Vertebrates at Pea Island NWR and Mattamuskeet NWR
(also Kill Devil Hills, Bodie Island Pond, and en route)
November 15-17, 2002
Weather
- November 15: overcast, almost calm
- November 16: overcast, light SE wind, then rain
- November 17: intermittent rain all day
Some highlights and notes ...
- three Black Bears in the Alligator River NWR doing some interesting behavior while we watched through scopes.
- side-by-side comparisons of seven pairs of closely related species that differ in size -- Great and Snowy Egrets, Peregrine and Merlin, Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks (not side-by-side), Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Dunlin and Least Sandpipers, Herring and Ring-billed Gulls, Royal and Forster's Terns.
- three White Pelicans at point-blank range on Lake Mattamuskeet
- 20-30,000 blackbirds feeding in a plowed field east of Engelhard included mostly Red-winged Blackbirds but several other species too
- nine species of mammals (not counting ourselves) -- in addition to the bears, Bottlenose Dolphin, Raccoon, White-tailed Deer, River Otter ...
- surprising misses -- no Snow Geese at Lake Mattamuskeet (except for the one "blue" morph flying overhead in the rain!) -- not a single loon or Bonaparte's Gull, both common wintering birds on the North Carolina coast
- despite the rain impoundments at Mattamuskeet NWR were still 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 -- 2 including a big one in the pond at the Visitor Center |
| | |
Birds
| | |
| Pied-billed Grebe | few (P, M) |
| Horned Grebe | one in South Pond (P) |
| Northern Gannet | about 22/min flying southward on 11/16 (K) |
| Brown Pelican | small flocks (P, K) |
| White Pelican | three reluctant to leave the easy feeding near a sluice through the causeway (M) |
| Double-crested Cormorant | thousands in Oregon Inlet, others scattered on ponds and ditches (P, O, K, M) |
| Great Blue Heron | many along ditches and even wading far offshore in Lake Mattamuskeet (P, M) |
| Great Egret | 40 scattered (P, M) |
| Snowy Egret | 8 including one nearby with a Great Egret (P) |
| Tricolored Heron | 3 (P) |
| Black-crowned Night Heron | one (M) |
| White Ibis | 60 (P, M) |
| Glossy Ibis | one (M), a scarce bird in winter in recent years |
| Tundra Swan | 300 (P), 10000 (M), only about 5% young of the year |
| Snow Goose | 500 in the distance -- all large white morphs (P), one solitary dark morph (M) |
| Canada Goose | scattered flocks (P,
M) |
| Green-winged Teal | dense flock at Mattamuskeet |
| American Black Duck | hundreds everywhere |
| Mallard | scattered (P, M) |
| Northern Pintail | thousands (P,
M) |
| Blue-winged Teal | few (B, M) |
| Northern Shoveler | small groups (P, M) including some males in nearly full plumage |
| Gadwall | hundreds (P, M) |
| American Wigeon | thousands (P, M) |
| Camvasback | 2 (M) |
| Ring-necked Duck | 6 (M) |
| Lesser Scaup | flock of 10 (P) |
| Long-tailed Duck | one male (P) diving in South Pond, an unusual place for this arctic duck, with a mixture of summer and winter plumage |
| Black Scoter | several flocks (K, P) |
| Surf Scoter | 6 in a big flock of Blacks (P) |
| Bufflehead | 6 including one male (P) |
| Hooded Merganser | 20 (P) |
| Red-breasted Merganser | 25 in small groups (P, K) |
| Ruddy Duck | 100 (M) |
| Black Vulture | 1 trying to dry its wings near Stumpy Point |
| Turkey Vulture | scattered along the highway |
| Osprey | 8 (M) including two that caught respectable fish |
| Bald Eagle | 2 immature birds and one adult (M) |
| Northern Harrier | scattered (A, P, M) |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 4 mostly flying into trees (P, M) |
| Cooper's Hawk | one immature on a power pole that allowed close study with the scopes |
| Red-shouldered Hawk | 3 including two in pocosins (M) |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 4 (P, M) |
| American Kestrel | 10 on power lines and exposed trees (P, M, and along highways) |
| Merlin | a female made a pass at some Starlings on the shoulder of the highway (P) |
| Peregrine | an adult allowed close study (P) |
| Northern Bobwhite | about 20 in a large covey (A) also a few others (M) |
| Virginia Rail | one called ki-dick-dick in a small cattail marsh (M) |
| American Coot | dense flock
(P) |
| Black-bellied Plover | 60 (K, P, M) |
