Species Spotlight #2: Black Rat Snake

Well, it’s that time of year again. Hurricane Irene only raised the Falls Lake water level a half inch, and already it’s below that again, which means the mudflats are intact and expanding. Any birder worth his salt is going to be checking these mudflats as often as possible, something I’m very familiar with, as it’s exactly what I did last year. On the way to the flats one day, I discovered this enormous Black Rat Snake sunning himself on the gravel road next to the railroad tracks.

He must've been over five feet long!

As you can see, he was all stretched out along the gravel, and didn’t really mind me taking a couple pictures. He just sat there as I kneeled down beside him to take a couple of macro shot, culminating in this nice one with his tongue flicking out. Lucky he wasn’t an ornery fellow, or he could have easily struck at me, but I guess he was happy enough that I wasn’t manhandling him or anything.

You can't get much closer than this!

After hiking down to the mudflats and back, I crossed the gravel road again and the snake was gone. Looks like he got all the sun he needed, but even so he was a really fantastic snake, and it was so cool to get up-close and personal with this awesome animal!

Everybody's Birding for the Weekend!

Oh yeah, that just happened!

In any case, it’s James’s last weekend before he has to head back to college, so I figured we’d hit the always awesome Ellerbe Creek mudflats on Falls Lake, just to see what was there, and as per the usual, we weren’t disappointed. As soon as we headed down the stone rocks from the railroad trestle, I spied three male Wild Turkeys making their way along the forest’s edge, and James manage to snap a shot just before they bolted for the woods.

It's a trio of tom turkeys!

The mudflats are getting pretty extensive, especially the ones closest to the railroad tracks – already they extend almost all the way to the powerlines that cross the twin peninsulas. So James decided to take off his shoes and wade out until the shorebirds were in good light, which led to this nice pair of Lesser Yellowlegs that decided to stick around after all the other birds had bailed because those blasted Killdeer spooked everybody with their incessant shrieking.

A little nicer than their much more larger cousins, IMO

At this point, we ran into another group of birders, consisting of Erla Beegle and her partners in crime, and we began to delve into that most hallowed of birder conversations – “Did you see anything good?” And we both had the same answer – “The usual stuff.” Peeps, Yellowlegs, and Pecs, nothing special. All of a sudden, we look up to see a bird soaring like a jet plane across the flats, its long tail and neck making it one hell of a distinctive bird. Erla pegged it right away: “Anhinga!”

A female, I think; and it's got a fish in its mouth!

An awesome bird that’s particularly difficult to find inland, though there’s rumors it breeds in small numbers at the larger reservoirs around here. It’s a lifer for James, as we haven’t gotten to the southern coast for a couple of years now, so it’s especially cool we found one so close to home. After finding our bird of the day, we made our way down the peninsula, finding this confiding Pectoral Sandpiper on the way. Pecs are notorious bailers, almost as bad as the Killdeer, so it was nice that this guy decided to stick around.

Still waiting for that perfect shot of a Pec!

The end of the peninsula was full of peeps and the like, so we decided to check it out for Semipalmated Sandpipers, a bird that we could honestly use a better picture of. No such luck (it’s those damn Killdeers again), but we did manage to find a trio of Caspian Terns, and James managed to Jackal mode himself up to this little Least Sandpiper. It really doesn’t get much better than that.

But pretty much the perfect shot of a Least Sandpiper!

Just as we were leaving, we decided to hit up the ol’ standby, the Cheek Road causeway that crosses the heart of the northern end of the lake. At first we didn’t see anything, then I spied an Osprey landed on one of the mudflats, which flew up to its nearby nest. And then, a huge bird flew out of the woods on the right, and began to soar over towards us. That Bald Eagle would be the last bird we’d see all day, but what a way to end the day!

First the Turkey, then the Eagle - two prospective American symbols on the same trip!

Pipers and Plovers and Egrets, Oh My!

As you may have seen from my earlier post about it, the Ellerbe Creek mudflats on Falls Lake is the place to be during fall shorebird migration. Last time, the twin peninsulas that line the mouth of the creek hadn’t yet formed, and little inlets of Falls Lake impeded our progress. However, this week, not only were the peninsulas fully formed, but they were already covered in grass!

First thing’s first though. The entire reason we were birding the mudflats when we were was to meet up with Scott of Birdaholic, as he was keen to see what was out there (as were we). But, due to his schedule, we couldn’t meet up til 10, which meant James and I had a little time to check out the Cheek Road causeway over the lake. Doing so netted us several Ospreys, a bunch of Canada Geese, and a ton of Egrets. Mostly Greats, but there were a few Snowys mixed in, and one revealed itself to have pale green-gray legs, and was in fact a juvenile Little Blue Heron, a new county bird for me!

Far-off Egrets, at the very edge of scope-view.

With that, we met up with Scott and headed for the railroad grade that crosses the lake, and immediately we were on the birds. Well, mostly Killdeer (do they really count?) and a couple of peeps, but there was a mystery Sandpiper that looked bigger than the peeps, had a longer, decurved bill, and was feeding deeper than anybody else. We couldn’t really refind it, but found a couple kind of similar birds that we decided were Western Sandpipers due to their size, and James’s far-off photo hasn’t really eased my conscience too much. Any ideas?

