9/22/89 and associated with Hurricane Hugo.
>
> The other NC non hurricane-related birds were:
> White-tailed Tropicbird - Beaufort Inlet - 9/3/79
> White-tailed Tropicbird - Hammock's Beach SP - 4/19/86 - Adult, after
storm
> (already mentioned above)
> White-tailed Tropicbird - Hatteras Inlet - 9/2/85
> White-tailed Tropicbird - Close to Oregon Inlet - 7/14/90 - Adult
> Tropicbird sp. - Bogue Sound - 7/27/83 - Flying over bridge between
Morehead
> City and Atlantic Beach!
> Tropicbird sp. - Cape Lookout - 6/16/83 - an adult, perched on a post!
>
> There are over 97 pelagic reports of tropicbirds from NC.  All are within
> the May to September time frame, except for one odd-ball bird: March 29,
> 1997 on a fishing trip out of Hatteras. (I don't think it was an organized
> pelagic.)
>
> SC appears to get the short end of the stick when it comes to tropicbirds
> from dry land --- I can only find 2 reports -- both of those birds were
> either sick or already specimens.  (On the other hand, one of the birds
was
> a Red-billed Tropicbird, which makes up for a lot!)
>
> As always, there could be other reports I don't know about.  I don't
pretend
> to have access to all information!
>
> (If you find information like this as fascinating as I do, email me
directly
> for a recommendation on how you can easily gain access to more.)
>
> --
> Russ Tyndall
> Wake Forest, NC
> www.redshanksoftware.com
>
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