These Aren't The Birds We're Looking For

Late last week, I received a second-hand report of breeding Barn Owls and their growing fledglings at our old standby of Mason Farm. Not willing to let a potential lifer go by the wayside, James and I headed out to see what we could find. We approached the boggy backside of the trail, where the owls were supposed to have been seen, but we couldn’t find anything resembling the tytonids we were searching for. Instead, we amused ourselves with a Yellow-billed Cuckoo that decided, in a rare show of compassion, to perch itself out in the open.

A cuckoo, out in the open? That's rarer than any vagrant I've ever seen!

Always the herpers, we couldn’t help but notice the non-avians around us. We found a small Southern Leopard Frog in an old creek-bed, but nothing really stood out. Just after enjoying the cuckoo, James happened to glance to the side of the trail. “Oh hey,” he remarked. “A tree frog!” Sure enough, a large Green Treefrog was nestled between some stiff grasses, trying his best to blend in. But he couldn’t fool us, and we ended up with some great looks as he clung to a nearby bush.

This is only the second I've ever seen, but I've a feeling their range around here is larger than I give them credit for.

But we couldn’t be distracted – we’d come to Mason Farm for owls. As we delved into the deep marshes and forests that surround the trail, I heard the roar of wind whipping through the surrounding trees. I looked up and saw some disturbingly dark-gray clouds, and instantly remembered that one Meteorology class I took in college – there’s often a down-gust of wind before a storm cell. “James,” I said – “We’re about to get rained on!” He didn’t believe me, but we decided to make our way down the trail anyway. Sure enough, not a couple minutes later, the skies opened. The rain was so thick that I couldn’t see more than a couple feet in front of my face, even though we decided to skirt the forest to take advantage of the trees’ sanctuary. Suddenly, while dredging through the drenched forest, James stopped in front of me. “Did you see that?” he said. “I think that’s it!” I saw a shape fly out from the nearby field and deep into the woods. Could it be? Did we really just run into the very Barn Owls we’d been looking for?

Sure it's cool, but it's not the cool we were looking for!

Of course not. It never works like that. I had to take off my fogged-up glasses to identify the dark shape in front of me, but almost immediately it was clear we’d run into the much more common Barred Owl. Still, it’s not like I see owls all that often, and it was cool to watch this one from under a low pine while it rained all around us. Within fifteen minutes, the rain let up, and we were able to return to the open trail as Indigo Buntings and Blue Grosbeaks sang out, taking advantage of the newly cleared skies. When we reached the parking lot, James noticed something hanging out next to our car.

She must've been two feet or more! Biggest non-snapper I ever saw.

Apparently, this large female River Cooter decided the downpour would be a great time to head out and lay some eggs, but she didn’t get too far from the nearby creek before we discovered her. I guess it’s just that egg-laying time of year, but it’s always cool to see turtles outside of water. She’s quite the catch, and an awesome way to end our day even though it was disappointingly devoid of our targets. Still, I’ll take what I can get. Especially if that includes owls, turtles, and frogs!

A Warbler-iffic Day

After Wednesday’s intense storms, I woke up yesterday morning to a cloudless sky and sun shining through my windows. I have to admit I was mostly asleep when James called me, but the prospect of birding on this gorgeous day got me out and about, and we headed for Mason Farm. The day started out slowly, with little singing and even less showing. A pair of beautiful Prothonotary Warblers positively glowed in the early morning light, giving me my best look at the species this year.

Apparently they call them "swamp canaries" across much of the south - not a great name, but not inaccurate either.

A short walk through the woods gave us great looks at an Ovenbird catching food for its young, but we didn’t see anything great until the next field over. While we surveyed the five or so Indigo Buntings singing in the field, James saw one that seemed quite a bit larger, and when I put my binocs on it, I saw a brilliant Blue Grosbeak chilling in some low hanging brambles. We tried to get it closer, but they’re not really the type to stick around and suffer humans, so we had to move on.

Another species we haven't yet gotten that perfect shot of... still working on it!

Just around the corner, James noticed a small bird flitting through the braches that hung over the trail. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, but upon looking through my binoculars I saw a beautiful male Canada Warbler making his way through the trees, presumably for small insects and other prey. Every once in a while, he’d give snippets from his song, and I didn’t realize what it was at first. I sat there for almost five minutes trying to figure out what this odd song was before finally realizing it was the Canada Warbler singing overhead.

My first in the Triangle for spring, and a totally unexpected bird this time of year.

