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Odd tern



All,

Last week I left the beach for the day on Tuesday to participate in a NCSU fisheries management class exercise at the Umstead Research Farms near Butner, NC. While the fisheries exercise was a rather dramatic bust compared to previous years, we did see some interesting birds, including an osprey over the farm pond we were attempting to sample and a breeding plumage ruddy duck on the pond. We also saw a very pale tern, slightly larger than a "common" class bird with a rather short, heavy, black bill, circle the pond several times before departing towards the northwest. As best we could determine, it was a gull-billed, but we were reluctant to say it so far inland. Any other inland sitings of gull-billed in the NC Piedmont? The closest large body of water would be Falls, 10-15 miles south and east of where we were.

On Thursday, Nate Bacheler and I saw and heard several Bachman's sparrows (after some confusion), briefly heard and saw red-cockaded woodpeckers, and turned up a house wren in the Millis Road savannahs in the Croatan. This area is worth visiting just for the vegetation, let alone the birds- in the light rain we had, the savannahs were absolutely magical. We later shooshed up a female (maybe a pair of females) painted bunting and a blue grosbeak near the ferry landing at Hammock' Beach State Park near Swansboro; that afternoon I was able to "officially"count painted bunting for the year when my kids and I discovered a beautiful singing male at the waterslide park in Emerald Isle (I'm sorry, but seeing a female PB really isn't seeing "painted" ;-) ). It does pay to keep your eyes open and ears tuned-even hurtling down a plastic tube with your kids!



Clyde Sorenson
Clayton and Raleigh, NC