Old Friends in Odd Places

Man, time really got away from me. I totally meant to post this when James and I got back from our Christmas Bird Counts out east, but somehow it got lost among everything else that was going on. Anyway, enjoy this write-up of the day we visited the legendary Lake Mattamuskeet.

When you hear about Lake Mattamuskeet, you immediately think of some Eden-like paradise for waterfowl in eastern North Carolina. When I visited in the winter of 2010, one could house almost a half-million waterfowl in their scope view at one time. The Christmas Bird Count this year was very different, and with the mild winter many ducks stayed up north. Not that it mattered, really – James, Scott and I ended up counting an area that lacked most of the birds associated with that large expanse of water.

That’s not to say we didn’t find some good birds, just not the ones we were expecting. Rather than getting loads of waterbirds, we ended up having rather a different birding experience than we were used to. There were thousands of blackbirds in a small containment pond, hundreds of Killdeer in an open field, and birds that wouldn’t shy away as per usual. For example, I almost never see Black-crowned Night Herons unless I flush them, and even then they’re drab, immature birds. That day, however, we found several adults roosting peacefully along a canal, apparently enjoying the mid-day sun.

Dunno why they call 'em Night Herons - I've never seen one at night!

And there were Kestrels everywhere. Every powerline we crossed had an American Kestrel on it, bobbing its tail, surveying the fields. Once, we found a Northern Harrier mobbing a Red-tailed Hawk, vocalizing as it swooped low. Once the hawk was gone, however, a miniscule American Kestrel began to berate the much larger harrier, truly looking like nature’s version of David and Goliath. Of course, the Kestrel just couldn’t keep to itself, and ended up scaring off a nearby Belted Kingfisher. Luckily, once the falcon was out of sight, the kingfisher didn’t mind a couple birders in a large car inching closer – a far cry from the ones we get inland!

I find coastal kingfishers a huge improvement over their inland brethren.

All along the canals of rural Hyde County, we found birds. Sometimes we saw Pied-billed Grebes, dipping and diving in whatever small amount of water they could find. Great Blue Herons were common too, and somewhat more surprisingly, many Great Egrets dotted the recently-plowed fields, often quite close to the road. As we watched one of the egrets, James noticed a small brown bird nestled among the packed clods of loose earth – it was a Wilson’s Snipe, pretty much the closest I’ve ever gotten to one. In the afternoon sun, I was able to truly appreciate the intricate patterning that let it become invisible to all but the sharpest-eyed birders.

Luckily, James has eyes like a hawk. Or eagle. I dunno, something with good eyes. Elf?

After cruising our area for most of the day, James and I made our way to the fabled Lake Mattamuskeet causeway to check out what waterfowl we could find. However, on a fifty-degree day in late December, all that we could muster were thousands of Tundra Swans, with several American Black Ducks mixed in. As I stayed on the lower end of the causeway, trying to pish through the enumerable Orange-crowned Warblers trying to find a much better Nashville, James strode ahead and managed to find this pair of Tundra Swans near the shore.  While he was watching, one of the swans let out a tremendous muscular flap of its wings – an event that one doesn’t easily forget!

It's amazing - before I came out east, I never realized how common these things really were!

Back at the lower causeway, Forster’s Terns flew overhead, vocalizing as they skimmed the waters searching for prey. None of the birds would get very close, save for a lone Bonaparte’s Gull that seemed to find itself at home on a small concrete drainage pipe that graded into the lake. Even as James ventured within three feet of the bird, it stood its ground, preferring its perch to fleeing from a photographer. James ended up with walk-away views of this bird, which as any veteran can tell you, is almost as good as getting said bird as a lifer.

As one young birder was keen to tell me last month, it's named after the much-less successful nephew of Napoleon. 

The day wore down and we watched the sunset from across the Pamlico Sound. Cormorants and scoters flew past the fiery orb trying to extinguish itself for the night, and while James got his lifer White-winged Scoter, it wouldn’t nearly amount to the amazing views we had of North Carolina’s more common avian denizens. Sure we’d seen them all before, but not like we saw them that day. Awesome doesn’t even begin to describe it. 

How Otterly Delightful!

The Lake Mattamuskeet Christmas Bird Count is a great day spent scoping the largest lake in our state for ducks, swans, and other water-loving birds that live along its shores. Of course, none of that applied to James or I, because along with Scott of Birdaholic, our count area consisted of a ten mile stretch of a local highway that runs along the huge expanse of water. Still, you’ve got to do the best you can with the life that you’re given, so some time before dawn, we headed off to start counting!

Starting at the very edge of our count area, we started raising our binoculars to the skies to see what we could find. The birds, oblivious to the human life around them, were already awake and singing. One large group of blackbirds suddenly alighted from a tree when a dark shape cut through the flock. We edged closer to see what it was, and the falcon leapt from its perch, slicing through the still morning air like a dagger. Larger than the kestrels we would see all day, the bird was a Merlin, and the first decent bird we saw that morning.