Back along the canal, we tried to find migrant warblers, and though American Redstarts and White-eyed Vireos put on good shows, we couldn’t find what we were looking for. We walked back and forth for a good half hour, and during one pass we realized there was a snake sitting in the path. It seemed obvious, but I don’t know how we missed it before. It froze while James shot this picture, but bolted as soon as I made the move to catch it. Typical Black Racer behavior.

Apparently I'm still not a fast enough herper to catch a Black Racer, which is a huge disappointment to me.

While the Black Racer was exciting, we had birds to see. James noticed an odd bird with a yellow belly flitting through a nearby tulip poplar, and I tried to get on it, but every time I put my glass up the bird disappeared deeper into the foliage. Finally, I got the briefest of glimpses, and I got my one and only look at a breeding-plumaged Magnolia Warbler. Knowing its identity, we played the song to draw it in, but it didn’t respond – instead, randomly, this Common Yellowthroat flew in and gave us a hell of a show.

Responds to Magnolia song, ignores Yellowthroat calls - that's what I'd call a Scumbag Yellowthroat!

Still, a Magnolia Warbler would have been a lifer for James, so we moved up and down the path to try and get a look at it. Every once in a while we’d see something flitting, just briefly, and we’d look again and it was gone. It didn’t help that every other bird decided to come out into the open while we were searching, and we ended up with great looks at American Redstart and White-eyed Vireo. But we didn’t have our target. Back at home, James looked through his pictures, and realized that one of them did indeed show a blurry but identifiable shot of the bird we were searching for – his lifer Magnolia Warbler!

Oh Maggie we couldn't have tried any more... you're so hard to photograph!

It’s a great-looking bird by anybody’s standards, but it’s starting to get late in the year. Pretty soon our migrants will be gone, and I’ll have to spend all summer trying to get that one perfect shot of an Indigo Bunting or Prairie Warbler. For now, I’ll enjoy the migrants I have. James is enjoying them too, and as soon as he got home, he emailed me some shots of a bird he found flitting around our feeders.

Not a great pic, but it's enough to make me suuuper jealous!

Turns out, it’s a Worm-eating Warbler, a lifer for James, and a bird I’ve never seen in Durham county! I’m going to try and pick it up tomorrow, and hopefully it’ll stick around, but I’m not feeling too confident. I have terrible luck with these bird, but the thought of a new county bird would get me going any day of the week. Hopefully it’ll end up in my favor!

Nature on the Fly

Birding during the summer months is difficult, especially when one of us has a life list entirely determined by photography. This means that not only do we have to find birds, but we’ve got to find them during the day and in decent light. So when the weatherman screwed up the stormy forecast and the sun shone bright through my bedroom window yesterday morning, James gave me a call and we headed out to see what we could find.

Unfortunately, with the good weather came poor birding. Along the trail, we couldn’t find many warblers besides American Redstarts and Black-throated Blues, and even they didn’t want to come close enough for some pictures. Thankfully, a fast-moving raptor and a high-pitched screech made me look to the sky, where we found two circling Broad-winged Hawks. This is an odd species for me in that I’ve heard them call, and I’ve seen them, but never have I experienced both at the same time. The hawks flew fast, making photography difficult, but it was super cool to finally see this migrant in the Triangle.

I remember learning the call of a Broad-winged Hawk in college, but this is the first time
I've really heard it well in the field.

Checking the canal portion of the trail one last time, we came upon this friendly American Redstart hopping through the willows. When I say friendly, I mean it ventured pretty close to us, but like most warblers it seemed to stay behind a veil of leaves the whole time. Still, every once and a while it would pop out in the open and sing its song, allowing James to get some decent shots. Not quite the perfect shot we’re looking for, but we’ll keep at it!

How hard is it to sing out in the open? I mean, COME ON!

Other than that the birding at Mason Farm was unremarkable, and we headed home. That’s when Ali called and said he wanted to go herping, and I said, well, why not? James had to go home, so Ali and I headed for Duke Forest to do a little flipping. We didn’t find much, save for an active Copperhead that darted off as soon as we flipped his board. But under a random piece of tin next to an old barn, Ali spotted a small snake that piqued his interest, and he grabbed it to examine it closer.

At the time I took this photo, I'd narrowed it down to "snake sp."... still a long way to go!

It was a small snake, brown on top and pale underneath. This clearly marks it as an earth snake, but as there are several species around here, we had to be sure which one. Turning his binoculars the wrong way ‘round, we were able to use them as field glasses and check out the scaling, which turned out to be unkeeled. That, plus the random dark spots and rounded nose meant we’d found a sweet little Smooth Earth Snake, a lifer for the both of us.

