Alice had a bridge tournament in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I thought that it would be fun to do some birding in that area. Although the Charlotte area is similar to that of central Virginia, I hoped that some of the migrating species that have already moved south out of Virginia might be found in the Charlotte area. Several months prior to the trip, I purchased the three volume set of books on the North Carolina Birding Trail, and started following some of the North Carolina birding list servers. I wanted to avoid driving long distances to either the coast or the mountains, and selected a candidate list of birding sites to visit in the Charlotte area. I was sceptical about finding any life birds on this trip, but read that the LeConte's Sparrow was a target species at one of my selected sites, and that would be a life bird for me. A few days before the trip I learned that the last time a LeConte's Sparrow was seen at that site was in 2001, so my chances of getting a life bird were pretty slim.
We took Route 29 south to I-85 in North Carolina. About 40 to 50 miles from Charlotte, we encountered lots of traffic, road construction, and even worse, about 10% of the cars going in our direction were driving at 10 to 20 mph above the speed limit, weaving in and out of lanes without signaling, passing on the right, tail-gating, and other reckless driving behavior. This would prove to affect the choices I made as to the sites I visited in the Charlotte area.
We arrived late in the afternoon, and I read on one of the Carolina list servers about a Golden-winged Warbler being sighted that same day at Clark's Creek Nature Preserve. This site wasn't even in the birding trail guides, or I didn't see it listed, and it was only five miles from the hotel where we were staying. So I decided to try some birding there the next day.
The hotel and other shops surrounded a large man-made pond, and Alice and I did a morning walk around it. I saw 10 species on that short hike, including Canada Geese, Mallards, two American Coots, two Ruddy Ducks, and a Double-crested Cormorant in the pond.
Double-crested Cormorant
Ruddy Ducks
Northern Mockingbird
Later in the morning, I drove the short distance to Clark's Creek Nature Preserve. I was really surprised to see how good a birding site this is. This nature preserve is 109 acres in size, and had grassy fields, old growth and new growth wooded areas, a good-sized pond, and it was exceptionally "birdy." By late in the afternoon, my trip list was up to 36 avian species, and I hadn't explored all of the preserve.
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There were lots of Bluebirds, Mockingbirds, and Phoebes, and the grassy fields were loaded with Meadowlarks that quickly disappeared when they landed in the tall grasses.
Eastern Bluebird
Northern Mockingbird
I saw a fair number of Palm Warblers, one Pine Warbler, and a few Cape May and Yellow-rumped Warblers.
Palm Warbler
Palm Warbler
Palm Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Pine Warbler
I hiked only a small amount of the wooded trails, but did see several woodland species.
Carolina Wren
House Wren
House Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Chipping Sparrow
At one point of the woodland hike, I saw what, at first, I thought was a Pewee, but then I saw it had a well separated and fairly dark vest. I wondered if it might have been an Olive-sided Flycatcher, but it bothered me that I saw it on a lower branch, whereas Olive-sided Flycatchers are usually on the highest dead branch at the top of a tree.
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Eastern Wood-Pewee
I stopped and showed the flycatcher photos to three local birders, and they confirmed it as a Pewee. After chatting with one of the local birders, I learned that he had traveled up to the Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport in February 2015 to see the Smith's Longspur that Walt Childs and I had discovered there. Small world!
As I was getting ready to leave for the day, I saw a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk fly to and land in a nearby tree. It stayed there for a few minutes before taking off again.
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Birding was so good here at Clark's Creek, and it was close to the hotel, and driving on the highways a bit more intense than I prefer, that I considered only going birding at this one site this week. Driving on highways to other and more distant Charlotte birding sites, where I would most likely see almost all the same avian species, didn't appeal to me. Perhaps I would change my mind, especially if anyone posted a rare species at any of the other sites.
Click here to continue to my birding report for October 23