Outer Banks 2018: Unbirds

On 06/23/201806/23/2018 By wildlymistakenIn Outer Banks, Wildly Mistaken on the RoadLeave a comment

My impulse was to wait until I’d identified all my photos from this trip – or as many as I’m going to – before writing this post. Now that I’ve realized just how silly that is… well, here we are! Our fantastic vacation to the Outer Banks is still with me. I’ve already written about the bird life I encountered, but what else did I see in sandy paradise?

Strikingly, the plant life of the Outer Banks is completely different from the what I’m used to. Whether it’s the sea oats, the beach grasses and sedges, or the wildflowers and vines, I’m always noticing plants I don’t see very often. This year I tried to snap a photo or two of as many plants as I could, since I’m not too well-versed in what grows on the islands. I do know a few on sight – common yucca, Indian blanket, and trumpet vine, for example – but others I know only by feature or not at all. Here are a few snaps of what I saw on this trip (click image to expand).

Indian blanket (Gaillardia pulchella)

Sea Oats (Uniola paniculata)

Dollar Weed (Hydrocotyle bonariensis)

Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)

Cherry Coke Rush (Juncus megacephalus)

Whitetop sedge (Rhynchospora colorata)

Bristle Thistle (Cirsium horridulum)

Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)

…and I think Lady’s Tresses

That’s a tiny sample of the native flora and fauna one wouldn’t see in in-shore environments. As barrier islands, and with the influence of the Gulf Stream, the Outer Banks are ecologically different from many other beaches on the East Coast. I’ll spare the details but there exists a plethora of further reading that can do the job better than I can.

I couldn’t possibly have gone to Hatteras Island without at least one fishing trip aboard the Miss Hatteras. My dad and I set out on Wednesday morning for an all-day trip. The fishing itself is always fun, and the success rate of this particular boat is frankly incredible, but the trip alone is worth the price of a seat. It’s a lovely ride out into the Gulf Stream which offers a great opportunity to see things like pelagic birds and flying fish. In many trips spanning more than two decades I’ve spotted dolphins, squid, a sea turtle or two, and more. I relish the feeling of expansive freedom which comes over me that far from land.

Learning about the fish that are reeled up can be quite interesting, too. This year almost all the fish caught on the boat were grey triggerfish – a funky-looking but delicious bottom feeder. I did see one guy land a red snapper, and another hauled up a remora. The remora is not a desired game fish, but it was the first I’d ever seen. On previous trips, red snapper and black sea bass were pretty common, and the catch has often been peppered with all manner of interesting species, both edible and otherwise. This year our personal catch was a tad light, but it was still enough to feed four with a bit left over.

We spent our last couple of nights on Ocracoke Island. I can’t recommend this place highly enough to anyone seeking a real “get away from it all” vacation. The island is quite small, and accessible only by ferry. (It’s free! You can take your vehicle!) There are miles of out-of-the-way beaches, plus a tiny village with good food and shops, an operational lighthouse, and more. Lodging options include a primitive campground with beach access and several motels, hotels, etc. It’s a popular destination that seems to never feel over-crowded.

Some least terns on one of those empty Ocracoke beaches

Near the campground is a lovely and very accessible nature trail, the Hammock Hills Nature Trail. I hiked it alone one afternoon at a leisurely place, and had the whole trail to myself. This was quite an experience. Birdsong filled the air. Butterflies and dragonflies galore flitted about among the less pleasant insects (yes, bug spray is a must). Toads hopped aside at seemingly every third step. About halfway through, I nearly trod upon an eastern hognose snake. Even as someone pretty experienced with nature, this was a somewhat startling experience. The snake displayed quite emphatically – it flattened its head to resemble a venomous snake, hissed loudly, and threw in some mock strikes for good measure. All of this is why I’m confident in the species ID. Unfortunately it took a few moments to recover from my initial caution and subsequent marveling until after the snake had progressed to hiding, so my photos are post-display. Oddly, I seem to collect sightings of one species of snake on each visit to the Outer Banks. I’ve photographed a cottonmouth and copperhead on my previous two visits, and I remember a blacksnake and a northern water snake from separate childhood vacations.

This trip also allowed me to personally confirm an odd little fact I wasn’t quite sure I believed. You see, I’d read somewhere that eyes as small as a spider’s can reflect a flashlight beam at night. I don’t recall the source, but kudos to whoever you are because they unequivocally can. I first noticed it while walking one of the dogs. I saw a tiny green fleck on the pavement of the campground loop road. Assuming it was a tiny shard of glass from the sand, I took a closer look anyway and found this handsome lady carrying her babies:

Later I sat reading at the campsite and noticed several of these tiny green specks at the edge of a patch of vegetation. I followed them several times, and each time I found a spider at the exact point. The very first one leapt from its cover and snagged a June bug just after I got close. For what it’s worth, June bugs’ eyes reflect reddish-orange pinpoints of light.

