Night of the Spadefoots

Well, I was gonna tell you about some awesome birds I found this past weekend, but I’ve had this one on the backburner for too long and it’s a tale I’ve got to tell. It all started that time Ali, Mark and I went down to Sandhills NWR in South Carolina, when we got the third degree from some Fish and Wildlife official and found a fledgling Common Nighthawk on the way out. Before we reached the exit, the skies opened up and rain poured from on high. Torrents sliced through the night so thick you couldn’t see in front of you, and Mark had to pull over lest we crash into something rather more solid than ourselves. That’s when the fun began.

Once the rains relented to a drivable level, we started cruising rural roads outside of Wildlife Refuge boundaries. From the roadsides, scores of frogs and toads began hopping into our path – mostly Southern Toads, but occasionally something more interesting. We found a Green Frog once, far away from any water, and this nice Southern Leopard Frog ended up being extremely photogenic.

I have bad luck catching Leopard Frogs - they're so slippery!

Ali ended up being our spotter, which is good because the kid has eyes like a hawk. He was identifying frogs to species before he even got out of the car! But nobody needed help with this behemoth. A large Bullfrog, one of the biggest I’ve ever seen, was just hanging out on the side of the road, oblivious to the cars passing close by. He’s got some major scarring around his face – I’m not sure if that’s the result of sparring with another frog or if he somehow survived a close encounter with a water snake. But for whatever reason, this gnarly-looking guy remains the only Bullfrog I’ve ever had the pleasure of photographing.

Not as big as the one Ali and I found a week or two earlier, but still pretty huge!

With all the Southern Toads we were seeing, even I got pretty good at picking them out at forty miles per hour. So I found it pretty odd when Ali excitedly yelled “Stop the car!” and jumped out for what appeared to be nothing special. Then he ran back in with something altogether different, sucking in air and swelling like a balloon until his legs stuck out useless at his sides. To this day, it remains the coolest herp I’ve ever seen, something you can only find on summer nights when it rains enough to convince them to mate. In my hand, I was holding an Eastern Spadefoot.

The males were a lot more colorful, with a kind of purple tint to them.

That night, the Spadefoots were out in force. We ended up finding eight or nine, and each time they’d inflate themselves as some kind of defense mechanism. I expected them to be small, and while the males were pretty modestly-sized, some of the big females we found were huge – one was almost four inches long! I found it surprisingly difficult to hold them, because they’d try to dig down using their namesake spades which actually hurts a bit when you’re being kicked by a big frog. I’ll never forget that night – by far the best roadcruising we ever had.

The big females, on the other hand, had a striking brown-and-yellow pattern to them.

We actually kept a bunch of the frogs overnight in a small Styrofoam cooler filled with water so that we could photograph them the next day. We set up shop next to a random pond which worked out well for me – this way, I could look for some new kinds of fish while Mark and Ali photographed to their heart’s content. Immediately, I pulled up something rather different than the Eastern Mosquitofish I’d been finding all day. After a bit of research, Ali determined that this guy was a Lined Topminnow, and its pretty cool that I can finally put names to some of the random fish that I’ve been seeing.

We saw a couple of bass swimming amongst the schools of fish, but we just couldn't seem to catch them.

We released the frogs and headed back towards home. That’s when we realized that we were pretty close to Pinehurst No. 2, which if you didn’t know is the golf course where all the rich people play until they get kicked out when the US Open rolls around. In any case, I’d heard it was a great place to find Fox Squirrels, but since I haven’t had any luck photographing these guys, I wasn’t expected we’d find any. But sure enough, right on the side of the road and totally ignored by golfers with their sweatshirts tied around their necks, this Fox Squirrel chowed down on mushrooms.

Mmm... mushrooms...

Now feeling a sense of completion, we made good on our plan to return to the Triangle. Since I had to wait a little while for my ride home, I decided to photograph one of the many Mediterranean House Geckos Ali and I caught that one random night. He’s been keeping them to see if he can get them to breed. No success that I know of, but at least they’re still super chill after a couple weeks in captivity.

Just chilling and showing off his amazing wall-climbing skills. No big deal.

I couldn’t have asked for anything more. With amazing herps, great mammals, and even a couple of fish, this lastest trip down to the Sandhills was a fantastic one that I’ll never forget. Since then, I’ve gotten distracted by birds again, so look forward to a super awesome final conclusion to our Huntington Beach trip sometime next week!

