Vertebrates at Pea Island NWR and Mattamuskeet NWR
(also Kill Devil Hills, Bodie Island Pond, and en route)
November 8-10, 2002
Weather
- November 9: sunny, warm, light SW wind, no white caps on ocean
- November 10: overcast, brief showers, S wind
Some highlights and notes ...
- about 8000 Snow Geese and perhaps 30,000 Tundra
Swans on Lake Mattamuskeet -- the geese only allowed distant views
-- the swans covered much of the western end and southern shores of the
lake like snow
- 12 Bald Eagles at Lake Mattamuskeet and 3 adult Peregrines topped a list of 9 Falconiformes (hawks, eagles, falcons)
- adult Parasitic Jaeger robbed a Royal Tern of its fish right in front of us
- 14 species of ducks, 7 species of herons, and 17 species of shorebirds (sandpipers and relatives)
- several pods of Bottlenose Dolphins migrated southward -- perhaps 60 individuals in all
- surprising misses -- not a single Ruddy Duck or Red-breasted Merganser -- few loons, Bonaparte's Gulls, and Buffleheads, and just a handful of scoters -- all usually here for the winter by November -- also no Marbled Godwits -- almost always with the American Avocets
- impoundments at Mattamuskeet NWR were nearly dry -- Lake Mattamuskeet was low for the second year in a row -- ponds on Pea Island and Bodie Island in contrast were deeper than usual
In the lists below . . .
- A = Alligator River NWR
- K = Kill Devils Hills (Anchorage Inn on beach)
- P = Pea Island NWR
- B = Bodie Island Pond
- O = Oregon Inlet (jetty and nearby beach and dunes)
- M = Mattamuskeet NWR
Please send additions/corrections to
Haven Wiley
Amphibia
| | |
|---|
| Brimley's Chorus Frog (Pseudacris brimleyi) | M -- repeated short trills along ditches |
| | |
Reptilia
| | |
|---|
| Yellow-bellied Slider (Chrysemys
scripta) | P, M -- many along the edges of ditches |
| Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina) | P -- 4 including two big ones in the pond at the Visitor Center |
| | |
Birds
| | |
| Red-throated Loon | 2 flying southward (K) |
| Common Loon | one flying overhead (K) |
| Pied-billed Grebe | few (P, M) |
| Northern Gannet | about 24/min flying southward on 11/10 (K) also big feeding flocks (K, P) |
| Brown Pelican | small flocks (P, K) |
| Double-crested Cormorant | thousands in
Oregon Inlet, others scattered on ponds and ditches, often drying wings
(P, O, K, M) |
| American Bittern | 3 in flight (P) |
| Great Blue Heron | many along ditches and even wading far offshore in Lake Mattamuskeet (P, M) |
| Great Egret | dozens at Mattamuskeet, scattered elsewhere (P, M) |
| Snowy Egret | 6 (P) |
| Little Blue Heron | several all white immature birds (P, M) |
| Black-crowned Night Heron | one (P) |
| Tricolored Heron | 6 (P, B) |
| White Ibis | 30 (P) |
| Tundra Swan | 300 (P), 30000 (M), only about 5% young of the year |
| Snow Goose | 500 -- all large white morphs (P), 8000 -- including dark morphs (M) |
| Canada Goose | scattered flocks (P,
M) |
| Green-winged Teal | dense flocks, particularly at Mattamuskeet where Bald Eagles flushed them |
| American Black Duck | hundreds everywhere -- including at least one hybrid with Mallard (B) |
| Mallard | 6 (P), 50 (M) |
| Northern Pintail | thousands (P,
M) |
| Northern Shoveler | small groups (P, M) with most males still molting |
| Gadwall | several large flocks (P, M) and many scattered birds |
| American Wigeon | thousands (P, M) |
| Redhead | 1 (P) |
| Ring-necked Duck | 20 (P) |
| Lesser Scaup | male and female with Ring-necks (P) |
| Black Scoter | small flocks (K, P) |
| Surf Scoter | one female flew southward (K) |
| Bufflehead | 4 (P) |
| Hooded Merganser | 8(B), 2(M) |
| Black Vulture | 1 near
Raleigh |
| Turkey Vulture | scattered including one on the Outer Banks (B) |
| Osprey | 4 (M) including an immature that tried and tried to catch a respectable fish but only came up with ones hardly big enough to keep |
| Bald Eagle | 10 (including 3 adults) (M) plus 2 adults in a territorial encounter near Stumpy Point |
| Northern Harrier | scattered (
A, P, M) |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 5 |
| Cooper's Hawk | 4 including one that attacked Starlings going to roost (P, B, M) |
| Red-shouldered Hawk | 3 including one
that allowed clear views in scopes (M) |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 8 |
| American Kestrel | about 12 on power lines and exposed trees |
| Merlin | one swooped onto the beach to try to catch a Sanderling (K) |