They say this snake is hard to find; I wouldn't know. I tend to find such snakes rather easily!

Since I started herping earlier this year, I’ve seen this Smooth Earth Snake, countless Copperheads, my fair share of Mole Kingsnakes, and even a Pigmy Rattlesnake; but for some reason I’ve never been able to photograph the common Brown Snake, and I’m starting to think there’s something wrong with me. My herping career has been unorthodox thus far, and I’d like to keep it that way. I’d love to get rid of that nemesis herp once and for all, but for now, I’ll take all the hard-to-find snakes I can get!  

Birding Has Never Been So Black and White

Ever since James got home from college, I’ve been promising him migrant lifers. It shouldn’t be too hard – after all, I’m hearing reports from all across the state with great warbler lists, but for some reason all I can muster is a Black-throated Blue here and a Chestnut-sided there. So, yesterday morning, we made the decision to rectify our previous mistakes and go after something sure-fire. As we rounded the turn at Mapleview Farms, I could see a large flock of birds rising from the tall grass and circling back down again.

That awkward moment when you try and exit the car before it's stopped moving...

Success! I’d finally found James his lifer Bobolinks, a species of blackbird that only seems to grace our state about one week a year before heading for northern climes. Unfortunately, the Bobolinks kept their distance, and refused to venture closer than a few hundred feet. Although I was momentarily distracted by a Northern Waterthrush sounding like a Yellow Warbler doing a Lauren Bacall impression, and a pair of mating Orchard Orioles, the allure of Bobolinks and their astromech-like song kept me totally engrossed.

Between the weird light and the wheat, this shot looks like a painting - but no filters were used!

Because we’d found the Bobolinks so quickly, we had a couple hours to kill. So, we headed to Mason Farm because… why not? James was particularly interested because he’d heard there’d been tons of a certain zebra-striped warbler reported recently, and it’s kind of a nemesis bird for him. Alas, upon arrival, we couldn’t turn up much, although singing Scarlet Tanagers and Baltimore Orioles were pretty cool. True to form, the uber-friendly Yellow-breasted Chat was back at his post, although in much worse light this time.

I can't believe it's gotten to the point where I can be picky about my chat shots!

Along the way, we met a pair of Dutch birders, one of whom I’d met several years prior, and distinctly remembered showing his lifer Black-throated Blue Warbler. It was really cool to show them relatively common species like Northern Waterthrush and Prairie Warbler and have them truly appreciate the birds we take for granted. I’m sure I’ll feel the same way next time I’m in Europe and gush when somebody shows me a Chaffinch or White Wagtail. While these days I force the harsh calls of Summer Tanagers into the deep recesses of my subconscious so I can listen for something more interesting, the foreign birders made a point of tracking it down and watching it in all its crimson beauty.

That's not to say I don't like Summer Tanagers, it's just they're incredibly common during the
warmer months of the year... dang, what're those called again...

After a birding with them for a bit, we split up so that James and I could focus on the more productive canal section of the trail, turning up things like Acadian Flycatcher and Blue Grosbeak. When we met up again on the other side, I asked them if they’d seen anything, and they replied positively: a Black-and-white Warbler, just after we parted ways. This is, of course, James’s number one nemesis bird, so together we headed way back on the other side of the trail to see if it still remained. That’s when I heard a distinctive squeaky undulating call coming from the stand of trees just in front of us. A nemesis awaits!

Next to the branch with the leaves on it. No, the other branch! No, wrong tree!

We ran over to the sound, and it kept calling right above us. I couldn’t see it, and James was getting frustrated – clearly there were too many leaves between us and the warbler. That’s when one of the Dutchmen shouted “I’ve got it!” and pointed it out, sitting in the crook of a branch invisible from underneath. Unlike its normal behavior, the Black-and-white Warbler sat there preening for several minutes, occasionally pausing to give a couple squeaks, but never crawling along the branches like they usually do.

Sweet relief! This is a bird James has wanted pretty much since he started birding.

James felt elated and thanked the birders for their help. “It’s funny,” one of them said in response. “After all the new birds people have shown us here, this is the first time I’ve shown an American his life bird!” Truer words were never spoken, and again we parted ways so they could bird their way back to their car.

We drove past them on the way out, and asked again if they’d seen anything. “A Wilson’s Warbler,” they said. A potential lifer for me, but we could never relocate it. I’m still reeling from missing that bird. Man, those guys are good!