Possibly Impossible Identifications

What do three self-proclaimed herpers do when they’ve got a free weekend? Head down to South Carolina of course! We’d heard through the grapevine that the Sandhills of South Carolina are even better than those in North Carolina for photographing things like Scarlet Snake, Mud Snake, and Canebrake Rattlers. Before we got far down the road, I noticed the bird life starting to change. Mississippi Kites became a common sight soaring through the air overhead, and one field we stopped at had five individuals hunting in the mid-afternoon sun.

Would've got a better picture, but I had an inferior camera at the time. Still - Mississippi Kite!

Once we reached our destination, we immediately began looking for herps, but we couldn’t find much. Turtles basking on nearby logs dove down to quickly for us to identify them to species. So I turned to the next best thing – there were a bunch of fish around, so I decided to start a fish life list! Before long, I’d netted one of the insanely common Eastern Mosquitofish that frequent pond shores around here.

Almost impossible to swing the net without catching one of these guys...

As we watched Eastern Kingbirds flycatch from road signs and Anhingas preening on tall snags, the skies began to darken around us. Huge rain clouds moved in and pretty soon raindrops began to splatter on the hot asphalt. Good thing too, because it turns out herps love rain! Just after I’d donned an ill-fitting parka, we found an Eastern Box Turtle crossing the path, and over by our car, we found this little guy trying to make it off the road. We’re still not great at turtle identification, but we got a couple photos of his plastron that secured him as a little Musk Turtle.

Hard to believe how much time we spent debating the Musk Turtle ID... he stank to high heaven!

Once the herps started coming, they wouldn’t stop. Green Treefrogs and Southern Leopard Frogs began to join the chorus of Southern Cricket Frogs, and we even found an Eastern Mud Turtle in the middle of the road. Circling back towards some of the ponds we’d checked earlier in the day, we found this big female turtle hauled out onto a sandy hillside. If the Musk Turtle was hard for us to identify, the complex of cooters and sliders is even worse. Luckily, she showed some pattern in the shell, which meant she was a cooter – but South Carolina gets two species. So we decided to photograph her at all angles for documentation, and it turned out to be a good move. Our suspicions were confirmed, and this big South Carolinian turtle has a plastron that perfectly matches the Florida Cooter.

This has got to be the epitome of impossible turtle ID. No idea how herpetologists first described these things!

By now, the sky had grown black and the rain poured down. We couldn’t find any snakes in this dismal weather, but soon enough our headlights glared with bright dots hopping across the road. Mostly they’d end up being the mundane Southern Toad, but every once in a while we’d find a Green Frog or something better. Something better ended up being this nice Pine Woods Treefrog, which you may remember we found on our last visit to the Sandhills. But back then, we found the frog hopping through the ashes of a recently burned forest, meaning he had bits of crud all over his face. This one kept getting rained on, preserving the intricate pattern on its back.

It's a less natural background than the first one, but at least he didn't try to jump away!

While we were photographing the frog, a large white SUV came barreling down the road with its hi-beams on. As it slowed up, the driver turned on his blinding blue and white beacons, and a mustached man stepped out shining a Maglite in our face. “What’re you guys doing out here?” he asked in a thick southern accent. Truthfully, we answered: “Photographing a frog.” A similar situation we found ourselves in when we ran into the Army a couple weeks ago. “Y’all caught anything out here tonight? Mind if I check your vehicle?” Quickly we realized we weren’t being hounded by the police, but rather a National Fish & Wildlife officer looking to stop the poaching of snakes from the Sandhills Gamelands.

Wasn’t long before he realized we weren’t catching the herps, just photographing them. Plus he seemed impressed when we differentiated the calls of a Common Nighthawk, a Whip-poor-will, and a Chuck-wills-widow in front of him. He let us go without so much as a warning, but with the caveat that we had to be out of the Gamelands within an hour. Wouldn’t be an issue, we told him, as the heavy rain seemed to have kept our promised snakes underground. As we were heading towards the highway, Mark noticed an odd lump by the side of the road. “Looks like a toad,” he said as he pulled aside it, and Ali stuck his head out the window to check. “I think it’s a rock, man,” but Ali kept on looking before it dawned on him. “Wait – it’s a baby nightjar!”

Okay, I can pretend to identify difficult herps, but I just give up when it comes to fledgling Caprimulgids...

