Species Spotlight #7: Eastern Hognose Snake

As far back as I can remember, I never really wanted to be a herper. (*cue music*) That’s not to say I don’t like reptiles and amphibians, I think they’re really quite cool. Just, sticking my hands under fallen bark and tossing dead logs to manhandle a potentially cantankerous serpent never really appealed to me in the same way that birding did. Regardless, after hanging around a couple of passionate herpers and watching one too many episodes of Animal Planet’s The Jeff Corwin Experience, a perfect opportunity presented itself to me. So I figured, why the hell not?

At the time, James and I were exploring Gate 23 of Duke Forest’s Korstian Division, and after checking out a nice Louisiana Waterthrush down by the bridge, we were making our way back to the car. That’s when James noticed something rustling along the side of the gravel path. At first it looked like a Black Racer, a snake we’d already seen one of that day, but as we got closer it flattened its head, puffed up its body and let out a menacing hissing sound. We had stumbled upon an Eastern Hognose Snake.

Eastern Hognose Snake - Duke Forest, NC

Now, Eastern Hognose Snakes are interesting in that they positively will not bite you. Manhandle them a little and they’ll put on their little hissing display like this one was doing. Manhandle them a lot and they’ll play dead, flipping onto their back and letting their tongue hang out all while releasing a death-like musk. So to me, this was the perfect snake to test my capture technique on.

I pulled the snake out of the brush by its tail, and as I maneuvered it over to the gravel path, it rose up, neck flattened like a cobra’s hood and looking surprisingly intimidating. My natural human instincts took over and I dropped the thing, which I suppose was the snake’s plan all along. It slithered its way off the path and under the pine straw, and we never saw it again. Too bad, I would have liked a better picture of this amazing snake, but let’s just say, herping is not my bag, baby.

#22: Boat-tailed Grackle - Random Rest Stop, Florida

EDITOR'S NOTE: Well folks, we're getting to that point in the birding album where we're beginning to go on trips outside of North Carolina. For the next series of entries, James is going to recount the time he left the States for a far more exotic locale. Enjoy!

When you’ve been birding in one county for long enough, you eventually rack up all the normal birds for the area, and the only ways for you to get new birds are to go after any reported vagrants, or you could just take the easy route and travel. I decided to opt for the second and head down to Nicaragua just over a year ago. While I didn’t go for birding per se, it sure was a nice little bonus. My flight was out of Fort Lauderdale, which meant a nice 14-hour road trip. However, the birds in Florida are almost as foreign as the birds that I would be finding in Nicaragua. 

On the way down, I saw several new birds, including Wood Storks, a Swallow-tailed Kite and what I believe was a Sandhill Crane. However, I only managed to get off one picture, and that was of a very cooperative female Boat-tailed Grackle.

Editor's Note aka Robert: This bird appears to be sick or injured, but not
having accompanied James on his trip, I can't confirm this.

Our road trip route just happened to take us past a rest station that hosted this nice bird, meaning my first life bird of the trip! 

Species Spotlight #6: Black Racer

Here in North Carolina, we’ve got two common species of black snake. One is the Black Rat Snake, like the one I found at the Ellerbe Creek mudflats earlier this year. The other, however, is the smaller, thinner, and lither Black Racer.

When I first started out, I really thought it was impossible to separate these species in the field, but like parsing out peeps and sparrows, all it takes is experience. Now, after having found several individuals of each species, it’s really easy for me to tell which species I’ve got. Among other things, they’ve got totally different head shapes – the Black Racer has a more compact and shovel-like head than the traditionally snake-looking rat snake. Additionally, on a rat snake, even a dark one, you can see darker black stripes that run along its body, where a racer will look totally onyx. And finally, if you manage to flush them, there’s no mistaking. A Black Rat Snake will slither slowly into the undergrowth, but a Black Racer, like its name suggests, will suddenly bolt in a straight line until it’s out of sight.

Black Racer - Durham, NC; 03/22/2011

I found this Black Racer along the old railroad grade that crosses Stagecoach Road in Durham. I wouldn’t have noticed him if he hadn't flushed, making a bee-line through the forest and prompting me to give a rather ill-advised chase through the thorns and briers that riddled the forest floor. Eventually though, he stopped and stared at me as if the prickly bush between us meant he was totally invisible to me. I didn’t want to bother him, and as soon as I got my shot, I let him lie peacefully in the forest. A very cool snake, and one I can’t see often enough!