The Public Lives of Private Birds

Some birds are just harder to see than others. Ask anyone who’s tromped through a marsh to find Yellow Rails, or stared intently at a thick bush to see if a Connecticut Warbler will pop out. Most of the time the views you do get are fleeting, but when you finally get that close-up, out-in-the open look, the effort it took to finally see the bird is totally worth it.

For the past couple weeks or so now, I’ve had the pleasure of watching a pair of Gray Catbirds building a nest in the bush outside my apartment’s window. Every catbird I’ve ever seen has been skittish, and refused to venture far from its leafy bastion. But because they can’t see me watching through the window, they’ve become totally comfortable running back and forth along the porch rail as they gather nesting material, hunt for insects, and occasionally, mate. The other day, I sat on the couch just outside the window with my camera poised so that when one of the birds would sit still for a second, I would be ready. After a couple failed attempts, I finally got my shot – and an amazing look at a Gray Catbird!

I wake up every morning to the sound of the male singing outside my window. There are worse ways to start the day.

Now that James is back in town, we’ve been out birding a couple times. Unfortunately, we haven’t been graced with many migrant warblers, but our breeders are out there belting out their songs. American Redstarts usually do this from a thick canopy, and they’re hard to find out in the open. I found this male flitting through the willows next to the canal, and he just wouldn’t sit still!

It's been a long time, but my arch-nemesis has once again reared his ugly head. Damn you, Stick-Through-the-Face!

Even without willow leaves through his face, I could never get my camera up in time to catch him. I was just about to give up when he shot down to eyelevel just a few yards away and started singing. This was my chance – time to take the shot! Of course, the autofocus messed up, and instead decided that focusing on the multitude of nearby foliage was definitely the right move.

No camera, you're right, you know what to focus on better than I do. Keep doing a wonderful job! /sarcasm

I was beginning to get frustrated and thought about just leaving him to do his thing, but every time I turned to leave he kept wandering closer. Out of sheer happenstance, I’d been following him in the viewfinder when he alighted on a branch out in the open, and I took my shot. This time, the variables aligned and I finally got him in focus!

But of course he chose this moment to look the wrong direction. Always room for improvement!

Continuing down the fields, I found my spotted my first Blue Grosbeaks of the year, including a beautiful male that decided to fly off when I got close. Nearby, I saw a Prairie Warbler trilling away from the tops of short trees that punctuated the short grass. In the background, I could hear the cacophonous din that always seems to permeate this type of open habitat – the constant song of the ultimate hidden bird, a Yellow-breasted Chat.

One of these days I'll get that perfect Blue Grosbreak shot... but it is not this day!

As cool as they are, I kind of hate Yellow-breasted Chats. They’re a really weird, beautiful warbler, but for whatever reason I’ve never been able to get one out in the open less than a hundred feet away, and if one does manage to venture closer, it’s doubtless behind several yards of dense vegetation. I decided to try and play a chat call, to see what it would do. I’ve done this countless times before, and each time the bird seems to move farther off, but that day the unexpected happened. As soon as it heard the call, the Yellow-breasted Chat bounded out of the tree it was in with that odd, undulating display flight they do, and I watched as it circled around the two of us and landed out in the open, just twenty feet away.

Never again will I instinctively use playback every time I hear a chat sing!

I’ve never seen a chat that close up before, and I doubt I ever will again. Seeing a bird as secretive as this and being able to drink in these point-blank views, it’s almost as good as getting my lifer Yellow-breasted Chat all over again, except that this time, my lifer memory won’t be of some bird dashing between stands of trees off in the distance. No, instead I’ll always remember that one bold chat who couldn’t wait to show off for my brother and me that one day at Mason Farm.

Holy Mole-y!

Spring migration is tantalizingly close now. As Ali and I walked into Mason Farm, we could hear the rambling of a Red-eyed Vireo up in the trees and the ripcord of a Northern Parula down by the canal. My first White-eyed Vireos of the year babbled up a storm from some willows, and yet I still found myself missing the Indigo Buntings and Scarlet Tanagers that should show up in just a couple weeks’ time. We kept the birds on our mind, but it wasn’t our primary focus that morning. Instead, once again, we were herping.

The so-called "Blue-tailed Skink" is the first herp I ever learned as a kid.

