<< Back 10/2/02 The Naturalist's Corner By Don Hendershot I took the flurry of thrushes above my head to be a good omen. It was about 7:45 a.m. Saturday (9/28) morning and I was standing at the end of my driveway waiting for Bob Olthoff. Bob was leading the Carolina Field Birders Club regular, monthly field trip — a trek along the Blue Ridge Parkway to U.S. 276, then south to Caesars Head state park in South Carolina, 16 miles south of Brevard. Hopes were to get looks at some migrating passerines along the parkway and then spot some raptors at the Caesars Head hawk watch. Damp, dark clouds still draped some of the peaks and wisps of fog swirled around in the valleys, but Carolina blue peaked through in places promising the first sunshine since Isidore sashayed ashore in New Orleans earlier in the week. The rains and strong southerly winds from the storm had shut down fall migration and put a damper on birders’ spirits. But today, the thrushes were saying, would be different. My gray matter hadn’t absorbed the morning’s dose of caffeine yet, and I was wondering what the 20 or so thrushes could possibly be foraging for in the large poplar and adjacent maple. As the synapses began firing, I noticed the Virginia creeper scaling both trunks and disappearing into the crowns of the two 100-foot tall trees. The vine’s grape-like clusters of berries are fall and winter staples for thrushes and many other species of songbirds. The fog-shrouded canopies provided only thrush silhouettes for viewing through binoculars, but two species could easily be identified by their calls. Swainson’s thrushes and wood thrushes were definitely having berries for breakfast. I climbed into Bob’s car and we headed down to the BRP entrance off of U.S. 23/74. There we were joined by Cathy King, Beth Brinson, Wally Foutch and Tom Flagg. As we waited for the scheduled departure time of 8:30 a.m. to see if others would be joining us we picked out a few migrants along the roadside including Tennessee warbler, chestnut-sided warbler and bay-breasted warbler. Eight-thirty arrived and there were no more takers, so we started up the parkway and into the soup. The fog stuck thick and wet to the mountainsides. A quick stop at the Waynesville overlook produced one new migrant, a rose-breasted grosbeak. We continued through the gray to Licklog Gap overlook. Migrants were pretty active but they were basically small dark forms flitting through the fog. However, at Licklog, a gray-cheeked thrush sounded off, adding to our species list. We broke out of the fog for a moment at Richland Balsam. A male rose-breasted grosbeak, still in breeding plumage, posed briefly in the sunlight. Cathy and Tom spotted a Cape May warbler and the fog crept in again. We rounded a curve on the parkway after Richland Balsam and we were awestruck. We were in clear, bright sunshine. To our right, dark peaks protruded through thick white clouds in the valleys. In front of us, to our left, gray clouds tumbled down the mountain like an avalanche. While just above the avalanche, in the sunlight, the clouds lightened, eventually turning to brilliant white before giving way to clear blue. “This is my religion,” Bob said as we, just as abruptly, drove back into the gray. We stopped at Wolf Mountain overlook to do a little botanizing. Beautiful grass-of-Parnassus, though past peak, was still evident along the seepage. Closed gentian and ladies’ tresses were also present. A scarlet tanager appeared in the fog to remind us we were still birding. We stopped at Devils Courthouse for more fog and more of the same migrants. Beyond Devils Courthouse we were treated to more incredible panoramas and more constant sunshine. We hoped the broad-winged hawks that had been waiting Isidore out in the mountains were as anxious to get airborne and get to Caesars Head as we were. At Caesars Head we were greeted by a park ranger, smiling, binoculars in hand. “I finally got to see a whole group of broad-wings at one time,” she said. Atop Caesars head, the rock outcropping the park is named for, we found longtime hawk watch volunteers Reece and Judy Mitchell along with Jeff Catlin and a group of adept and dedicated hawk watchers. The morning had been promising with around 800 raptors recorded by the time we arrived around noon. It quickly became apparent that the hawks were as anxious to be on the move as we anticipated they might be. Within moments of our arrival, a huge group of birds were streaming past, west of us. The hawks were quite a distance away, streaming into and out of gray clouds, white clouds and blue skies. That group was upwards of 400 birds and that was just the beginning. Once we became accustomed to focusing on hawk-like specs in the distance and learned the landmarks; “I’ve got birds over camel” or “two fields of vision left from Pilot Mountain,” we could tell we were in for a special day. Hawks streamed and kettled in the distance. One huge kettle of 400 or so in the west and a relatively close kettle of around 250 in the east provided a text book demonstration of raptor migration. The birds whirled in spiraling circles (kettling) to the tops of the thermals, then set their wings and spilled out (streaming) in a southerly direction, in search of the next thermal (rising column of warm air.) We had closer looks at a Cooper’s hawk, directly overhead, and a couple of American kestrels. Other migrants we saw included an immature bald eagle, an osprey and a peregrine falcon. A resident sharp-shinned, jealous at all the attention the migrants were getting, came in close for an eyeball to eyeball. About three hours and 3,000 raptors later we bid the hawk watchers farewell and headed to the lowlands. Marilyn Westphal joined our entourage as we made a side trip to Hooper’s Lane along the Mills River to look for shorebirds. Marilyn and Bob had recorded a few late shorebirds there the preceding weekend. The standing water along Hooper’s Lane had all but disappeared, along with the shorebirds. We did see a few killdeer. Other species picked up at Hooper’s Lane included northern harrier, barn swallow, tree swallow, bobolink, Wilson’s warbler, common yellowthroat, palm warbler and Savannah sparrow. All in all, it was a fine day in Carolina. To find out more about the Carolina Field Birders, call president Sean O’Connell at 828.277.2203 or Valerie Yurkovich at 828.293.5717.