The pelagic had been postponed due to the weather conditions and we birded in strong winds in the morning. We started near the Bodie Island Lighthouse where we dipped again on Seaside Sparrow. We did find a few Palm Warblers and I finally got to see the noisy Carolina Wren. We then returned to Pea Island where we found most of yesterday's waders gone and windy conditions that made looking through scopes very difficult. We took a side trip to a jetty where we found an American Oystercatcher, Sanderlings hiding out of the wind and a Spotted Sandpiper. We walked around a closed area of breeding habitat for Piping Plovers but these birds stayed hunkered down and invisible.
The next stop were the Elizabethan Gardens on Roanoke Island but they were totally dead. We walked along some trails nearby and has a single Prairie Warbler and a single Yellow-breasted Chat. [These proved to be the only sightings of these birds on the trip.] We spent the afternoon at Alligator River and had lunch sitting on a wooden bridge, where fortune smiled on us and an alligator swam underneath. This is at the northern limit of its range and we ran into someone who told us that she'd been coming here regularly for 30 years and had only seen one once before! We added Pileated Woodpecker and Black-throated Green Warbler and found a flock of Bobolinks in a weedy field.
The day ended at Bodie Lighthouse at dusk where a Great-horned Owl flew in and perched on one of the windows. But our target was a Chuck-will's Widow. We dipped despite staying out underdressed in the cold wind.
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| American Oystercatcher |
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| Sanderlings |
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