Big Day Jan 2010

Big Day Jan 2010 was a big success! We got 126 species and I got a new state bird-Long-tailed Duck. Here is Brian Bockhahn's email about it.

David Lenat, Matthew Daw, Ali Iyoob and myself did another big day yesterday along our route from Lake Phelps to Pea Island. With warmer weather we did good on landbirds coming to the coast with a good list, but no scoters, no coastal sparrows and low tide causing shorebird flocks to be distant was a hindrance. We only had about 20 cormorants all day, they must have left with the scoter flocks.

Anyway from 420am to 820pm we tallied 126 species.

Bird of the day was a Long-tailed Duck under the last few pylons of the new pier being built just east of whalebone junction.

Common Merganser at Lake Phelps, Common Eider at Oregon Inlet, Brant with injured wing flushed off the middle of the OI jetty, Purple Sandpiper at the end of the jetty, white pelican at N end of north pond, Pergerine Falcon hunting over south pond, Virginia Rail at Bodie Island, and locally uncommon a Black Vulture circling Roanoke Island.

Other woodland misses were Fish Crow, Pine Warlber, White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, Cedar Waxwing and Red-headed Woodpecker. Heck we almost missed Golden-crowned Kinglet, only heard one all day!!! No bufflehead, but nearly every other duck.

Nutria, Coyote, White-tailed Deer, gray squirrel, gray fox, raccoon, opossum, eastern cottontail, hispid cotton rat and a tiny little gray mouse with big ears in the dunes around oregon inlet. Zero insects.

Snow Goose

Brant

Canada Goose

Tundra Swan

Wood Duck

Gadwall

American Wigeon

American Black Duck

Mallard

Blue-winged Teal

Northern Shoveler

Northern Pintail

Green-winged Teal

Canvasback

Redhead

Ring-necked Duck

Greater Scaup

Lesser Scaup

Common Eider

Long-tailed Duck

Hooded Merganser

Common Merganser

Red-breasted Merganser

Ruddy Duck

Red-throated Loon

Common Loon

Pied-billed Grebe

Northern Gannet

American White Pelican

Brown Pelican

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snowy Egret

Tricolored Heron

Black-crowned NHeron

White Ibis

Black Vulture

Turkey Vulture

Bald Eagle

Northern Harrier

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Red-shouldered Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

American Kestrel

Merlin

Peregrine Falcon

Clapper Rail

Virginia Rail

Sora

American Coot

Black-bellied Plover

Killdeer

American Avocet

Willet

Lesser Yellowlegs

Greater Yellowlegs

Marbled Godwit

Sanderling

Purple Sandpiper

Dunlin

Wilson's Snipe

American Woodcock

Laughing Gull

Bonaparte's Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Herring Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Forster's Tern

Rock Pigeon

Mourning Dove

Eastern Screech-Owl

Great Horned Owl

Barred Owl

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Belted Kingfisher

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Pileated Woodpecker

Eastern Phoebe

Blue Jay

American Crow

Tree Swallow

Carolina Chickadee

Tufted Titmouse

Brown-headed Nuthatch

Carolina Wren

House Wren

Winter Wren

Marsh Wren

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Eastern Bluebird

Hermit Thrush

American Robin

Gray Catbird

Northern Mockingbird

Brown Thrasher

European Starling

American Pipit

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Eastern Towhee

Chipping Sparrow

Field Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Fox Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Northern Cardinal

Red-winged Blackbird

Eastern Meadowlark

Rusty Blackbird

Common Grackle

Boat-tailed Grackle

Brown-headed Cowbird

House Finch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow