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Re: BIG SIT at Pea Island



On Saturday 16 October, Judy Murray and I went to Pea Island in anticipation 
of the BIG SIT.  We birded the Fort Raleigh/Elizabethan Gardens area and 
Oregon Inlet/Old Coast Guard Station on the way and got to Pea Island as the 
first rain bands from Hurricane Irene started coming through.  We took this 
as a bad omen for Sunday.  We birded Pea Island between squalls until dark, 
then headed home.  The BIG SIT is supposed to be fun, after all, and the 
prospect of birding all day Sunday in pouring rain, then driving home 5 hours 
in pouring rain, didn't strike us as being much fun.

We managed to find 97 species. Even though we weren't trying for a big day, 
we might as well submit it as one, since the old record for October is 50.  
At Fort Raleigh (11am-noon), the highlights were Red-breasted Nuthatch, and a 
few warblers, including 2 Blackpoll, Am. Redstart, B&W, and Palm.  At Pea 
Island we found a good diversity of sparrows along the south dike of north 
pond - 2 imm. Clay-colored, 2 imm. White-crowned, 1 White-throated, 1 Swamp, 
1 Field, and many Song Sparrows.  We also saw an extremely yellow Bobolink - 
the yellowest one I've ever seen!  It actually looked like the illustration 
in the NGS 3rd edition.  All the usual thousands of dabbling ducks were in, 
but none of the diving ducks.  There were a dozen or so Tundra Swans and a 
couple of small flocks of Snow Geese.  Because of high water, shorebird 
diversity was low, though we did enjoy seeing a couple of dozen Avocets and 
Marbled Godwits.  Surprisingly, mosquitoes were not bad - I didn't even have 
to use DEET, even though there was only a gentle breeze. Oddly, the water 
level at South Pond was low, so there were a few more shorebirds there (but 
not many).  Of course, we could only get distant looks at these, since you're 
only allowed to scan South Pond from the highway.  (Does anybody know the 
reason why we're not allowed to walk the dikes at South Pond?)  There were no 
birds at the Old Coast Guard Station, but the islands west of the bridge were 
loaded with gulls, terns, shorebirds, and pelicans.  The usual couple of 
Great Cormorants were on their posts.  We headed home at 6 pm, just as 
another heavy rain band came through.  Thankfully we stayed ahead of the rain 
after we left the Banks.

Not a bad day.  We probably would have seen about 60-65 species from the 
platform, had we done the BIG SIT on Sunday.  Maybe next year!

--
Charles W. "Will" Cook                w 919-660-7423 (new!)
cwcook@duke.edu                 h 919-967-5446
Duke University Botany Dept., Durham, North Carolina
http://www.duke.edu/~cwcook