June 10-16 Southern Pines, No. Carolina

Yes, Yes, Yes.  I am aware that this narrative is a month behind.  I've spent the week in the Southern Pines area, where Marty and I are visiting her sister, Ellen.

My birding slowed down the second week of June, as I was ‘volunteered’ to assist my Sister-In-Law in getting some yard and house chores done.  She had not torched her burn pile for at least two, maybe three, years, so that was a priority.

Also, her window frames needed scraping and re-painting.

I'm not the one who's afraid of heights . . .

But, the women can get the lower trim.

The only complication was that there were rain showers every day, and trying to get the burn pile dry enough to burn, or the windows dry enough to prime and paint took a bit of waiting.

One of the chores that was pretty minor was replenishing one of the water troughs for her horses.  It merely needed tipping the stale water out and refilling the tank.

Should be a simple task?

I was surprised to find snakes underneath, and was much more careful after this, as I’m not certain which pit vipers might live in this country.

This is one of two snakes under the trough

The Coral Snake also lives in the region, and being a West Coast boy, I never memorized the ‘Snake Rhyme’:

Red Touch Yellow - Kills a Fellow

Red Touch Black - Venom Lack

Yellow Touches Red - Soon You'll Be Dead

Red Touches Black - Friend of Jack

If the snake has a black nose, it's a Coral Snake. That's a good hint.  These are Scarlet Kingsnakes, Lampropeltis triangulum elapsoides, which are fairly common in the pine forests of the Coastal Plain.  Kingsnakes have the red-and-yellow color bands separated by black, and also have a red nose.  Cute li’l things.

In the interim between rain showers and waiting for the side of the house to dry out enough to paint, I took a couple of walks through the Walthour-Moss Foundation lands past Forest Lake and up to Moor Meadows.

The Foundation was established through gifts of land from ‘Pappy’ and Virginia Walthour-Moss, and now totals more than 4,000 acres of prime longleaf pine habitat.  This land is managed to restore and preserve the native pine ecosystem, and is some nice country.  The main use seems to be from the equestrian community; we were the only pedestrians that I saw using the miles of trails.

Among the bird species to be found here is the Red-cockaded Woodpecker, which has been on the Endangered Species list since 1970.  This woodpecker is dependent upon mature, open longleaf pine forest.

Nearly all of the RCWs I saw were banded

This type of forest was a result of fire ecology, and covered millions of acres in the pristine southern landscape.  There is not much 'topsoil' above the sandy subsoil.

Unfortunately, stands managed for timber tend to be too young to provide the necessary older trees (80+ years of age, with red heart fungus “disease”) for nesting, and the preclusion of fire from the woods has resulted in the oak understory growing up, rendering the forest unusable for these habitat specialists.

Fortunately, however, the Foundation, and many other private, local, State and Federal land managers are managing their forest lands to benefit this little gem, using prescribed fire and thinning to maintain the open pine forest that the woodpeckers and other pinelands species require.

The longleaf pines (Pinus palustris) sprouting in the understory start out looking a lot like a tuft of grass.

This is a tree!

But as they grow, they begin to look a lot more like trees.

The longleaf pine, when used as a nest tree of a pair of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, develops a distinctive look.  The woodpeckers drill holes below the nest hole, which drips pine resin.  The pitch supposedly keeps climbing predators at bay.

Red-cockaded Woodpecker nest tree

I also made a trip over to the nearby Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve one morning, walking over 5 miles of their trails and fire lanes.  The preserve is part of the consortium of agencies and groups managing the longleaf pines, and provides interpretive signing for their prescribed burning program.

This area burned last year already shows considerable regrowth.

An area burnt this spring will hopefully provide good nesting for Bachman's Sparrow when the understory grasses flourish next year.

The oak trees re-sprout following a fire, and will take over the pine forests if not burned regularly

The understory also includes the southern poison oak.  I didn't handle it to see whether I'm sensitive to it.

And there is a prickly-pear cactus, which is pretty distinctive.

Besides the woodpeckers, there are other feathered friends in these woods.

Some of the Eastern Towhees here have white eyes, rather than red ones

Summer Tanager carrying food back to his brood

Male Orchard Oriole

And neat invertebrates that we don't have Back West.

I'll need to look up this stunning damselfly, when I get a chance

 . . . as well as this horned spider spinning her web.

I got Marty off to the airport at Raleigh-Durham, as she needed to return home and go back to work.  I finished up with the chores at Ellen’s, and finally packed and left on Monday the 17^th.