Sure enough, the fledgling nightjar did his best to stay motionless while we peered down at him. With all three local nightjar species in the vicinity, we couldn’t be quite sure which one we had. Overall, the shape of the bird suggested Common Nighthawk, but it had some odd brown flecking reminiscent of a Chuck-wills-widow. For the last week, we’ve been asking every birder we can think of, but apparently juvenile nightjar identification is difficult at best, impossible at worst. It’s too bad we didn’t stick around to see if a parent came down to feed it, but we had to get out of the Gamelands or risk a hefty fine.

With the NFWS ranger still cruising the roads, I decided to move the chick back into the forest, but as I cupped my hands the little bird got up on surprisingly long legs and ran off the road. All’s well that ends well, and we still had a whole night of rural road herping ahead of us. Turned out to be far more awesome than I could have possibly anticipated!

The Rarest Frog on the East Coast

Okay, so maybe that’s not technically true. I heard there’s a rare leopard frog that lives in Central Park. But for a frog that has random disjunct populations in Alabama and New Jersey, it’s pretty cool that I can find one in North Carolina. That’s the entire reason I went down to the Sandhills on a mild June day with Mark K and Ali Iyoob.

Honestly, I started out disappointed. We flipped some wood and some tin, and couldn’t find any of the Carolina Sandhills specialties we’d been hoping for. While we stopped at a random bridge for some road crusing, Ali noticed a billow of silt moving through the creek beneath us. In true Ali fashion, he bounded down the hill, into the ankle deep water, and pulled out this prehistoric behemoth.

He put it on the paved shoulder so that we could see it in all its glory. The Eastern Snapping Turtle was none too pleased, lunging at our feet with a bite force that can break human bones. The turtle had a mangled shell on one side, a healed wound from an old altercation with a vehicle. Didn’t impact its temperament any – damn thing snapped at anything that moved!

Afterwards, we decided to check the fabled drop-zone for herps. But that didn’t stop me from noticing the breeding pairs of Orchard Orioles, or the Common Nighthawks calling in the distance. Ali called me on my cell, saying he’d spotted a Lark Sparrow flitting into a random grove of trees, but by the time I ran down, the bird dove into the low grasses, never to be seen again. I’d have to make do with this beautiful Pigmy Rattlesnake, likely the same individual we’d flipped a couple months ago, but clearly on the better side of its molt cycle.

By this time, the sun was setting, so we had to head out and look for the frogs we were here for. Driving past an old hobo camp and deep pits of sand, we had to end our forward journey once we reached an impassable patch of shifting mud. Not that it made a difference – once we reached our spot, we found a second ford of rocks and water, created by a beaver dam. Almost as if on cue, Mark spotted the American Beaver swimming in the nearby swamp, totally ignoring the humans who interrupted its daily routine.

As the sun started to set and the nighthawks started to call, we began to hear the native frogs start to call. At first, the only sounds we heard were Southern Leopard Frogs and Southern Cricket Frogs, and even between those two species it was almost deafening. The cricket frogs, by far the most common species we encountered, would leap out from in front of us, even while we walked through forest newly charred by controlled burns.

Finally, we started to hear the frogs we were looking for. They’d call from the tops of trees and down in the low shrubbery, but still we couldn’t locate them, despite having braved thick thorns. That’s when Ali noticed a dark shape hopping through the burnt undergrowth – surely, we had our amphibian! But not so fast…

It was brown rather than green, clearly a sign that we’d found the wrong frog. Still, it was a good one – a Pine Woods Treefrog, kind of boring but not something we’d heard calling. So it was new to us! But our quarry still eluded us, taunting us by calling from just a couple feet away. It became dark enough that we had to bust out the flashlights, finally spotting a bright green beacon in the light.

We’d found a pair of mating Pine Barrens Treefrog, a range-restricted species found in very specific pine forests of the East Coast. Even though they’re (apparently) relatively easy to find in the North Carolina Sandhills, you’d have to travel to the namesake Pine Barrens of New Jersey to find the next closest population. Due to the restriction of this pine habitat, they’ve been extirpated through most of their range, and only exist in a couple of disjunct populations. Thankfully, this copulation proves the Sandhills population is still going strong, and not likely to disappear anytime soon.