| Semipalmated Plover | 3 (P, M) |
| Killdeer | calling (A) |
| American Oystercatcher | 2 (Oregon Inlet) |
| American Avocet | 200 sleeping in a dense flock (P) and 3 (M) |
| Greater Yellowlegs | 120 (P, M) |
| Lesser Yellowlegs | 2 (P) including one beside a Greater Yellowlegs |
| Willet | 10 (P) |
| Marbled Godwit | 3 (P) and 3 (M) |
| Sanderling | small flocks on beaches (K, P) |
| Western Sandpiper | 10 with Dunlins and Least Sandpipers along the causeway (M) |
| Least Sandpiper | 50 with Dunlins
(M) |
| Pectoral Sandpiper | one with Dunlins (M) |
| Dunlin | hundreds (P, M) |
| Long-billed Dowitcher | 4 in winter plumage -- this is
the usual dowitcher in winter in NC -- two had extremely long bills (P, M) |
| Common Snipe | two flew past (M) |
| American Woodcock | one twittered briefly at dusk (A) |
| Parasitic Jaeger | one flew southward (K) |
| Laughing Gull | scattered on the Outer Banks (K, P), thousands in dense flocks in shallow water (M) |
| Ring-billed Gull | widespread, on beach and inland |
| Herring Gull | small numbers (K, P, M) |
| Great Black-backed Gull | scattered (K, P, M) |
| Caspian Tern | 2 (M) |
| Royal Tern | 16 (K, P) |
| Common Tern | one with Forster's Terns feeding over a big flock of cormorants (P) |
| Forster's Tern | hundreds (P, K, M) |
| Rock Dove | around highway bridges (introduced from Europe probably in 1600 or 1700's) |
| Mourning Dove | scattered in small flocks |
| Great Horned Owl | one (A) |
| Barred Owl | one called (A) |
| Belted Kingfisher | scattered |
| Red-bellied Woodpecker | 3 (en route and M) |
| Downy Woodpecker | one (M) |
| Hairy Woodpecker | 3 (en route and M) |
| Northern Flicker | scattered (P,
M) |
| Eastern Phoebe | 4 |
| Tree Swallow | 12 (P, M) |
| Blue Jay | 2 (K) |
| American Crow | 50 (M and en route) |
| Fish Crow | 40 (K) -- numbers of both species of crow still seemed much lower than in previous years |
| Carolina Chickadee | 5 including several in a flock (M) |
| Tufted Titmouse | two (en route) |
| Carolina Wren | several singing (K, P, M) |
| House Wren | one (M) still here after most have migrated southward |
| Sedge Wren | lots in short marsh
(P) |
| Marsh Wren | scattered in tall marsh (B, M) |
| Golden-crowned Kinglet | single birds (P, M) including one in a flock |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | 10 or so in flocks (M), one (K) |
| Eastern Bluebird | many on power
lines |
| American Robin | hundreds especially in pocosins |
| Gray Catbird | 3 (P, M) |
| Northern Mockingbird | about 10 (P,
M, en route) |
| Brown Thrasher | 2 (M) |
| European Starling | flocks everywhere! -- including hundreds in the enormous flock of blackbirds (introduced from Europe in 1890's) |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler | hundreds everywhere! |
| Palm Warbler | 12 mostly in one big flock along the causeway (M) |
| Common Yellowthroat | 2 males (M) |
| Northern Cardinal | few |
| Savannah Sparrow | 2 (P) including one that let us study it in a scope, several (M) |
| Song Sparrow | scattered (P, M) |
| Swamp Sparrow | many (P, M) |
| White-throated Sparrow | several (M) |
| Dark-eyed Junco | small groups (B, M) |
| Red-winged Blackbird | scattered (P), tens of thousands in a huge flock (M) |
| Eastern Meadowlark | small groups (P, M) |
| Boat-tailed Grackle | many -- both
glossy males and brown females (K, P, M) |
| Common Grackle | thousands especially in the huge blackbird flock |
| Brown-headed Cowbird | one beside the road (P), hundreds with the huge blackbird flock (M) |
| House Finch | 4 (K) (introduced to the east coast from California in 1940's)) |
| American Goldfinch | 1 (M) |
| House Sparrow | two (Tarrboro, K) (introduced from Europe in 1850's) |
| | |
| TOTAL SPECIES | 120 -- another new record! |
| | |
Mammals
| | |
| bat (unidentified) | several medium-sized bats beside forest at dusk (A) |
| Nutria | one in canal at Stumpy Point (a common species in northeastern NC, introduced from Argentina in 1940's) |
| Gray Squirrel | one (M) |
| Eastern Cottontail | one (B) |
| Bottlenose Dolphin | about 20 in a pod migrating southward (P) |
| River Otter | two or three in canal near Stumpy Point |
| Common Raccoon | one beside pond (P) |
| Black Bear | three including one big male that scent-marked a sign post while we watched with scopes (A) |
| White-tailed Deer | one doe (B) |
|