Didn’t take long before we found a couple Five-lined Skinks, including this nice immature with an electric-blue tail. It had rained a couple nights before, and the forested areas were pretty wet, which meant that Marbled Salamanders were out in force. Every other log seemed to have a fat silver-and-black salamander hiding under it, until the whole thing became routine. Log, flip, salamander. Log, flip, salamander. Log, flip, salamander – wait, what the? Along Siler’s Bog, we flipped a log and found the expected salamander, along with a big gray blob that I honestly didn’t comprehend at first. Without thought, Ali reached down and grabbed the furry mass, just as it dawned on me what we were seeing – an enigmatic Eastern Mole!

Man, for a blind animal he could sure run away from us pretty well!

Unlike herps, which are quite easy to photograph under the right conditions, the hot-blooded mole kept trying to scurry away. We even set it in the middle of the hard gravel path, and true to its nature it attempted to dig, leaving a deep furrow in the rocks. In any case, all good things must come to an end, and we had to let the mole go. We decided to have one last bit of fun and watch the mole do his moley thing. Letting it off close to some soft mud, the mole upended and burrowed, disappearing in less than a second. Between its lack of eyesight and large paddle-shaped feet, moles are perfectly evolved for life underground.

It makes for an awesome shot, but holding moles is NOT RECOMMENDED. They bite!

After our euphoria at catching a mole, and the dismay at cleaning mole turds out of my camera bag (how else was I supposed to transport it to the trail?), Ali turned his attention to finding water snakes and I turned my attention to the birds. Several Blue-gray Gnatcatchers sang from the nearby shrubbery, a garble that sounded like a tin whistle dueting with a kazoo. The Northern Parulas started getting interested in the noises, and this nice male popped up to see what was going on.

The most confiding of warblers and STILL all you can see is the blasted underside!

While having Parulas foraging in the shadows just three feet away is kind of awesome, they couldn’t keep my attention occupied for long. I heard rustling in the grass, and expecting a small snake or perhaps a quick little Ground Skink, I was pleasantly surprised to find this bright green Carolina Anole. I quickly caught him, and was astounded to see him change colors before my eyes – where he had once been completely green, his auriculars became dark in my hand. He’d even grown his trademark red dewlap, and while he wouldn’t show it to me, I was still able to stretch out the loose skin for some facsimile of a mating display.

Like they say, the anole is always greener on the other side!

Along the canal, I noticed a large Yellow-bellied Slider lounging on an exposed log. Usually these guys dive in at the first sight of a human, so it was cool that he stuck around for a little photography. We found another one just as we were driving out of the preserve, a big female intent on laying eggs somewhere on land. Thankfully, Ali jumped out of the car and moved her back into the water, so she wouldn’t become roadkill.

Who'd have thought turtles to be the most difficult to photograph of all herps?

When you see turtles on land, it’s a sure sign that spring is here. Their clutch survival rate has a lot to do with temperature, and a late frost could be detrimental to the offspring. But it seems the turtles are confident the warm and sunny days are going to be sticking around, and I’m pretty confident too. If only I could find somewhere in North Carolina, akin to but not necessarily the Sandhills, to enjoy these spring-loving herps… 

Herping the Day Away

Early this week, I looked at the seven-day weather forecast and saw nothing but dark gray clouds with little lightning bolts shooting out of them. Not good for birding, much less photography, but nowadays I can always get my nature fix by doing a little herping. On a rumor that you can find Queen Snakes and Red Salamanders, Mark and I headed down to the concrete bridge at Duke Forest Gate 23.

Not a tenth of a mile into the trail, we found our first herp – a large Fowler’s Toad hopping next to the path. As we got low to photograph him, a fly came by and landed on his head. The toad didn’t seem to mind (or really even notice), and I half expected to see him flip up a long tongue and eat the thing right off his face. Of course, nature doesn’t really mirror Saturday morning cartoons, and he just sat there looking irritated like toads do. Perhaps a beetle or worm would make an easier meal.

Somehow I get the idea that this does not please him...

Herping in Duke Forest proved what I’ve found to be true time and time again – peeling off bark is a great way to find herps! This time, a rotten log accidentally came apart in my hand, and from under the bark slithered out a relatively large Worm Snake. Now, I say relatively large because he was only like a foot long, but he was a giant among Worms. He was very wriggly and tried to bury himself into my hand, using a combination of his spade-shaped head and a small spike at the end of his tail. Eventually we got him to settle down and so we could take this shot on his level.

Oddly enough, the most difficult to photograph snake I've ever encountered!

