Red Crossbill - a Most Unexpected Consolation Prize, Ceasars Head State Park, SC, June 30, 2020

One of the biggest gaps that still exists in my SC statelist is the Peregrine Falcon.  Although it’s certainly not a rarity, often you have to be lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time to run into one.  That is unless there is a known nesting site, or a preferred roost, where you can just hang out and wait for a Peregrine to pass by.  For instance I can remember getting my first Peregrine in CT by camping out at a preferred roosting site in downtown Hartford, seeing my first one in RI at a stakeout roost on a bridge, and seeing a nesting pair in downtown Atlanta as my first for my GA list. 

"The” place for Peregrine in upstate SC is Ceasars Head State Park where there are year-round (likely nesting) birds.  I’ve been told that you just go to the overlook at the park, and scan both above and below you and you might be lucky enough to have a bird fly by.  Although certainly not a guarantee, it’s the most likely spot to find one nearby.  My NC birding friend Dave Minnich took me there in Fall 2019 only to find out that the mountain was socked in fog when we got there – we couldn’t see more than 50 ft.  Needless to say we didn’t see one that day, though it was good to scout out the site.

Then in late June 2020 a couple eBird Needs Alerts popped up with Peregrine sightings at the Park.  With summer nesting season winding down, and the summer doldrums of birding around the corner, it seemed like this could be a good time to give it another try.  After a bit of planning, SC birding friends Gary Harbour and Michael Robertson were on board for the trip, and we now had 3 great pairs of eyes to watch for Peregrines.  We set June 30th as the date when I would hopefully be able to add Peregrine to my SC statelist.

Our first stop on the 30th was a nice wooded neighborhood near where Gary lives to look for an interesting silent flycatcher seen recently.  Unfortunately, we struck out on the flycatcher, but hoped for better success with the Peregrine.  A short while later our caravan arrived at Ceasars Head State Park and we were soon at the overlook anxiously awaiting a fly-by of a Peregrine. 

But after an hour’s wait we were still looking for our target bird.  Not only was there no Peregrine, there were few raptors of any kind, with only a couple Vultures passing by.  But the scenery was nice, as shown in this panoramic view.

As my interest started to wane I reminded myself to stay on the alert even if birding was slow.  And just then I heard sharp “kip kip kip” calls coming from down below us and to the left.  I quickly picked up the birds flying left to right – it was a group of 3 mid-sized chunky finches, perhaps Waxwing-sized.  I could see dull yellowish plumage on 2 of the birds; I didn’t notice the color of the third bird.  Michael was able to get on the birds as well, and we were both able to see and hear them for maybe 10 seconds before they disappeared in the woods to the right.  (Unfortunately, Gary didn’t get on them.)  Just after they passed out of view I turned to Michael and said – “I think we just had a flock of Red Crossbills!”  We quickly compared notes and our observations were the same – we did indeed have 3 Red Crossbills, with at least 2 of them being females or immatures.

What an amazing surprise!  Although Red Crossbills are certainly possible in the upstate of SC, they are exceedingly rare.  With a bit of research on eBird I found only about 11 prior records in SC, including what may have been 2 minor local irruptions –

    8/20/89 – 1 at Burrells Ford Road

    6/99 to 1/00 – 4 sightings in a reasonably small area in Oconee County -

        6/15/99 – 1 at Oconee SP

        9/15-10/11/99 – up to 3 at Burrells Ford

        10/11/99 – 9 at Walhalla Fish Hatchery

    1/8/00 – 35 at Burrells Ford

    7/24-8/24/07 – 1 at Reedy Fork Rd S of Greenville (south of the mountains)

    12/31/12 to 2/3/13 - a flock of up to 18 birds at Devils Fork SP (multiple posts             during the period)

    9/21/14 – 4 at Walhalla Fish Hatchery

    5/12/16 – 2 at Ceasars Head SP

    7/4/18 – 3 at Sassafras Mountain

    7/4/18 – 4 at F Van Clayton Memorial Hwy

Despite staying at the overlook for another hour, we ended up missing our actual target bird - the Peregrine Falcon.  But the Red Crossbill was a much rarer and most unexpected consolation prize - #268 for my SC statelist.  In my statebird map below, I’ve seen this species in the 17 blue-shaded states where it is regular, though there are 12 other states in its regular range where I still need this species (the cross-hatched states).  And now I’ve seen Red Crossbill as a rarity in MD and SC (the tan-shaded states).

Just think, if I had seen the Peregrine on my first trip to Ceasars Head I likely wouldn’t have gone back to the park, and of course wouldn’t have found the much rarer Red Crossbills.  Sometimes it’s OK to miss your target bird.

Reddish Egret – First Inland NC Record, Charlotte, NC, June 25, 2020

When I moved to the NC mountains I set up an eBird NC Needs Alert so that I could track and prioritize sightings that I might want to chase after.  I quickly realized that most of the sightings that popped up on the alerts were from the NC coast.  And because I’m so far west in the state, and NC is such a “long” state east to west, most of those coastal sightings were 6 or more hours away.  Needless to say, most would require quite a considerable effort to chase after.  So although I’ve continued to monitor the NC Needs Alerts, I quickly write most of them off as being too far away to chase.

And that was exactly the case when the first Needs Alert popped up for a Reddish Egret on June 15th.  At first I didn’t look at it too closely, just assuming it must be yet another un-chaseable coastal bird.  It was in Mecklenburg County which wasn’t any of the local western NC counties I was familiar with, so I just continued to assume that it must be somewhere along the coast.  But then after a few more days of the Egret showing up on the Needs Alerts something clicked in my mind – I remembered that Mecklenburg County is in the Charlotte area, within a 2-hour drive of home.  That changed everything.  This one was definitely chaseable.  But the bird was at a small regional park called McAlpine Creek Park.  During these days of the pandemic I wondered if there would be too many people around to allow for safe viewing.  I decided better safe than sorry and I’d just pass on this bird.

