Nature Note #206: The Falcon, The Dove, and The Quest for 200 Species

A picture worth a 1000 words. Personal photo.

As Forrest Gump once professed, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get."

Birding is a lot like that as well. I remember going on a birding trip when I was about ten with a teen birder at Wayland Community Gardens in eastern Massachusetts expecting that his advanced years would clearly be an asset to finding a multitude of rare and unusual species. The birds it seemed, had other ideas. The only bird we saw that day was a lone black-capped chickadee investigating the twigs of a bare oak. I was extremely disappointed to say the least, not only because of the poor turnout, but I was annoyed at myself for not speaking up more. I guess, I was just a shy kid.

Fast forward to about two weekends ago, I spent birding the Trinity Center property looking for birds for: 1. relaxation purposes, and 2. providing a checklist to submit to eBird the next evening in front of an audience of Road Scholars. I had been preparing since Wednesday and was eager to prove my birding chops to an audience of fellow bird lovers.

After spending several minutes along the challenge course trail looking for chickadees and warblers, I headed towards our small brackish pond along the road towards the cottage clusters. The pond usually attracted herons and a lone kingfisher, but on that day, it stood silent, expect for the chattering trees filled with jays and warblers. Overlooking the pond was a stand of pines and on one of them was a snag poking just above the treeline. And on top of that snag sat a small hawk. A dark streaky falcon stood erect on the snag, its eyes scanning the loblollies (Pinus taeda) and muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia) tangles across the pond. It was a merlin (Falco columbarius).

Merlins are well known in the birding community. If you are a visitor to Cornell's All About Birds or eBird, you've seen information about a bird identification app called the Merlin Bird ID app. While the bird itself is the mascot for the digital tool, it is an extremely useful thing to have especially when you aren't sure in the dull fall warbler you just saw was a yellow-rumped warbler (Setophaga coronata) or an unexpected black-and-white warbler (Miniotilta varia). Fortunately on that day, it turned out to be both.

Female black-and-white warbler. Personal photo.

Myrtle warbler that could easily pass for a Silhouette Warbler. Personal photo.

Merlins on the other hand, are easy to identify. A member of the falcon family, they are smaller than the charismatic Peregrine (F. peregrinus) and stockier than the lanky American kestrel (F. sparverius). Their plumage can be variable depending upon the region, but birds found migrating along the Eastern Seaboard are slaty grey above with a dark cap and head and have a white belly flanked by brown streaks. Most also have a whitish eyebrow stripe. They prefer open habitats, but are likely to be found in any areas where flocks of birds congregate such as coastal marshes, grasslands, and even in large city parks!

What was even more intriguing though was this small raptors lack of interest in a potential prey item sitting just a foot or two away in the same tree. A mourning dove (Zenaida macroura) had alighted on the branch adjacent to the merlin and sat nearby, seemingly without a care in the world. I watched the odd couple sit and sit and sit. At one point, the merlin even started preening and didn't seem to mind being with the dove.

Fast forward to now as I sit in Panera in Morehead City and look back over those photos and memories. October came and went and the first two weeks of November have done the same. The presentation went very well and I was able to go on a birding trip with the Road Scholars to the North River Farms property in Beaufort. It was a vast series of plots that made up several fields of soybeans and cotton in previous years, but now was under the ownership of the North Carolina Coastal Federation. We were led by local birder John Fussell who was able to help us snag birds for our personal lists. While most common grassland species were present (sparrows, harriers and meadowlarks were everywhere), I did manage to add Wilson's snipe (Gallinago delicata), greater yellowlegs (Tringa melanolauca), and a lifer sedge wren (Cistothorus platensis) to my year list.

Later on after a quick visit to the Core Sound Museum on Harker's Island, I managed to spot a pair of saltmarsh sparrows (Ammodramus caudacutus) near the ferry terminal for everyone in the group to see. It was a proud moment for me and a great boost to my confidence as well.

Saltmarsh sparrow poses for the camera. Personal photo.

As of last weekend, my 199th species of the year was a pied-billed grebe (Podilymbus podiceps) that I saw at Calico Creek in Morehead City along with 6 green-winged teal (Anas crecca), 50+ hooded mergansers (Lophodytes culcullatus), and a lone female lesser scaup (Aythya affinis). I only need one to reach 200, but I want to push on from there and get as many above 200 that I can. As Thanksgiving week is approaching, I'm planning on taking a trip up to Mattamuskeet NWR in Swanquarter, NC so that I can see what waterfowl I can grab for the year. I still need American wigeon (Mareca americana), ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis), and blue-winged teal (Spatula discors) (although I'm less certain that I will be able to see that last one due to the time of year).

It's been nearly a year since I got psyched out by the greylag goose (Anser anser) in Rhode Island that appeared last December and was stuck with 199. I know I can reach it, but it doesn't stop the ominous feeling that I might be missing out on another species that I don't even know I'm missing. There's 43 days left in the year and for each one that passes, I can only hope that for all the goals I have made this year that I actually achieve this one.

Here's to the chase, the challenge, and love of birds!

When you have seen one bird, one ant, one tree, you have not seen them all.  - E.O. Wilson