As we reached the concrete bridge, we found that last night's rains had raised the water level far higher than I expected. Water coursed several inches over concrete, and as our way was blocked, we decided to take a small dirt trail that ran parallel to the river. We couldn’t find any of the promised Queen Snakes and flipping logs failed to reveal salamanders, but while checking out a wood pile on the riverbank, I heard rustling near my foot. I looked down to see I’d almost stepped on a big thick Northern Water Snake! Knowing their propensity for biting, I quickly moved out of the way and tried to use a stick to move it out into the open. No luck, but I did find this much smaller one that nevertheless bit me three times and then musked for good measure.

At least he wasn't big enough to break the skin and inject some nasty serotonin.

On the way back home, we kept hearing peepers and chorus frogs calling from deep in the woods. At one point, as we passed a government building, the frogs were almost deafening. I remembered there was a small pond behind the building, and we pulled over to see what we could find. Sure enough, Spring Peepers were everywhere, and loud! Mark and I had to yell at each other just to hear ourselves! Apparently the males are in full breeding mode, because they would just sit there calling as you got down low to photograph them. Not that I’m complaining or anything. Just it was really cool!

Often heard but seldom seen - until you can find a pond with hundreds of them calling!

The next day I had a couple hours to kill, so ­I headed for Mason Farm to see if the herps were out. My juvenile Black Ratsnake was back under his bark (and yet again he bit me), but I wasn’t finding as much under the logs as I usually do. Peeking under tree bark again, I found this adult Five-lined Skink, and learning my lesson from last time, I attempted to catch it. After one hell of a chase (lizards are fast!) I finally nabbed it, and stopped it from wriggling just long enough to get this shot.

It sounds odd, but I found this large adult rather... squishy...

As I walked through the woods, I heard some rustling in the undergrowth, and yesterday rustling meant there was certainly a Ground Skink around. But when I found the source, I was surprised to find this White-spotted Slimy Salamander, my first free-walking amphibian. Eventually it decided to stop running and hid under some leaves, so I slowly peeled them back until he was totally exposed in the late afternoon sun.

True to its name, it was extremely spotty... and extremely slimy!

Man, the herping’s been pretty good recently – so good in fact that I almost forgot this is supposed to be a birding blog! Spring is definitely here, and the woodlands are full of Northern Parulas singing their heads off, with Common Yellowthroats wichity-wichitying through the fields.

Oh man. I almost forgot how awesome birding was!

In just a couple weeks, migration will be in full swing, and pretty soon all those crazy neotropic migrants are going to be gracing our state. Once the Black-throated Blues and Hoodeds start belting out from the forest, I’ll probably forget the yellowthroats even exist. But until then, this tiny warbler is way more colorful than anything I’ve seen all winter – and damn, it looks awesome!

A Merry Un-bird-day

That awkward moment between the end of winter and the beginning of spring is pretty painful for me. The birding has slowed to a standstill, and the mass of White-throated Sparrows can’t slake my thirst anymore – yet there’s the promise of neotropic migrants any day now. So, to ease my pain, I decided to try something new – no longer will I look to the sky for my daily biota fix. Instead, I’ll turn to the ground.

The first herper I saw in action was a guy leading the reptile portion of a nature walk to the heron rookery at Glennstone. I was leading the bird portion, and even though I’d been to the spot many times before, I never found more than cricket frogs hopping into the small vernal pools. Yet here this herper was, finding and catching snakes that would have been totally invisible to me. Chief among them was a large female Red-bellied Water Snake, a nasty creature who repeatedly struck the herper on the arm and hand, leaving bloody wounds that wouldn’t clot thanks to some specialized anticoagulant saliva. This guy is crazy, I thought to myself. No way I’d ever take up such a dangerous activity. Smash-cut to this past Tuesday.

                                                        

While I still can’t see myself handling some of the larger snakes, I decided to give this “herping” thing the ol’ college try. As the days began to grow warmer and cloudier, James and I headed off to nearby Mason Farm to see what we could turn up. Start small, I told myself, and while Painted Turtles and Upland Chorus Frogs are nice, they’re not nearly enough to get me jazzed about non-avians. We started flipping logs in the forest, finding a ton of earthworms and bess beetles, but nothing truly awesome. But it only took one log.

This log, to be exact.

As I removed the dead wood from the damp forest floor, I could see a small creature contract itself into a distinctive S-shape – we’d found a beautiful Marbled Salamander, something I’d dreamed about seeing as a kid but never managed to follow up on. Yet, here it was, practically in my own back yard, and not particularly difficult to find. In fact, after flipping quite a few decent-looking logs near the trail, we ended up with seven individuals, including a couple big fat ones (females, flush with eggs?) that took up the majority of my hand.

If I call the females "Sally Manders", then would the males be "Gerry Manders"?