Elated at our rare find, we instead turned our focus to the hammer-like sounds we heard emanating from the swamp. They were the aptly-named Carpenter Frogs, whose deep  clicks and bangs literally sound like a construction site. But they always seemed to evade us, even when we could hear them quite close to the bank. Ali noticed once that seemed to favor a small pool next to the road, but every time we tried for the catch, it’d dive down beneath arm’s reach. So I tried a different strategy – I grabbed the net we’d brought, aimed it under the frog, and when it dove once again, I lunged. Sure enough…

I came up with the frog! At this point, something odd happened. The Army showed up – seriously! A bunch of camo-clad soldiers rolled up in four-wheel drives, and announced they’d be destroying the beaver dam that allowed us to comfortable cross the nearby stream. They weren’t kidding, and their lack of tools didn’t stop them – they backed up their giant truck, ran over the beaver dam, and celebrated when the carefully placed sticks fell apart to cause a small deluge.

Though they were destroying nature, the soldiers maintained it was for the good of the gamelands – the increased water supply would flood canals downstream, increasing the stability of the nearby roads. They were, however, quite friendly, allowing us to photograph the Carpenter Frog in their headlights. After all, as one of them said, it was a Wednesday night. Why shouldn’t we be photographing frogs? To answer that, I’d say I honestly don’t have a better use of my time than photographing the unique wildlife of the Sandhills. I hope they understand – but I’m not expecting much of a response.

A Study in Scarlet

Herping the Sandhills Gamelands is a totally unique experience, and not just thanks to the range-restricted fauna you can find there. Because the military uses the area for active-duty training, the floor of the pine forest is littered with what looks like the remnants of a long-forgotten war.

Strewn beneath the pine straw are MREs, bullet casings for sniper-grade rifles, and discarded det cord. Dodging rusty coils of barbed wire and camouflaged foxholes, we also found an ammo clip, a pair of army-issue boxer shorts, and what was possibly a deactivated land mine. It’s hard to believe snakes thrive in this environment, but given the right set of circumstances, you can unveil a real beauty. That’s when Mark flipped over a log, causing some of the bark to rip off in the process, only to find perhaps the most beautiful snake in the world resting underneath.

I dare you, I double-dare you, to find a more beautiful snake in North Carolina!

We’d found a Scarlet Kingsnake, a tiny little one, not more than eight inches long. It was feisty for such a small creature, constantly trying to wriggle out of our grasp and even raising up to strike once or twice. Apparently this species gets confused with the venomous Coral Snake, and after seeing it in person it’s hard to see why – the pale bands are a stark white, a far cry from the yellow on a Coral, plus the head is nice and red. Like the old adage goes, red on black, friend of Jack. Not that I need a rhyming pneumonic to identify my snakes.

Red on black, kills Jack; red on yellow, probably a different snake. Wait, that's not right...

After our elation at finding an elusive Scarlet Kingsnake, the rest of the trip was pretty much a giant bonus. We walked through some more pine forest, which is basically the only thing to do in the Sandhills. Unfortunately, we weren’t finding much – a Southeastern Five-lined Skink here, an Eastern Fence Lizard there. Mark and I were talking about the possibility of finding Coachwhips when he stopped mid-sentence and yelled out: “Snake!”, for he’d almost stepped on one!

If you look closely, you can see the reflection of the three of us in its eyes, which is kinda awesome!

Lying at his feet was a good-sized Eastern Hognose, but not like the black ones I’ve seen around the Triangle. This guy was beautifully patterned, with blotches of brown and black intertwining with ochres and tans. He looked like a two-foot long cob of Indian corn! As often happens with snakes, we tried to hold it a bit, but the Eastern Hognose wasn’t having any of it – as soon as I lifted him up, I saw his cloaca evert and dropped him just before he squirted a fowl-smelling musk on me. Immediately, the snake turned over, mouth ajar and tongue hanging out – the perfect amalgam of a dead animal. Luckily, this is just a defense mechanism, but it was super cool to see!

We flipped him over and he flopped right on his back again. You're not fooling anybody snake!
Photo thanks to Ali Iyoob.

On the way back, Ali did that thing he does where he randomly jumps down a hillside when he sees a herp. This time, he stuck his hand into a random creek and pulled out this exquisitely patterned Common Musk Turtle. A couple weeks ago, we found another Musk Turtle, but because it was a big adult its stripes were faded and it refused to musk. This young one had bright white lines around the eye and smelled awful – truly living up to its colloquial name of ‘Stinkpot’!

At least he didn't bite me like that stupid Mud Turtle. Stupid, stupid Mud Turtle...