#21: Belted Kingfisher - Sandy Creek Park, NC

I don’t always see Belted Kingfishers. But when I do, I prefer to visit Sandy Creek to see them. It seems like any body of water should hold these magnificent, raucous creatures, but for some reason I tend to find them reliably at a handful of places, and yet they tend to be completely absent from others. But at Sandy Creek, I can always look forward to hearing the rattling call of a Belted Kingfisher dashing over its ponds, creeks, and trails.

Getting this particular shot was pretty interesting. Usually Belted Kingfishers are quite skittish, bailing before you’re even within eyesight, and never staying in one place for very long. If a Passerine acts this way you have a failsafe – you can always try a bit of playback, and in the right season, it usually works. I’d never tried this with kingfishers, but I saw no reason why it wouldn’t work. After all, kingfishers quite obviously and rather loudly use their calls to communicate, and the call of an outsider should send them over to investigate. I have the feeling there are several unconventional species that playback would attract, such as hummingbirds and shorebirds, but that’s a discussion for another time. On this day at Sandy Creek, we watched a kingfisher fly past as it often would, and I decided it was time for action.

As I pressed the playback button on my fancy phone, the kingfisher didn’t seem to respond at all. In fact, she (as you can tell by the rusty band across the chest) seemed rather repelled by it, quickly flying to the other side of the pond. Soon after, she rattled off her call from over the nearby woods. At this point, it became obvious she’d pulled a complete 180, and was now headed for a snag near us overlooking the big pond. She clamored off her call at the invisible intruder, and James was able to snap this shot of her, at closer range than we’ve ever seen another kingfisher.

Belted Kingfisher - Sandy Creek Park, NC; 07/24/2010

After we had the shot, I turned off the call. We headed back to the parking lot, she flew off over the pond to do whatever it is kingfishers do when birders aren’t around to watch them. To this day, I can always find the kingfishers at Sandy Creek and enjoy them, playback or not. But I’ll always remember that time we had one cackling above our heads as we watched in awe not twenty feet below.

Migrants? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Migrants!

During fall migration, it’s important to pay attention to the weather. The passage of a solid cold front can bring down migrants from places north, and if you’re at the right place at the right time, you can get loads of warblers flitting through the trees, and flocks of shorebirds abounding on the flats. After this latest cold front, Mark K and I decided to plant ourselves in front of a bunch of trees and wait for the warblers to roll on in… but for some reason, it didn’t happen.

We chose Bynum Bridge, a site in Chatham County where you’re right up on top of the trees with all the birds, which would be great if there were any birds to be found. Sure the trees housed Northern Parulas and American Redstarts, and a couple of Red-eyed Vireos doing their best warbler impressions, but nowhere near the huge fallout we were hoping for. A Scarlet Tanager was nice, and close views of an Osprey made the visit worth it, but we had a mission for migrants, and we hoped the New Hope Mudflats on Jordan Lake held what we were looking for.

Sure it's picturesque, but it'd be better if there were shorebirds.

Mark and I met Nick Flanders down at the flats to try and find some shorebirds, but the rain that accompanied the cold front had disastrous results – the mud disappeared, flooded by the rains, and all that remained were grass flats. Normally this would make ideal habitat for, perhaps, some Buff-breasted Sandpipers, but it’s a little late in the year for those guys. Instead, we found a pair of Greater Yellowlegs cavorting in the tall sedges, and as we passed a small stack of sticks atop a puddle of water, Mark spotted what he thought was a frog.

Does that look like a frog to you?

Only it wasn’t a frog – it was a Marsh Wren, a pretty uncommon migrant as far inland as we are and only the second I’ve seen in the Triangle. Now, this particular Marsh Wren was far friendlier than any other I’ve ever encountered, but as anyone who’s ever seen these secretive little guys knows, that’s not really saying much.

Damn bird loved popping up in the shadows!

So we devised a plan. Mark stood on one side of the stick pile, and I stood with the sun to my back, camera in hand and still as a tree. The little guy flitted through the sticks with deft abandon, usually staying hidden but occasionally popping up to check out his surroundings. On one occasion he stood less than a foot from my shoes, but my reflexes weren’t the best. Finally, he hopped atop his wooden dome just long enough for me to snap this shot of him out in the open – a great experience with a great bird!

Cooperative, yes, but not nearly cooperative enough!

On the way back, we found a small migrant flock with our only decent warblers of the day, a non-breeding male Magnolia Warbler and a nice female-type Blackburnian Warbler. I couldn’t photograph them, as warblers that seem to be out in the open in the binocs often manage to hide behind a stick or leaf once the camera comes out. Not having anything else to do, Mark, Nick, and I decided to check out the nearby Morgan Creek mudflats and found the same situation as the one we just left – all grass and no mud! Ten individual Bald Eagles were a nice consolation prize, as was this Pickerel Frog we chased for a dozen yards before finally catching him.