The approach was simple: driving down our highway, we’d pull over every so often and keep track of the birds we saw. Red-winged Blackbirds would fly overhead and Killdeer would call from the fields, and we had to count every single one. We stopped at an old woodpile to check it for Lincoln’s Sparrow, a long shot, but the habitat looked right. As we made our way towards it, we met a couple of hunters on the way back from shooting ducks on the lake. Far from the birder-hating killers we assumed we’d be dealing with out east, the hunter was actually rather friendly, pointing us in the direction of a couple small impoundments behind a fish market, which he so thoroughly described as a ‘crab shack’.

Red-winged Blackbirds were by far the most common bird we saw that day... numbers totaled over 8000!

Upon arriving at the specified location, we became suddenly inundated with an entirely different roster of bird life than we’d previously seen: Fish Crows called from the banks, Bald Eagles sat regally in the nearby pines, and a large flock of White Ibis foraged among the numerous Ring-billed Gulls. Counting the birds proved to be difficult; the birds apparently take a liking to the leftover seafood thrown out by the fish market, meaning the shores of the impoundments were littered with oysters and crab shells. Oh, plus it smelled something awful, the result of years upon years of rotting crustacean carcasses piling up six inches deep in some places. As we checked through the nearly one thousand blackbirds for something different, netting us a couple Boat-tailed Grackles and a single Rusty Blackbird, James excitedly exclaimed from the shore: “Otters!”

This one was straight-up chillaxin' on his little island!

Four otters, in fact, perhaps a family unit. They swam together through the impoundment, before hopping onto a small island in the middle of the water. Now, I’ve seen otters before, a couple times, and they’ve done some pretty crazy things. But I’ve never seen them engage in play-fighting like these guys did. As soon as they hopped up on land, they otters began jumping on each other, rolling around and baring their teeth. Of course, they never meant each other harm, and as after they had their fun, the otters returned to the water.

We watched them play-fight for a full five minutes - extremely entertaining!

The fun didn’t stop there, even. The otters dove gracefully yet purposefully in the water, like some mixture of synchronized swimming and water polo. Every once in a while they’d surface and swim circles around each other for no apparent reason. If there’s one animal that enjoys having fun as much as human beings, it’s the River Otter. After spending an extended amount of time underwater, one of the otters finally surfaced with some food, and began to chow down right in front of us.

Nom nom nom...

The crab shack ended up being the coolest place we’d count all day. Sure some of the random canals were nice, filled with Pied-billed Grebes that wouldn’t dive at a moment’s notice, and nice adult Black crowned Night-Herons roosting in the trees, but no other area could quite match the magnitude and excitement those random impoundments behind a random fish market randomly situated on Highway 12. That said, there were still plenty of cool birding experiences to be had at Lake Mattamuskeet!

Getting this shot necessitated the use of the tried-and-true 'car blind'.

We're not done yet, not even close! Join us next week for the conclusion of our eastern North Carolina odyssey – Part VI: Old Friends in Odd Places!

Species Spotlight #1: Nutria

You might remember when James and I were down at Pea Island a couple weekends ago and through the smoke and haze we found a Nutria feeding beside North Pond. Now, normally this is something I’d add to our “Other Animals” gallery, but because it was such a mediocre picture, I really don’t want to. So instead, I’m going to start a new column that’ll show up every once in a while wherein we spotlight one of the many non-bird animals we’ve seen on our adventures.

This story goes all the way back to December of 2010 (er, so, eight months ago). I’d just taken part in an amazing bird count at Bodie and Pea Islands, and now we were moving on to our second Christmas Bird Count of the weekend – Lake Mattamuskeet, a place that at the right time of the year, can be filled with damn near a million ducks, geese, and swans. Our scheduled route took us along the wildlife drives that surrounds the waterfowl impoundments next to the lake, and we were finding the usual stuff – Northern Harriers, Tundra Swans, and multiple species of ducks. All of a sudden, we came across a couple of large furry rodents feeding alongside the gravel drive.

Not a care in the world!

They were Nutria, a mother and a baby, happily munching away amongst the American Coots and Wilson’s Snipes that surrounded them. They didn’t seem to mind us getting out of the car for pictures, and when we did end up getting too close, they tried to bail into the water as Nutria are wont to do. There’s only one problem: that week, eastern North Carolina had seen somewhat unusual snow and cold temperatures, which meant the impoundments had all frozen over. So what did the Nutria do? Walk on the ice, of course!

This is going to work out well, I'm sure of it.

Both the mother and the baby tried walking on ice – I think the baby even fell in at one point, leading to an adorably hilarious attempt to get back onto the slippery surface, probably because the water was pretty darn cold. The mother, on the other hand, decided she’d had enough of us. With as much grace as a large rodent could possibly have on ice, she turned around and waddled to the canal on the other side of the road, never to be seen again.

Hey, who you lookin' at tough guy?!

Not sure which animal I’m gonna spotlight next, but I should let it be known that I saw two “lifer” mammals on that day at Lake Mattamuskeet… and the Nutria was by far merely second best!