Our next stop would be the terribly-named 17 Frog Pond. In the best of times, it’s a bad name because there are actually 21 species of frog living in the shallow pool. In the worst of times, as today, there aren’t any frogs to be had, as the pond dried up over our mild winter. Hopefully it’ll fill up with some strong summer rains and the frogs will return, but for now I’ll have to live with this small Corn Snake Ali found under some loose bark – honestly, more than one hell of a consolation prize!

At least he sat still long enough for one photo... that's all I really care about!

Maybe it had been a cold morning, and the snake was sluggish for a bit, but after being held in our warm hands the Corn Snake was incredibly active, darting into the leaf litter the moment we let go. Of all the snakes we found in the Sandhills that weekend, he was by far the most difficult to photograph. The same can’t be said for this stately Southern Toad we found under some nearby cover – he just sat like a statue while we shot him!

You can tell it's a Southern Toad because of the giant post-cranial ridges...
otherwise I find toad ID next to impossible!

After all the rare and beautiful herps we found that weekend, it would be a shame to leave without finding one of its more common denizens. We heard them everywhere, like insects in the reeds – Southern Cricket Frogs, probably the most abundant herp in the area. We found a ton, but every time something was wrong – either we’d find an abnormally dull individual, or it would hop away just as I snapped my shutter. Finally, we found a small pond full of them, and I could do nothing but take my time.

Not so bad! Even the baking evening sun can't stop the Southern Cricket Frog!

It’s honestly hard for me to believe that traveling just an hour south of where I live can have such a dramatic change of the biota I find. I’m lucky to have such a unique habitat as the Carolina Sandhills in my fair state, and I think I’m going to take full advantage of it every chance I get. There’s no telling the weird and wonderful wildlife you’ll find when you’ve got pitcher plants blooming in your backyard.

These pitcher plants, as a matter of fact!

Yeah, that totally happens down there. The Sandhills are awesome.

The Most Dangerous Creature That Ever Bit Me

Now that I’ve been herping a while, I’ve inevitably been bitten by the animals I’ve found myself trying to catch. At first it was a Black Rat Snake, then a Northern Water Snake, and I’ve even been close to being tagged by a Black Racer. But nothing comes close to the pain and severity of the bite I received that day, which to this point, is the most dangerous creature that ever bit me.

The afternoon started off well enough. We’d barely even entered the fish hatchery when Ali darted to the side of one of the ponds, darted his hand in, and came out with this nice Banded Water Snake. According to both Daniel and Ali, it’s a pretty darn dull one, looking more brown than banded, but it’s still a cool snake. As soon as I handled it, it tagged me, briefly piercing me with needle-sharp teeth. It may have stung at the time, but it was nothing compared to the bite I’d soon receive.

Honestly, the musk is the worst part of handling Nerodia sp. The bites, not so bad!

Taking a small break from the herps, I decided to turn my attention to the multitude of swallows that jinked and juked over the man-made ponds. Among them was my first-of-the-year Tree Swallow, along with a couple Barn Swallows and Northern Rough-Winged Swallows that made some pretty close passes. I found one of the Northern Rough-wingeds perched atop a chain-linked fence, and remembering that this is supposed to be a birding blog, I decided to snap a shot. Too bad he wouldn’t let me get closer, but swallows never do!

These guys never give me a good look. This is honestly the closest I've ever gotten.

As we surveyed the edge of the ponds for frogs and turtles, Ali announced he’d found another snake chilling in a low-hanging blackberry bush near the creek. It wasn’t just any snake, though – it was the rarely seen Ribbon Snake, a serpent that looks much like the common Eastern Garter Snake save for the fact that it’s often seen near rivers. It’s also incredibly docile – never did the snake attempt to strike at me, and it posed perfectly the first time around! We ended up hanging out with the snake far past the afternoon, and she (at least, she seemed like a “she”) became our unofficial mascot for the trip. We still miss you, Ribbon Snake!

I kind of fell in love with this snake! So chill, so cool, and so way awesome!

As if the day couldn’t get any better, just as we finished photographing the Ribbon, Ali told me he found the snake of snakes down by the creek, the very target we came to the fishery to find. For safety, he carried the snake back in an old pillowcase, and dumped it on the nearby lawn. Tumbling out came a decent sized Cottonmouth, an extremely venomous pit viper. I had to get down low to get my shot, and boy did it pay off!

