Having dipped on Bachman's Sparrow the day before, poring rain meant that we stayed in the room and skipped the Henslow Sparrow spot entirely. We had arranged to meet someone at the gate and everything pointed to an easy lifer. Alas.
In the dizzle we headed to a local park in Greenville where Steve had a spot for Prothonotary Warblers who were very obliging. We also had American Redstarts and Northern Parulas along the same stretch. The big surprise was a pair of Anhinga - at the very north of their range - giving me my third darter of the year! We also added up a bunch of 'easy' birds.
At the sid farm we had fun scanning flocks of shorebirds and picking up Baird's, Pectorals and Westerns among the Least Sandpipers. We also had both Black-bellied and American Golden Plover in close proximity to learn the differences between these species. We could not find our target bird but got lucky when 2 Buff-breasted Sandpipers appeared just as we were leaving!
After driving onto the Outer Banks we stopped first for a bite to eat on a pier and found a bunch of beach birds - Sanderling, Ruddy Turnstone, Marbled Godwit and Dunlin before deciding to give Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge a go before heading to the hotel. We had another good lesson picking out the Royal from the Caspian Terns, as well as finding Sandwich, Forster's and Black Terns. The latter was an ABA for me after a long time of looking. A number of Black Terns had been in northern Arizona around the time I had left but circumstances had not allowed me to chase as often as I had wanted. We had a number of other new ticks for the trip and then ventured away from the car and visitor center shelter .. where we were soaked to the skin in a heavy downpour!
After checking in and showering we took a short trek to the beautiful Jockey's Ridge dunes where we again dipped on Field Sparrow and had Seaside Sparrows respond to tape but not cooperate. We did have a Common Nighthawk fly overhead and had a toad cross our path as we headed back to the car in darkness.
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| Boat-tailed Grackle |
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| White Ibis |
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