More Conference Birding

One of the delights of a barrier island, such as the one I visited over the weekend for my music conference, is the easy access to two related but very different birding habitats. Yesterday I talked about the salt marsh on the Bogue Sound side of Emerald Isle. This habitat was gently lapped by Intercoastal water, sultry, and accomodating to "soft" vegetation: ideal for wading birds and skulkers. On the south side, the beach habitat is a tougher place to make a living. It's hit by a pounding surf and the vegetation is necessarily tough, such as the dune grasses. The bird community is rather different, too. Here I found some familiar southeast coastal summer birds, such as Willets, Ruddy Turnstones and Sanderlings. (Note: there are not many species on the beach in summer here!) But it is late August, and nature is thinking "Fall migrations" and indeed I found one recent arrival from the far north. The pictured Black Bellied Plover is only a winter resident on the Carolina coast. This one still has its summer plumage---its winter feathers are pale and unremarkable. In spite of all of the human activity on the beach there were many birds. In fact all of these species readily passed to within a couple of feet of one of our conference goers and I marvelled at how tolerant the summer "peepers" could be of someone who sat quietly by the water. I will be eagerly awaiting my next visit to conference to commune with these birds next year!