I don’t have any pithy observations to tie the whole thing together, so I will just say that Outer Banks wildlife is cool and leave you with a few more photos.

Outer Banks 2018: Birds

On 06/17/2018 By wildlymistakenIn Birding, Outer Banks, Wildly Mistaken on the Road1 Comment

My wife and I have just returned from a much anticipated trip to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The trip was filled with beach time, fishing, family, seafood, and exploring. I’ll cover some of that (and some other nature) in a future post. Every trip is an opportunity for birding, though, so I will toss off a few keystrokes on that topic first. The Outer Banks, lying on the coast and a few hours south of home, hosts bird life a great deal different from what I’m used to. A trip there is always a good opportunity for a neophyte birder like me to expand life and year lists, and to get a little more practice identifying birds outside my usual range of experience. This year’s trip was no exception – I upped my life list by six and my year list by 39, notching 64 birds for the week.

Gulls

I always think when planning a beach trip that I will have an opportunity to see a plethora of gull species. In all reality, during June only three species of gulls are particularly common on the Outer Banks – the laughing gull, the herring gull, and the great black-backed gull. I did see all of these (repeatedly) but didn’t spot any others. The ring-billed gull is reported on just over five percent of Dare County* checklists in June, and the lesser black-backed gull on about two percent, but all other gull species would be quite rare.

Terns

By contrast, quite a few tern species are common on the Outer Banks in late spring and early summer. Ten species (lumping in the black skimmer – technically not a tern but closely related) are in the top 100 Dare County birds for June, according to ebird. Of those I saw eight on this trip – unsurprisingly the top eight: royal tern, least tern, black skimmer, common tern, Forster’s tern, Sandwich tern, gull-billed tern, and Caspian tern. Of those, the gull-billed tern was a life bird for me. The two I missed – bridled tern and black tern – would also have been lifers, but as the 91st and 99th most reported birds for the area I’m not feeling too frustrated over those misses.

Shorebirds

Reusing an old photo of a shorebird I missed this time.

Shorebirds are another diverse group on the Outer Banks. Most of these I could nab on a closer trip to the Delmarva Peninsula, but the Outer Banks with its miles of uninterrupted beaches and Sound-side mudflats is an exceptional place to view these birds. This is probably the category where I was most disappointed in my results for this trip. I didn’t spend much time looking in the ideal spots, and when I did there were several groups I couldn’t get close enough to ID even through my scope. I did tally eight species but left a lot on the table. There are a total of 19 shorebirds at least as common as the “rarest” I tallied. Those I saw: willet, killdeer, American oystercatcher, semipalmated sandpiper, ruddy turnstone, sanderling, least sandpiper, and red knot. I suspect that some of those fuzzy groups at the edge of my sight included semipalmated plovers, short-billed dowitchers, black-bellied plovers, and dunlins but I just wasn’t quite able to say for sure.

Pelicans and Cormorants

Pelecanus occidentalis (12) — Pelicans from a previous OBX trip

This is quite simple: brown pelicans and double-crested cormorants are very common on Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands in June, and I saw many of both.

Pelagic birds

This is where I made some real progress on this trip, notching four species of pelagic birds on one fishing trip aboard the Miss Hatteras. Previously I had only seen one: the magnificent frigatebird. Other than the few species which can commonly be observed from land, I just haven’t had many opportunities to view these birds – and this was my first chance since I started “seriously” birding around the end of 2016. First I spotted a few Wilson’s storm-petrels on our way out to sea, and soon after I saw a couple of Cory’s shearwaters. While at sea the captain noticed my interest and pointed out a great shearwater, and on the return trip I got a good look at a sooty shearwater. Of course I also missed several fairly common species, including petrels, shearwaters, storm petrels, skuas, and jaegers, but for one trip (and that not really a birding expedition at all) I was quite satisfied.

Herons and allies

Another cheat photo – snowy egret, Florida Keys Feb. 2014

On one moderate hike at Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge I recorded seven species of herons, egrets, and ibis. None was a life bird, but all seven were year birds, and the two most common I missed (great blue and green herons) are abundant near my home and therefore not huge losses. It would have been nice to finally check off the glossy ibis as well, and I am certain there were some in my general vicinity. Still, one particular spot held a mixed flock of well over 50 great egrets as well as perhaps a dozen snowy egrets and as many white ibis, plus several tricolored herons. As a side note, I thought I spotted a pair of sandhill cranes flying from the sound side to the ocean side while driving home, just south of Oregon Inlet. The birds appeared too huge to be anything else, but we were cruising along pretty fast and I can’t even reliably report if they were the right shape. I haven’t found any recent reports of these birds in that area, so they were probably just some great blue herons or brown pelicans that looked oddly huge from my vantage point.

