[va-richmond-general] Cape Hatteras 13-15/1/07
- From: Penny S Reynolds/FS/VCU <psreynolds@xxxxxxx>
- To: va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:12:19 -0500
Spent the long weekend down on the beach (T-shirt and shorts in January!). Birding highlight was definitely several thousand TUNDRA SWANS in the shallow water off Pea Island, together with lots of assorted diving and dabbling ducks (black duck, mallard, shoveler, gadwall, widgeon, red-breasted merganser, ringneck, scaup....), plus brown and white pelicans, cormorants, & snow geese. Saw a merlin hunting along the dunes.
At the Cape there were the usual suspects (ringbilled, herring, laughing, greater and lesser black-backed gulls), plus terns (least, royal) & several rafts of buffleheads. Shorebirds were still hanging around in the warm weather: 6 WILLETS, sanderling, a solitary sandpiper, a few dowitchers, ruddy turnstone. There were several tight feeding aggregations offshore of gulls, terns, gannets (incl several juveniles), and pelicans, but although bait fish seemed abundant, the birds seemed very skittish about diving and were reluctant to rest on the water. The reason became clear when one of the surf fisherman brought in a 5 ft bull shark. A pelican with a band was panhandling around the fishermen, but I could not read its band number.
Dr. Penny S Reynolds, PhD
Department of Emergency Medicine
B3-039 Sanger Hall
Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center
1101 East Marshall St
Richmond VA 23298
USA
Office: 804 828 4911
Mobile: 804 218 4634
FAX 804 828 4686
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