Don't bite me don't bite me don't bite me don't bite me!

That’s when the snake’s behavior changed. Ignoring Ali and his trusty tongs, the poisonous serpend turned towards me, and started slithering in my direction. I decided to stay still, under the rationale that if I got up and moved out of the way, the sudden movement would attract the snake’s attention and cause it to strike. So I remained statuesque, hardly moving a muscle. Did it work? Did the snake bite me? Did I escape the promise of an early death? Scroll down to the next paragraph for the exciting conclusion!

Don't move. He can't see us if we don't move!

No, actually, pretty much the opposite of all that. The Cottonmouth was almost disappointingly calm, and we couldn’t get it to flash its trademark white mouth at all. Still, it’s an awesome snake to have such an up-close experience with. And by up-close I mean I got to touch it, because Ali in his infinite wisdom decided to pick up the thing, at which point I finally saw its cottony-mouth as it reared its fangs. Luckily, Ali was holding it behind the head like the competent herper he is, and no damage was done to either party.

One day, I'll reach this level of herper. But it is not this day!

After finding our target, we decided to check the nearby pond for other herps. It didn’t take Ali long to dart his arm into a pond and pull out a wholly unique reptile. He gave it to me to hold, and I wish he hadn’t. Sure it seemed fine at first, and the thing hardly struggled. But while we were examining the source of an odd frog call, I felt an excruciating pain on my thumb – while I wasn’t paying attention, it had reared back and struck with deadly accuracy. I tried to pull it off, but it just bit down harder. I couldn’t help but yell out in pain, besmirching the accursed turtle! Oh yeah, it was a turtle by the way.

This turtle, as a matter of fact. This bloody infernal demon-spawn of a turtle.

An Eastern Mud Turtle to be exact, and a species I’d only seen once before. It’s only the second turtle I’ve been bitten by (the first when I was a child), and I was relieved to find it didn’t draw blood. But a deep purple bruise remained where it chomped down on my thumb with a force that can crush, I dunno, really tough plants? I guess that’s what turtles eat.

In any case, over the course of the weekend I was mere feet from extremely venomous snakes like slovenly Pigmy Rattlers and tame Cottonmouths, and even a feisty water snake or two. But the only animal that attempted to do any damage was that one stinkin’ no-good excuse for a turtle. Not that I’m complaining, he was pretty awesome. I just wish he wouldn’t be so bite-y next time.

One Day in the Sandhills

I can’t tell you how excited I was that morning. I rarely get to visit the unique Sandhills of North Carolina, and I’ve never herped there. Sure I’ve birded, and gotten things like Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Bachman’s Sparrow, and that one time a Cassin’s Sparrow, but I wasn’t expecting any of those species. Sure, they’d be nice, but I came here for the herps.

Our first stop was a small pond inside an RV community. Normally it wouldn’t be anything special, but the pond housed a small population of Eastern Newts, and they proved to be of a unique subspecies. Most places you can find “Red-spotted” Newts, but down in Florida they’re entirely lineated. In the Sandhills you get something in between, which means the newts I photographed that cold morning were Broken-striped Newts, a lifer for me, though to be fair any newt would be a lifer.

Surprisingly active for an amphibian on a 40-degree morning!

At the newt spot, we met up with a young herper by the name of Daniel, who’d been in the area all week. Thankfully, he knew a couple spots, and right away we were off for a snake that’d been seen in the same spot for an entire week. Braving the thick sand, we walked down a path that led us to a random grove of trees. Flipping the only board in the area, I saw a small serpent retract into a tight coil. He was beautiful – copper coloration upon a slate body, small but with a presence. He was a Pigmy Rattlesnake, and probably the coolest reptile I’ve ever seen.

He even buzzed his rattle at us once, but it sounded more like an insect than a rattlesnake.

Keeping to our schedule, Mark, Ali and I headed to a random creek. As I enjoyed my first-of-year Yellow-throated Vireos and Prothonotary Warblers, Ali dipped for a very special salamander, and before long he’d caught them. They were Dwarf Waterdogs, a small salamander related to the mudpuppy, and utterly impossible to photograph outside of water. To compensate, we placed them in a small plastic container and shot from above. It’s not the most natural shot in the world, but it shows every part of the Dwarf Waterdog – from the paddle-shaped tail to the feather-like gills, it’s one awesome salamander!

I feel like I'm on a mission to photograph every Necturus salamander in NC now!