Other notable (to me) birds

I didn’t see anything rare on my trip, but I was treated to one nice surprise. In our campground on Ocracoke, when night fell, I began to hear songs from several Chuck-will’s widows scattered among the marsh bushes. This was technically a life bird for me (because I had previously only heard them before I was recording sightings) and was something I was absolutely not expecting, although it turns out they are locally common in a few spots on the Outer Banks. Other year ticks for the trip included: boat-tailed grackle, purple martin, American black duck, brown thrasher, yellow-billed cuckoo, prairie warbler, and Eurasian collared-dove. While not “notable” in any real sense, I am always surprised by the preponderance of swallows at or near the beach. I shouldn’t be – they’re quite common – but there is always something incongruous to me about their appearance with the sand and waves.

What I missed

The single most abundant bird I did not see was fitting, as it is probably also the most common eastern North American bird missing from my life list: the eastern meadowlark. It’s a point of irritation for this East-coaster that I’ve ticked the western meadowlark but not the eastern. I also didn’t see any Carolina chickadees, which was odd but not that odd given the environments I frequented. Other than the shorebirds mentioned above the only other big miss is probably the prothonotary warbler, another bugaboo for me that always seems like it should be an easy add.

*Note: I am using a Dare County list as a proxy, but some of this vacation was on Ocracoke Island, which is in Hyde County (whose list is similar but different).

Denver Trip: Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak

On 03/11/2018 By wildlymistakenIn Colorado, Wildly Mistaken on the RoadLeave a comment

We closed out last year’s trip to Colorado with visits to Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak,* two geological marvels. By this time we had moved our base of operations to Mueller State Park, which was delightful in its own right. The Park offers excellent campsites with access to good facilities, hiking trails, and gorgeous landscapes. During these few days even our downtime was filled with breathtaking natural scenery.

This was all during my 2017 bird blitz, so of course I can’t talk about any part of the trip without including some birding notes. In Mueller State Park we were welcomed by turkeys and pygmy nuthatches, and harassed by uppity gray jays. It was here I saw my first Williamson’s sapsucker. We also shared the space with crows and magpies, as well as mountain chickadees and Steller’s jays. At Garden of the Gods I only tallied seven bird species, but four of them were life birds for this East Coaster. High above the rock walls flitted many white-throated swifts, and I spotted a soaring prairie falcon. Closer to the ground I was introduced to a pair each of spotted towhees and Woodhouse’s scrub-jays. My Pikes Peak list was even shorter: American pipits and Lincoln’s sparrows were the only birds I could identify.

Birds were but a small piece of the overall majesty of the area. The view from our campsite in Mueller State Park spoke of the beauty and wonder that was to come. We enjoyed a few short but lovely hikes in the park between our ventures farther afield, and all were rewarding. I would spend a few days here again, given the chance. More forested slopes, broad vistas, and sheltered beaver ponds await my return.

A few more views from the park

It’s hard to do justice to impressive rock formations with still two-dimensional images, but Garden of the Gods is a heck of a place to try. The reddish stones loom over vast acres of fields, pockmarked with holes and crevices. Even in September, ice can be seen peeking out from some of these hideaways. A loop drive offers several access points to hike through the interior, and the access to the public is well set up and seamlessly integrated into the landscape. Pikes Peak beckons as a backdrop to the whole stunning scene.

Pikes Peak standing behind some of the Garden’s formations

Speaking of Pikes Peak… that was our next (and final) destination. I admit I had some reservations, fearing it to be a bit of a tourist trap. It felt like maybe it was cheating to just drive up such a tall mountain. I was wrong. I couldn’t categorize anything about Pikes Peak as disappointing. It was stunning. If you seek one of those places that makes you feel small in the face of the universe, this is a place for you.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate this concept is to show you what Garden of the Gods looks like from the summit of Pikes Peak.

Yep. It’s those few pieces of gravel there under the arrow. I don’t think I can say much more except to throw a lot of superlatives and let them run down the page, so I will close with a collection of photos from our ascent and the summit.

This beautiful lake sits at the foot with the peak in full view

An alternative means for ascending the mountain

*Yes, apparently the lack of an apostrophe is correct. Huh.