| Peregrine | 3 including one adult with a blood-stained breast near the Visitor Center (P) |
| Virginia Rail | 3 called at dusk (B) |
| American Coot | one dense flock
(M) |
| Black-bellied Plover | 20 (K, P, M) |
| Semipalmated Plover | 1 (O) |
| Piping Plover | 3 (O) -- an endangered species that nests in protected areas on beaches in North Carolina -- usually leaves for the winter |
| Killdeer | 3 (en route and M) |
| American Oystercatcher | 2 (O) |
| American Avocet | 40 in a dense flock -- mostly sound asleep (P) |
| Greater Yellowlegs | 80 (P, B,
M) |
| Lesser Yellowlegs | 4 (P,M) |
| Willet | 10 (P) |
| Hudsonian Godwit | 1 (P) -- with an enormously long bill, pink at the base, feeding in water up to its belly |
| Sanderling | small flocks on beaches (K,P) |
| Least Sandpiper | 100 on exposed mud
(M) |
| White-rumped Sandpiper | one with flocks of Dunlin -- several weeks late in migration (P) |
| Purple Sandpiper | 3 on algae-covered rocks at the end of the jetty (O) |
| Dunlin | thousands (P, O, M) |
| Long-billed Dowitcher | 6 -- this is
the usual dowitcher in winter in NC -- several birds with extremely long bills swam among the Snow Geese (P) |
| American Woodcock | 4 -- flying to fields just as it turned dark (A) |
| Parasitic
Jaeger | an adult in alternate (summer) plumage chased Royal Terns above the surf (P) |
| Laughing Gull | scattered on the Outer Banks (K, P), thousands wheeling in the air and loafing in shallow water (M) |
| Bonaparte's Gull | just 2 (M) |
| Ring-billed Gull | widespread, on beach and inland |
| Herring Gull | small numbers (K, P, M) |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull | 2 adults on the beach (K) allowed close study -- they should have been in Europe! |
| Great Black-backed Gull | scattered (K, P, M) |
| Caspian Tern | 2 (M) |
| Royal Tern | 20 (K, P) |
| Forster's Tern | hundreds (P, K, M) |
| Rock Dove | feral pigeons around highway bridges |
| Mourning Dove | scattered |
| Great Horned Owl | 2 perched atop trees against the sunset (A) |
| Belted Kingfisher | scattered |
| Red-bellied Woodpecker | one en route |
| Northern Flicker | scattered (P,
M) |
| Pileated Woodpecker | one called persistently and flew into nearby pines (M) |
| Eastern Phoebe | 6 |
| Purple Martin | one at Whalebone Junction should have left for South America weeks ago |
| Tree Swallow | hundreds in swirling flocks (P,M) |
| Blue Jay | 2 (K) |
| American Crow | 20 (M and en route) |
| Fish Crow | 40 (K) -- numbers of both species of crow seemed much lower than in previous years -- victims of West Nile Virus perhaps |
| Carolina Chickadee | 1 (M) |
| Carolina Wren | |
| Sedge Wren | in short marsh
(P) |
| Marsh Wren | in tall marsh (P,
B,) |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | one at our last stop for gas in Plymouth |
| Eastern Bluebird | many on power
lines, including 2 pairs on the Outer Banks (K) |
| American Robin | en route |
| Gray Catbird | 4 (P) |
| Northern Mockingbird | few (P,
M) |
| Cedar Waxwing | flock of about 10 (B) |
| European Starling | flocks everywhere! -- one swirling flock of 1000 went to roost in reeds at dusk (B) |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler | hundreds everywhere! |
| Palm Warbler | few (M) |
| Northern Cardinal | few |
| Rufous-sided Towhee | one (P) |
| Savannah Sparrow | 2 (O), 1 (M) |
| "Ipswich
Sparrow" | 1 on grassy dunes (O) -- an easily recognized
subspecies of the Savannah Sparrow that nests on one lonely island far off
the coast of Nova Scotia! |
| Song Sparrow | scattered (P,M) |
| Swamp Sparrow | many (P,M) |
| White-throated Sparrow | one in Plymouth |
| Red-winged Blackbird | scattered flocks (P, M) |
| Eastern Meadowlark | 2 en route |
| Rusty Blackbird | sang in a flock of Red-winged Blackbirds |
| Boat-tailed Grackle | many -- both
glossy males and brown females (K, P, M) |
| Common Grackle | several flocks
inland |
| Brown-headed Cowbird | small flock en route, single bird beside the road (P) |
| House Finch | 2 (K) |
| American Goldfinch | 1 (P) |
| House Sparrow | at a shopping center near Raleigh |
| | |
| TOTAL SPECIES | 113 -- not
including "Ipswich Sparrow" -- a new record! |
| | |
Mammals
| | |
| bat (unidentified) | several medium-sized bats with longish rear ends swooped over the road beside forest at dusk (A) |
| Bottlenose Dolphin | about 60 in several pods migrating southward (K, P) |
| White-tailed Deer | doe allowed clear views (B) |
|