Finding the salamanders super-cool, James and I couldn’t help but continue to turn up logs, hoping to find some new creature totally unbeknownst to us. Pretty soon we’d left the forest and its nice stockpile of logs, so as we reached one of the fields we decided a random 2 x 4 would have to meet our flipping needs. Good thing too, because coiled under the board was a beautiful little Rough Green Snake, who really couldn’t have been more chill. The snake let us photograph it at point blank range and hardly moved when we picked it up. Maybe this herping thing wasn’t going to be so hard after all.

Maybe it'll just be awesome instead! True story.

After getting the hang of it, I decided to take some friends to test my herping skills. Mostly just because I boasted I could show them all Marbled Salamanders, which I did – an even 15 in the morning, plus two Brown Snakes and a Carolina Anole. But my favorite herp of the day came when I turned over a burnt piece of bark to reveal a small black frog trying to hop away. It’s almost too bad it was a juvenile, because the tiny amphibian turned out to be a young Eastern Narrowmouth Toad, my first ever. Now I just need to find a big orange-and-brown adult!

Man, this iPhone thing takes some really decent pictures!

In the afternoon, Mark and I went to find more Marbleds, and ended up with ten more individuals in a completely different section of the forest. As I continued flipping, I came upon a wholly different salamander. Where the Marbleds will stand still and hope you don’t notice you, this guy tried to make a dash for the leaf litter. I grabbed him, but he wriggled out of my fingers, and I had to grab him again, this time taking a handful of leaves and pine straw with him. Mark and I had to text Ali and figure out what kind of salamander we had, because for all my research, I somehow failed to miss this one.

A certain Peter Venkman quote comes to mind after an encounter with this guy. Photo credit Mark K.

Turns out, I’d found a White-spotted Slimy Salamander, a decently common one in these parts. He’s got an interesting defense mechanism, which I witnessed first-hand – he’ll excrete a whole bunch of slime (hey, that’s the name of the salamander!) and thrash about until he slips out of a predator’s grasp. Lucky for me, the handful of leaves I picked up with him shielded me from even more sliming. Ali texted me later to let me know that I’d be washing my hands for days after this encounter, and it seems I will be – even after a full half-hour of scrubbing, I’ve still got spots of dirt that got caked on after the slime dried. Wish I’d known about this whole ordeal ahead of time – sounds like a job for Captain Hindsight!

Thus ends my first week of real herping. Three lifers, two snakes I hardly ever get to see, and an increased appreciation for nature. Which is really what this hobby is about, I think – at the very least, I’ll keep it going until migration picks up around here. Then, it’s back to the sky, and back to the birds! 

Woodcock O'clock!

Towards the end of winter, the bird life starts to get tired. The juncos have been here for almost five months, the White-throated Sparrows are finishing off the last of the bird seed, and even the formerly cheerful racket of foraging Ruby-crowned Kinglets has relegated itself to commonplace. Luckily, at this time of year, there’s something you can do to relieve your avian ennui. For some reason, February is the month American Woodcocks have chosen to stop skulking in the deep forest, and begin their elaborate mating displays.

We arrived at Mason Farm earlier than we needed to. Unfortunately for photographers, woodcocks feel the need to display after sundown, and as that wouldn’t occur for another couple hours, James and I decided to walk the loop trail. Bird activity had slowed by the afternoon, but we still found a couple of small flocks. Chickadees and Titmice rasped from the shrubbery near a damp swamp, and a Golden-crowned Kinglet foraged lower in the branches than I’ve ever seen one. But the exciting part came after I heard a reedy whistle coming from a nearby tree. Looking up, I found none other than a Brown Creeper working its way up a trunk quite close to us, and James raced over to snap this shot.

Creepers have to be among the most frustrating birds to photograph!

As the clouds started to move in, even the mixed winter flocks started to disappear. The cool winds couldn’t hide the fact that it was a balmy sixty degrees outside. So as we rounded a turn on the gravel path, I was quite surprised to find a large toad hopping through the tall grass, apparently taking advantage of the unseasonable January weather. Before he could escape into the wilderness, I caught him and placed him on the trail to get a better look – in North Carolina, there are two very similar species, and I had to make sure of its identity. Luckily for us, the toad had single warts ringed by dark skin, meaning he was an American Toad, an amphibian that had escaped James’s camera lens until this point, as the more common and closely related Fowler’s Toad has proved to be more photogenic.

He doesn't look very amused, does he?