Denver Trip: Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR & Florissant Fossil Beds

On 03/01/201803/01/2018 By wildlymistakenIn Colorado, Wildly Mistaken on the Road1 Comment

It’s hard to choose a favorite site from last September’s trip to Colorado. As amazing as Rocky Mountain National Park was, I perhaps equally enjoyed our time at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. This is a place with engaging natural history and fascinating human history. Once a biological weapons facility that dealt untold damage to the local ecosystem, the site is now a refuge and a shining example of conservation. There is an excellent wildlife drive and plenty of available hiking trails. It also has one of the better visitors’ centers I have seen at similar facilities.

After the mountains, there was a different but equally real sense of immensity to this place. In this habitat, one can see the whole place opening before you on approach. Despite the openness, the wildlife can be hard to spot at first. This visit was just one more time I was struck at how adept animals can be at not being seen.

I think the first critter we spotted (and definitely the one we saw the most of) was a black-tailed prarie dog. I realize these adorable guys rate somewhere between “background presence” and “irritating pest” to the locals, but I couldn’t help but enjoy every one that scurried away or fixed me with a wary gaze. They’re so easy to anthropomorphize, with their social behavior appearing so comically playful. One imagines they are the true inspiration for the game “whack-a-mole.”

Other than the prairie dogs, the drive was largely uneventful for the first twenty minutes or so. We crawled through mostly open plains, scaring up the occasional vesper sparrow (identified by a flash of white outer tail feathers). Eventually we spotted a red-tailed hawk posing atop a telephone pole and paused for a photo.

Soon after, we began to see them: small, black dots on the horizon, yet unmistakable through my binoculars. American bison! Perhaps, like the prairie dogs, these creatures are not very exciting to anyone from the Great Plains region. I admit I would give some side-eye to anyone similarly amazed by a herd of cattle. Something about the buffalo (not this oddity of grammar) just strikes all the right chords of natural wonder. Especially once you see them up close. Clearly these beasts were the stars of the refuge.

With the wildlife drive completed, it was time to slow things down for a closer look. We chose the Lake Ladora loop trail for our hike, and were well-rewarded for this choice. We took our lunch at a picnic table near the trail’s namesake, watching cormorants dive and California gulls circle. Then we strolled through a naturalist’s paradise. Avifauna was a theme, but the flora was stunning as well and butterflies were omnipresent. The variety of bird life really spoke to the overall productivity of the environment here. I only counted 23 species of birds on our 2-hour hike, but the varied niches they occupied were the real story. I notched three species of raptor (red-tailed hawks, a Swainson’s hawk, and an American kestrel). Great blue herons, snowy egrets, and belted kingfishers shared the lake with ducks, geese, grebes, and American coots. The fields were interspersed with vesper sparrows, song sparrows, red-winged blackbirds and western meadowlarks. I even found one rock wren along the dam. All too soon it was time for us to be going.

Our next destination was Florissant Fossil Beds. I have to admit, this place somewhat disappointed me. It just felt like their public face was dedicated to all the wrong things. There was a brief video, which did a fine job of presenting the context of the site and building anticipation. Ancient fossils of fish, insects, leaves and more! Wonders of natural science unmatched anywhere! After the video, we joined a ranger-led tour group, anticipating all manner of scientific nuggets would be revealed to us. What we got instead was mostly stale repetition of the video, plus tales of Walt Disney purchasing a petrified stump and thieves stealing pieces of petrified wood. There was a good ten minutes on why metal bands were looped around the largest stumps (an early, ill-advised effort to excavate with dynamite).

332 — I mean, the petrified wood was pretty cool on its own, but…

These stories of course have their place, but they were related at the expense of learning much about the actual fossils or the window into ancient life they gave us. Eventually we slipped quietly away from the group to explore several of the short hiking trails on our own. This improved the experience somewhat, allowing us to see more of the grounds and picture the modern natural landscape in juxtaposition with the ancient one.

344 — This mormon cricket seemed an echo of the giant insects represented in the site’s fossil record.

I think the biggest disappointment was the limited array of fossils available for viewing. Apart from the stumps there was a small room with perhaps fifty specimens on (confusingly presented) display, but absent was the staggering variety described in their video. I’m sure some of that is due for the need of research and study, but very little information seemed available about said research, except as it related to petrified wood.

The value and importance of Florissant Fossil Beds to the natural sciences is immense and unambiguous, and usually I try to write positively about such places. Here, though, something vital was missing in the presentation. Even with those shortcomings, the landscape was beautiful, and taken together with the refuge this made for a couple of great days exploring nature.

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Gulls

Terns

Shorebirds

Pelicans and Cormorants

Pelagic birds

Herons and allies

Other notable (to me) birds

What I missed

*Note: I am using a Dare County list as a proxy, but some of this vacation was on Ocracoke Island, which is in Hyde County (whose list is similar but different).

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