If you zoom in, you can see my reflection in its eye!

Of course, only after stopping to visit the 751 causeway and returning home did I find out that local birder Ali Iyoob had stumbled upon North Carolina’s first reported Violet-green Swallow not a half mile from my apartment. I blazed a trail down to the random pond the swallow had been found at to discover that the bird hadn’t been seen since five minutes after it was first sighted. Oh well. Such is life.

#20: Killdeer - Sandy Creek Park, NC

I have a love/hate relationship with Killdeer. On one hand, it’s really cool to live in a place where you can find this relatively large Charadrius plover almost anywhere, from mudflats to lawns to asphalt parking lots and the roofs of building. And objectively, they look rather cool – demarcated black and white banding, a nice red eye-ring, and even a nice rufous rump when they fly off. On the other hand, Killdeer are one of the most annoying birds in the world.

See, I really love shorebirding. It’s definitely my favorite season of the year! Heading down to the mudflats to find out what the winds dragged in, scouring flocks and flocks of peeps to find an odd White-rumped or a Baird’s, and then just as you find a potential candidate, one wrong step and – kiDEEEEEE!!! All the birds are up in the air because Killdeer spook more easily than any other bird I’ve ever seen and for some reason shorebirds feel the need to take flight alongside them. And that interesting sandpiper? Nowhere to be found. All because of a stinkin’ Killdeer.

Killdeer - Sandy Creek Park, NC; 06/29/2010

Which begs the question, how did James get such a good picture of this Killdeer at Sandy Creek? Why should it be any different? Normally the birds there will bail just as easily as Killdeer do anywhere else, but over the summer, as the miniscule mudflats continued to spread across the small pond, the Killdeer decided to breed. The reason we were able to get so close to this particular individual came down to a little ball of fluff and down – a baby Killdeer.

Cute kid, but just wait til he grows up. Not so cute anymore, eh?

With the baby there, the adult Killdeer couldn't take the chance of fleeing and leaving the baby alone. The two constantly called back and forth to each other as we neared the pond edge, always staying close together. Never again have we gotten so close to a Killdeer, and unless we happen to find them in the presence of babies, I doubt we ever will.

Species Spotlight #5: Gray Fox

Remember back when I first the Species Spotlights with that friendly Nutria, I mentioned it was only the second best mammal lifer I got that day at Lake Mattamuskeet? Well that’s because this was the first best.

Originally our Christmas Bird Count group was supposed to drive the muddy road out to the lake and scope what we could see from there. However, just as we noticed a nice Cooper’s Hawk and a couple of overwintering Common Gallinules (as they’re now called), a National Wildlife Refuge employee descended upon us like we’d done something wrong. And apparently we had. The idea was that we got permission from Lake Mattamuskeet to count the birds in the afternoon, but it seems the only people actually allowed permission to drive the road were the hunters that were killing (not watching) the birds earlier in the morning. While I realize that yes, waterfowl hunters do provide the bulk of the funding that keep the NWRs afloat in North Carolina, does that really mean that individuals meaning no harm to the wildlife in question should be denied access to them? In any case, we were back at square one.

We drove back along the wildlife road until we reached the entrance, at which point we were graciously granted access to a small trail leading to a photography blind along the lake. Not that it was fruitless or anything – the trail led us to a couple of female Baltimore Orioles, a nice Winter Wren, and close-up looks at a Blue-headed Vireo, a species I see all too infrequently. As we walked along the nearby boardwalk, the snow crunching underfoot made noises that sounded like gunshots – you’d think that’d deter the wildlife around here, but perhaps they’re used to it. In any case, as we left the boardwalk and headed once again towards the lake, we found this guy. And boy was he worth it.

He has no idea that at this moment, he's the coolest animal in the world to me.

A Gray Fox. I spotted him first from the path as he sat in the open wildlife drive, with thick bushes along the canal between us. As he returned to eating some long-dead or recently killed prey, I noticed he seemed bigger than I thought he would. Perhaps he’d found Lake Mattamuskeet to have good eatin’ in the wake of the hunters, or perhaps his winter coat just made him seem fuller. As a kid, animals like this seemed off-limits to me, something I should never see because Gray Foxes don’t really show up in suburban neighborhoods, do they?

That's the great thing about birding, perhaps the part I like most about it. Yes, you get to see amazing birds, but just being in the field around all this nature means you get to experience it in ways not many other people can, find mammals and reptiles and amphibians that ordinarily you wouldn't even notice. Sometimes, it's all about the birds, but other times... well, it's all about Gray Foxes.