Walthour-Moss Foundation 16 June eBird Checklist is here

Weymouth Woods State Park eBird Checklist is here

Walthour-Moss Foundation 11 June eBird Checklist is here

January 25 - Central Florida Specialties

I was up with the 3:15 a.m. alarm, ate a quick breakfast of almond butter toast, and was out the door to drive up to the EFSC campus to catch the 5 a.m. bus for the Space Coast Bird Festival’s Central Florida Specialties field trip.  This full-day excursion was led by Jim Eager (Obsessive Compulsive Birding) & David Goodwin from Florida Nature Tours.

We started at dawn from the Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area’s Hunter Campground, where the target birds were species from the managed longleaf pine forest.The Red-cockaded Woodpecker is an ESA Endangered Species, and many birds in this well-studied species are banded.

The female does not have the red "cockade"

To maintain the forest and understory structure necessary for the Red-cockadeds to thrive, the woods are treated with prescribed fire on a periodic basis.

Brown-headed Nuthatches, Pine Warblers and Eastern Bluebirds also benefit from the management of the pine forest.

Brown-headed Nuthatch

There were surely some Bachman’s Sparrows in the area, but at this early season are not singing, and are secretive at the best of times.

Besides the target birds, as a Left Coast birder, I enjoy seeing Eastern species such as the Red-bellied Woodpecker 

and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.

Chips a-flyin'

Gives me a headache just watching . . .

The Florida State Wildflower is the tickseed, or Coreopsis.  The Florida tickseed (Coreopsis floridana) is a perennial member of this well-known genus and endemic to Florida.  It occurs throughout most of the state, except the extreme northern Panhandle counties, in wet open habitats such as the upper edges of marshes, savannas and prairies.  The next stops were at the Lake Jackson boat ramp, then the Lake Marian Marina where we had a good view of an immature Purple Gallinule,

of Common Gallinules,

and watched a Sandhill Crane keeping watch over his out-of-view mate on her nest.

There are lots of Tree Swallows in this area, we estimated about 450 flying by here. Then, out stepped a Limpkin, which is a common species down here, but was a Life Bird for me.

Lifer!

Our next destination was Joe Overstreet Road to view an obliging, but distant, Red-headed Woodpecker.

The dot on the middle right side of the snag is a bird . . . really!

Across the road, an Eastern Meadowlark was skulking through the pasture.

Skulking in the grass

Here, too, we saw (no photo, sorry) Sherman’s Fox Squirrels, which are a handsomely-pelaged subspecies endemic to the longleaf pine forest country of Florida and Georgia.

At the Joe Overstreet Landing on Lake Kissimmee we found several Snail Kites, which were another “Lifer” for me.

This species has benefitted from the introduction of an exotic invasive!  Until recently, the Florida population of snail kites (Rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus) fed almost entirely on Florida apple snails (Pomacea paludosa), which can only live under specific wetland conditions.  But, four other invasive apple snail species from South America can survive in a much wider range of habitats, including human-made wetlands such as retention ponds and impounded cattle pastures.  And where the new snails spread, the kites’ population has expanded.

The white rump patch reminds me of the Northern Harrier, only better!

In the marsh were more Limpkins,

Purple Gallinules

Purple Gallinule being shy

and the Commons,

Drabber than the Purple, but still pretty handsome . . .

in addition to the usual wading birds,

They used to call these the "Louisiana Heron"

as well as the 'inland' gulls,

Herring Gull

Ring-billed Gulls on the Dock

and Forster’s terns.

I hate unsafe terns

Even the Turkey Vultures are marsh birds, here.The locals are apparently not too concerned about keeping their cattle out of the lake, which must do wonders for water quality . . . note that this grazing practice is NOT allowed in Washington State . . . so it was curious for me to see.

We stopped at Chapman’s Double C Bar Ranch, where a lone Whooping Crane fed from the cattle trough, and Sandhill cranes fed in the pasture.  She stayed behind the cattle so I couldn't get a shot, but is apparently one of 14 remaining 'resident' Whoopers in the State.

Florida Whooping Crane Habitat

Our last stop was at the Cruickshank Sanctuary in Rockledge for Florida’s only endemic bird, the Florida Scrub-Jay.  These birds are pretty well attenuated to people, and are obviously used to begging from people.  A hand held in the air draws them in, expecting a peanut or something.  Jim did not feed these birds, but they came over to check us out anyway.

Sometimes it's hard to get your head around a Scrub Jay . . .

The bus returned to the college at 4 p.m., ending a great day of birding with a good group of birders.  I was pleased to have seen 20 new species for the year, including two Life Birds.