Still, we had a schedule to keep, and dilly-dallying at the Dwarf Waterdog spot was not an option. We proceeded on to a residential location that was supposed to house tins full of snakes and lizards, but on arrival we found nothing. A nearby patch of burnt forest produced a single adult male Southeastern Five-lined Skink, easily identifiable by its red head and perfectly shaped genitalia. Flipping more tins, we found this nice Copperhead, a little more colorful than the ones I’m used to. Apparently, the Sandhills are in range for the Southern Copperhead, a subspecies where the color bands contrast far more than usual.

Prettier, maybe - but not nearly as confiding as the ones I get around here.

While the Copperhead was pretty, I couldn’t help but notice that we’d only really found two species of snake. Sure it was only halfway through the first day, but it was the Sandhills dammit! I’d been promised cottonmouths, kingsnakes, and coachwhips, and by the end of the weekend, I’d manage two out of three. Not bad odds for awesome snakes!

Would that be Accidental or Occidental?

The bird had apparently been coming to Marjorie’s house in Pinehurst for a month or so. Being very busy during the holidays, as most of us are, she didn’t have much time to check it out thoroughly, and assuming he was an oriole, she put half an orange out for him on the feeder set-up. Weeks passed, and the orange remained uneaten. Instead, the bird continued visiting her peanut feeder, and after snapping a couple pictures with her point and shoot, she brought over Michael McCloy to check out the bird and confirm her suspicions. Sure enough, they were looking at a bright male Western Tanager, a bird of the Rockies and the Pacific Coast, and a bird off-course by several thousand miles.

Having spent several weeks out in California and coming up empty on the tanager front, I knew this chase was happening. Heck, it’s only an hour and a half away, and James really wanted to see the bird after finding out it was a nice male, and not one of the drab females that usually grace our state. So this morning, we made a bee-line for Pinehurst, and after Marjorie graciously allowed us inside her house, we waited intently while the sunlight danced around her birdless feeders, hoping that if the tanager did show up, it would land at the right moment. Then, a flurry of activity – out of nowhere, Blue Jays drank from the nearby bath, Pine Warblers and Chickadees ate out of the seed feeders; even a Northern Flicker popped up to the feeder closest to the window. And right in the middle of her platform feeder filled with peanuts, a golden bird with a wash of crimson to his head. The Western Tanager positively glowed in the morning sun.

The bird stuck around for a full ten seconds, which is like 9.5 seconds longer than
it had ever stuck around before!

Having allocated several extra hours in case the tanager decided to be timid, James and I decided to visit the nearby Weymouth Woods Nature Preserve. If you recall, we visited last summer to try and find its most famous residents, the colony of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers that call the preserve home. Of course, last summer we also got totally skunked on the birds, and I’d almost totally written off Weymouth Woods as a potential spot to find the endangered woodpeckers. This morning, however, I watched several dozen Brown-headed Nuthatches work their way through the pines they enjoy so much, when all of a sudden from the middle of the flock, I heard an odd whark! near the base of one of the trees. I assumed it was just one of the nuthatches making an uncharacteristic noise, but as I neared a larger bird flew up to a nearby pine, and the pattern of black and white bars across the back meant could only mean one thing – a beautiful Red-cockaded Woodpecker, and not fifty feet from my car!

Even at this distance I can't see the red cockades. I'm convinced they don't exist!

The woodpecker flew down one of the trails, stopping every so often to check out a pine and hammer away at a couple bugs. Suddenly, I heard another whark! come from behind me, and a second Red-cockaded joined the first. Within minutes, whark!s started sounding from every corner of the forest, and the Red-cockaded Woodpeckers started streaming in from previously unseen perches. There must have been something like 10 or 15 birds in all, every one working their way from pine to pine, starting at the bottom and sidling up until they’d rid the tree of insects. At one point, I had five of these so-called “rare” woodpeckers working the same spot on the tree, as if they were butterflies swarming over a salt puddle.

Despite the Red-cockadeds, we ended the day with 6 woodpecker sp. So close!

After following the flock for a good half mile or so, one of the birds finally decided to sit up near the light for us (for some reason, Red-cockaded Woodpeckers seem to prefer the shady side of trees). With that, it seemed like we’d gotten everything these Sandhills could have possibly offered us on this cool January morning. We stopped back by Marjorie’s to see if the tanager had shown up again (it had, just once), and we checked the local golf course rather unsuccessfully for Fox Squirrels. All in all though, I think we nailed this morning. If only birding could be this awesome every day!