But then the Needs Alerts kept coming – practically haunting me with each new post of this most reliable bird.  With a bit of research I found out that not only is Reddish Egret a rarity on the coast, but this was the first inland NC record.  I finally decided that I should give it a try, and if I go in the early morning I figured I could avoid most of the crowds.  I reached out to my Cleveland County birding friend Bill Hooker to see if he might want to meet me at the park (he would only be an hour away).  Bill had planned to go, but was targeting that Saturday the 27th.  I was however aiming for Wednesday the 25^th, hoping to avoid inevitable weekend crowds, though likely to run into rush hour traffic.  Not to mention that now that I decided to chase after the Egret, I didn’t want to wait too much longer to go after it – after all the 25th, would be the 11th day in a row for this rarity.  I didn’t want to push my luck.  Bill agreed to accommodate my schedule and offered to meet me that morning at the park.  And better yet, he had a local birding contact in Greg Hays who could likely help us find the bird.  We came up with a plan for Bill to meet Greg at the park early in the morning, and they would hopefully have the Egret all scoped out and pinned down for me by the time I got there a bit later. 

On the morning of the 25th I was able to get out of the house a bit earlier than expected.  And whether it was timing, or just less people on the road during the pandemic, it turned out that the rush hour traffic never materialized.  About halfway there I got a text from Bill that he and Greg were on the bird – so I was hopeful.  Just as I arrived at the parking lot Bill and Greg came back to greet me.  Within a couple minutes they took me to the best viewing spot to see our target bird in the beaver pond.  And there was the Reddish Egret, an immature dark phase bird, right in front of us.  I got this nice phone-scoped shot as the bird practically posed for us.

And here’s a distance shot of the bird without magnification.

Reddish Egret was #302 for my NC statelist – my 7th state for this species.  Per my statebird map below, I’ve seen this species in 5 southeast states in its regular range (shaded in solid blue), and now NC and CA where it is a rarity (tan-shaded states).   I’ve yet to see it in MS and GA in its regular range (the cross-hatched states).

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher in NC Too, Shelby, NC, June 16, 2020

In May 2020 I was successful in adding Scissor-tailed Flycatcher to my SC statelist, seeing a stakeout pair of birds in Spartanburg County.  That was one of 3 sites in SC where this species was either nesting or at least quite reliable this spring and summer.  At first I thought SC nesting sites might represent a recent eastward range expansion of this species from its traditional breeding range in the south-central states.  But a quick review of eBird data shows that Scissor-tails have been nesting very locally in the southeast states for some time, with likely nesting sites this year alone in TN, AL, MS, and of course SC.  This is consistent with text from the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America which says that the species “very rarely nests east to VA and NC”.

But despite that comment in the Field Guide, NC seems to be pretty much left out of this breeding range expansion.  I could only find one record of breeding in NC documented in eBird over the last 10 years.  And that’s despite the fact that the 3 SC sites where they are regular this year are each just a few miles from the NC stateline.  I commented to Cleveland County, NC birder Bill Hooker that he should keep his eyes open for Scissor-tails in his area as habitat in Cleveland County looked very similar to the habitat where they were nesting just a few miles away in SC. 

And sure enough that’s exactly what happened.  Bill reached out to me on May 23rd to make sure I noticed an eBird post of a Scissor-tail in Cleveland County.  Unfortunately it was of just a fly-by bird, and the location was uncertain.  And then Bill notified me of another Cleveland County report on June 15^th, this time the bird was spotted on Beaver Dam Church Road in Shelby.  But before I got in my car to chase after it, Bill said he’d check it out and get back to me potentially saving me the trip if this bird was no longer around.  Alas, Bill could not re-find the bird, so maybe it too quickly passed through the area.  But he said he would check the area again the next morning just in case.

On the morning of the 16th I had all my gear ready in hopes that Bill might just be able to relocate our target bird.  But he sent me a text that once again he was not successful.  I was in the midst of sending him a reply text when my phone rang – it was Bill saying that the bird had just reappeared.  Within 5 minutes I was out the door and on the hunt.

Beaver Dam Church Road was about an hour away, but I was hopeful that the Scissor-tail would stick around until I got there.  And Bill said he’d stay at the spot until I got there to keep tabs on the bird.  I was just 2 minutes away when Bill called – he said that although for most of the past hour the bird was out of view, it had just reappeared on the wires right next to where he parked.  I was just ending the call when I pulled into the area – up ahead I could see Bill standing next to his car with the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher nicely perched on wires right across the road.  Timing is everything!  I got this phonescoped photo of the bird which had suddenly become quite cooperative.

 

A couple minutes later we went across the road to listen for some Horned Larks that Bill had found earlier.  As we listened, we watched the Flycatcher drop down to the grasses along the roadside likely to feed.  Then we heard the tinkling notes of the Lark’s song in the soybean field ahead of us, for a moment diverting our attention away from the Scissor-tail.  When we looked back the Flycatcher was nowhere in sight.  We spent another 30 minutes in the area but couldn’t relocate our bird. 

It turns out that our experience with the bird that morning was typical of its activities over the next couple weeks.  Though it continued to be reported, more often than not either birders were not able to locate the bird, or they spotted it for just a few minutes before it disappeared.  Like I said, timing is everything.

My statebird map of Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is inserted below.  The 7 blue states are those where I’ve seen this species in its regular range – throughout the southcentral states where it breeds and as an uncommon wintering bird in south FL.  The 6 tan states are those where I’ve seen it as a rarity - as a vagrant in KY, MD, and MA; as a local breeder in TN and SC; and now NC perhaps to be a local breeder sometime soon as well.