Mystery Sandpiper! Bad pic, but you can still see the long bill.

As we made our way down to the flats themselves, we flushed a distinctive adult Black-crowned Night Heron from the willows under the bridge, giving me my second county bird of the day – a great success to say the least! Not a common bird around here by any means. Thankfully, the flats next to the old fishermen’s trail had formed, meaning it was a brisk walk down to the peninsulas, and it netted us a Solitary Sandpiper and a couple of Spotteds to boot. A Belted Kingfisher swept past us, and all of a sudden, the shorebirds abounded!

Semipalmated Sandpiper - Falls Lake, NC; 08/04/2011

A quick scan yielded the Semipalmated Sandpiper seen above – not a bad pic considering it was all the way across the creek on the second peninsula, plus it was a life bird for James, and a bird he’d been looking forward to getting. There were shorebirds on our peninsula as well, but there were Killdeer too, and as anybody who’s shorebirded knows, Killdeer are huge chickens (er, not literally). But seriously, if you get within 100 feet of a Killdeer on the flats, it’ll let out its namesake shriek and all of a sudden every shorebird in the vicinity has taken flight and moved to the far peninsula.

Pectoral Sandpiper - Falls Lake, NC; 08/04/2011

Which is how we never got a great look at a Pectoral Sandpiper even thought they seemed to be everywhere. They were always bailing to the other side with the other shorebirds, but even still, the sun shone bright over there, and that got us our best pic ever of these top-heavy sandpipers. Towards the end of the mudflats, I saw a couple of birds, and James went into stealth mode to try and photograph them.

Semipalmated Plover - Falls Lake, NC; 08/04/2011

However, it being the flats, there wasn’t much out there for James to hide behind, so he decided to do a little number that involved him “pretending to be a heron and hope they didn’t notice” (his words, not mine). Not his proudest moment, but it did net us this decent pic of a Semipalmated Plover, of which we had seen several along the flats. All in all, a pretty good day, despite it feeling like 105° degrees outside (in reality, it was a “cool” 99°). Oh, plus we found a confiding Least Sandpiper on the way back. Nice.

Finally a bird that resists the siren song of the Killdeer!

The End Is the Beginning Is the End

Get it? Like that Smashing Pumpkins song that was in that Batman movie?

Anyway, oh man, I’m excited. It’s getting to be my most favoritist time of the year! Summer is on his way out and he’s about to usher in autumn, and with autumn comes migration, and with migration comes the birds, and around here the birds are already starting to show up.

The number one spot to find shorebirds, for me anyway, is the Ellerbe Creek Mudflats on Falls Lake. It’s gotten me a whole bunch of life birds, mostly shorebirds like Lesser Yellowlegs and Pectoral Sandpiper, but also really sweet stuff like Buff-breasted Sandpiper, and even a Connecticut Warbler last October! Getting there is fun. You have to walk down a set of railroad tracks only to climb down a precarious flow of loose rocks leading down to an old fisherman’s trail. But man, how it’s totally worth it.

I've seen a train on these tracks just once... luckily I wasn't on that bridge!

The lake itself is a managed reservoir, so during the winter the water level is usually quite high and the fisherman’s trail is impassable, but during times of drought the water drops like a stone, and luckily this corresponds with shorebird migration. You can see why the fishermen use it during these times of low water – all around are gigantic invasive Common Carp that like to sidle their way up to shore and make a huge amount of noise splashing around if you get too close.

He really wants whatever's in that bottle! Maybe he's an alcoholic?

On the way down to the flats, you can see the Great Egrets that are starting to show up. On a good day on the flats I can see over a hundred of these guys at once, not bad for the middle of North Carolina.

Great Egret - Falls Lake, NC; 07/18/2011

And finally we get to the meat and potatoes of the whole thing. James and I scared up a pair of little Least Sandpiper, and he managed to get a decent shot of one before it up and flew off. Unfortunately, the flats haven’t fully formed yet, and the soon-to-be grassy peninsula has a couple of impassable channels across it, so the Leasts couldn’t be chased for a better pic, and the Pectorals stayed too far out as well. 

Least Sandpiper - Falls Lake, NC; 07/18/2011

I went back after this particular trip and found a nice Semipalmated Sandpiper at a decently close range, but as soon as I pulled out the camera for a shot, he too flew off into the wind. Too bad, too, as that would have been lifer for James… but he got two different lifers this weekend, so more on that later. James got a nice video of the ubiquitous Killdeer that're always hanging around the flats. Man he's got long wings!

Click through for HD Video!

If there’s one species I can always look forward to seeing around this area, it’s the Red-headed Woodpeckers. They seem to like the dead trees around the swamps here, and you can hear their wild shouts from all the way down the railroad tracks. We found this particular guy on the way back, and he gave us a decent shot by perching up on a branch.

Red-headed Woodpecker - Falls Lake, NC; 07/18/2011

That was it for today, but I’ll definitely be back in the near future, when the grassy peninsulas are fully formed and stuff like Pectorals, White-rumpeds, and hell maybe even more Buff-breasteds will walk within feet of you. To me, this is the epitome of birding.