The Bird That Almost Wasn't

If there’s one thing you’ve heard of the Carolina Sandhills for, it’s probably golf. Apparently the sands from the ancient coastline that graced the region millions of years ago makes for good greenskeeping or something. Oh, and you’ve probably heard of the Fort Bragg Military Reservation. But there should be a third reason you’ve heard of the Sandhills.

The very geography that makes the region a haven for upper-class golfers (redundant?) also gives it vast forests of pine with a nice savannah understory, and that means the wildlife in the region is found nowhere else in North Carolina. Stuff like Pine Snakes, Florida Cooters, and even a species of tree frog whose nearest disjunct population is in New Jersey. Oh yeah, and, you know, birds.

I decided we’d go down to the site where I’d gone this past April to check out North Carolina’s first record of Cassin’s Sparrow. It had a whole bunch of birds that would be lifers for James, species which I wouldn’t mind getting better looks at anyway. Driving around the dirt road, many common grassland species were present in numbers, like Eastern Kingbird and Orchard Oriole, and even an unexpected Cooper’s Hawk (those guys are always unexpected for me).

But the main draw of this site is the nearby Red-cockaded Woodpecker colony, a species which almost exclusively nests in live Longleaf Pines that have low amounts of deciduous vegetation around them. There were many marked nest holes around, and even some active feeding trees – you can tell them by the sap that drips down the trunk and becomes white when it dries.

Longleaf Pine with sap wells - Scotland Co., NC; 06/30/2011

Unfortunately, there were no actual woodpeckers to be found, so we cruised around trying to listen for their squeaky calls. All that netted us was a flyover Common Nighthawk, which would have been a lifer for James but we couldn’t ever actually locate the bird.

As we walked down one of the sandy roads, we found this juvenile Southeastern Five-lined Skink, commonly known ‘round these parts as a Blue-tailed Skink. This particular youngster decided that James’s shoe was totally a good hiding place, and I had to end up fishing him out of the sneaker when he tried to dive under James’s foot!

Southeastern Five-lined Skink in shoe - Scotland Co., NC; 06/30/2011

So, it was off to our next locale, Weymouth Woods Nature Preserve, which I’ve heard from several veteran NC birders is the spot to find the Red-cockaded Woodpeckers. I just wish they’d told the birds, because despite finding several nest holes we struck out on the woodpeckers once again. The savannah understory was very interesting however – it was odd hearing grassland species like Indigo Bunting and Prairie Warbler in the middle of a vast pine forest. In any case, at this point James was feeling pretty disappointed, so we decided to go back to the first Red-cockaded spot and just plant until one showed up. It was a long-shot, but it was the only shot we had.

Sitting around the nest-holes, we saw several other woodpeckers – Red-headed, Red-bellied, even Pileated, but no signs of the bird we were looking for. A Northern Bobwhite cried plaintively over the nearby field, and it was beginning to feel like we’d made the hour-and-a-half drive down here for nothing. Then, all of a sudden, there it was – you could have mistaken it for an odd Brown-headed Nuthatch if you weren’t paying attention, but in reality it sounds more like a high-pitched Red-headed Woodpecker. It flew in and started drumming on a tree, and then a second showed up – Red-cockaded Woodpeckers!

Red-cockaded Woodpecker - Scotland Co., NC; 06/30/2011

James was highly relieved at this point, he’d really wanted to see one of these fine endangered species, but seeing two was a real treat. Almost as if on cue, just fifty feet from where we’d been watching the woodpeckers, I heard the distinctive tremolo of a Bachman’s Sparrow, another Sandhills specialty which we’d managed to miss at both sites before.

Bachman's Sparrow - Scotland Co., NC; 06/30/2011

Lucky for us, this nice male let us get very close – he just sat up on an exposed perch belting out his song while we crept closer and closer, and only bailed when we got within five feet or so. This one really showed off the subtle plumage of the Bachman’s Sparrow – blurry russet streaks offset the beige, and there’s a hint of mustard yellow to the wings; truly, it is a birder’s bird.

Click through for best quality!

Well, that took care of both of our targets for the day. Two lifers for James, two great looks at great birds for me, and thankfully, in the end, one great day of birding!

Bachman's Sparrow singing - Scotland Co., NC; 06/30/2011