Vacation Sightings
Well, we’re back from vacation in N. Topsail Beach, NC, and had a good time not only relaxing, but also getting out and seeing some of the natural sights. We didn’t venture out as much as either of us would have liked, but we did get a chance to see some new things while we were there. A short list of what we saw:
BIRDS
- Willet
- Brown Pelican
- Sanderling
- Black-bellied Plover (adult + juv)
- Least Sandpiper
- Ruddy Turnstone
- Dunlin
- Great Black-Backed Gull (adults + var. juvs)
- Lesser Black-Backed Gull (adults + var. juvs)
- Herring Gull (adults + var. juvs)
- Laughing Gull (adults + var. juvs)
- Ring-billed Gull (adults + var. juvs)
- Royal Tern (adult + juv)
- Sandwich Tern (adult + juv)
- Green Heron
- Great Egret
- Great Blue Heron
- Snowy Egret
- Belted Kingfisher
- European Starling
- Boat-tailed Grackle (adult + juv) ‡
- Song Sparrow
- Carolina Wren
BUTTERFLIES & MOTHS
- Palomedes Swallowtail
- Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
- Black Swallowtail
- Monarch
- Viceroy
- Phaon Crescent
- Pearl Crescent
- Salt-marsh Skipper
- Cloudy Skipper §
- Clouded Sulphur
- Orange Sulphur
- Southern Dogface (waiting verifiication) §
- 2 un-ID’d skippers
- Zebra Conchylodes (moth) §
- Un-ID’d yellow-and-black moth
DRAGONFLIES
- Four-spotted Pennant (M, F, imm) §
- Seaside Dragonlet (M, F)
- Carolina Saddlebags (M, F) §
- Swamp Darner â€
- Eastern Pondhawk (M, F, imm M)
- Wandering Glider
Other STUFF
- Velvet Ant ‡
- Fire Ants ‡
- 5-lined Skink
- Un-ID’d snake
- Snapping Turtle
- Loggerhead Turtle (hatchling)
key: †New species | ‡ Lifelist photo | § New species and photo
And here are a few pictures.
Great shots amigo, did you make up any of those names or are they all real birds? I mean Rusty Trombone…that can’t be…oh wait…Ruddy Turnstone, I just misread that.