Finally, the sun began to set, and we made our way to a stretch of trail that lies between two large fields. It’s a spot I’m told has been historically good for woodcock in the past, and it’s where I got my lifer almost two years ago. Of course, January is still a little early for their breeding displays, and I couldn’t be certain the birds would be out and about so early in the year, but as it's been a mild winter, I liked our chances. As the sun dipped below the horizon, however, I heard an odd sound travel from across the field. weent. That’s it! The Woodcocks were back! Over the course of the next half-hour, more and more American Woodcocks called in the fields, and soon enough they began to take off on their display flights, winnowing over the fields by using specialized feathers on their wings. Suddenly, the winnowing became faster and faster as one bird spiraled towards the ground, and as he neared it became more mechanical before silencing. With naught but a rustle of feathers, a male American Woodcock flew right past us and landed in the middle of the trail.

A much nicer view than nearly stepping on one in the middle of the forest!

We managed to catch him in the spotlight, and as James photographed him, the bird straightened his posture and let out a single weent, hoping to attract a female to his trail-side hovel. He ducked back down, ran a couple feet, flashed his tail feathers, and without warning he’d alighted, once again winnowing over the fields. After just a half hour of watching the birds, the fields fell silent once again. All in all, we must have seen around ten American Woodcocks that night, including a male courting a female down the trail from us. But none gave us quite the views as that one male on a balmy night in January.

The Most Rufous-y Hummer in the... Yard

It’s nearly Thanksgiving, and while that means a day of turkey, beer, and football, it also means that James is back in town from college! We only had a couple hours to bird, but our first stop was a no-brainer: I took James to visit the Rufous Hummingbird that’s been coming to a feeder not five minutes from my apartment in Chapel Hill.

The last three times I’ve visited this bird, I’ve had to wait anywhere between and thirty minutes to an hour and a half for the bird to show up, but not so this time. Within about five minutes we heard a reedy whistling and looked up to see the hummingbird sitting right in the sun! James got fantastic life views, and I enjoyed seeing him closer than I ever have before when he flew off. So I devised an experiment – because of the difficulty identifying Selasphorus hummingbirds, nobody’s really quite sure whether or not this could actually be an Allen’s Hummingbird. So I preloaded my phone with the song of a Rufous, and upon playing it the bird dashed from over the weedy field and hovered right in front of us for several seconds before landing in a bush not six feet away! In my mind, this confirms his identity as a Rufous Hummingbird.

I doubt we could've gotten this close even in its home range!

As we accomplished our goal nearly an hour ahead of the time we’d allotted for it, James and I decided to hit up Mason Farm, the local spot that’s always got a little bit of something. Today, that something turned out to be sparrows of all kinds – loads of White-throateds, Chippings, and Songs poured out from the bushes along the canal. In the middle of a nearby path, we found this rather bold Painted Turtle attempting to cross from one section of canal to the other, but not before we stopped to take a couple pictures. He didn’t seem to mind too much, never completely retreating into his shell, and after we were done he went about his merry way and slid down the nearby bank into his watery home.

Although I don't think anyone enjoys having a camera shoved in their face.

Once we got away from the main canal, the bird life seemed to lessen, in number anyway. But as we walked along the vast fields, a bird flushed from the undergrowth much like a sparrow would. But the bird flew too high, too quickly, and it was too black. No, the dry call notes we were hearing belonged to a male Rusty Blackbird who’d apparently been foraging next to a small pool beneath a bush. He’s a male, but most of his breeding plumage has turned into that rusty coloration that gives the bird his name. While Rusty Blackbirds as a whole have undergone a massive population decline in the last couple of decades, I can still find them every winter, something I’m truly thankful for.

This makes something around forty-two I've seen this winter. Must be a sign!

While James photographed the blackbird, I heard the unmistakable jungle-like call of a Pileated Woodpecker emanating from the nearby forest. Turns out, the bird was closer than I thought. As we rounded a corner, James gave the signal to stop moving and crept over to his left. The bird lay just on the other side of a tree just a couple yards off the path. James got into position and snapped this shot of an enormous Pileated Woodpecker working his way up a horizontal branch.

Still looking for that perfect shot, but this'll do. For now.

But that’s not even the best part: just after James took the picture, the titanic bird flushed off the tree right towards him, and skimmed less than two feet over his head! Talk about your close calls! The rest of the trail didn’t hold many new or exciting birds for us, and the clouds appeared rather ominous, but the memory of point-blank looks at Rufous Hummingbirds and Pileated Woodpeckers is more than enough to label this day of birding a smashing success!