4,010 Miles, 30 Life birds: Part I

A tornado of final exams and presentations and papers (and sabbatical replacement search committee meetings and phone interviews) descended upon me in early May and by graduation I was well beyond ready to play. School got out on May 17th and I had two more weeks in Asheville before my brother would fly out and we would drive my trusty pickup back across the country. I spent those two weeks birding, playing baseball, and drinking local brews in the lengthening evenings with friends.

Early morning birding on the WWC campus.

Redbird, Northern Cardinal, Cardinalis cardinalis.

My friend Sam and I hiked Mt. Mitchell, the tallest peak in the U.S. east of the Mississippi--12 miles round trip through lush hardwood forest and up into spruce-pine forest. We got great looks at some delicious warblers, including Canada, Magnolia, Black-burnian, and Black-throated Blue. The hike is bizarre because you spend the first 5.75 miles on a secluded mountain trail but share the last 200 meters of the trek with tourists who drove to the top and they are huffing and puffing on the asphalt road to the concrete structure that sits atop the highest point (really, they had to build something man-made above the highest point east of the Mississippi?). It made me laugh. We stayed up there a short time and then quickly retreated to the solitude of the deserted trail.

Blue Ridge Mountains

On May 28th, my brother arrived and we spent 3 days in the Asheville area to explore and so I could perform in two concerts with the Wild Asheville Community Chorus lead by Suzannah Park and Nathan Morrison (one of the main reasons I decided to finish at Warren Wilson was actually not even related to school, but to this incredible, soul-nurturing choir!). We birded the Blue Ridge Parkway and saw lifer #1 for the trip: a Cerulean Warbler. We heard it singing for ten or fifteen minutes before we actually saw the bird--dang those guys are hard to track down high in those leaf-filled trees! It chased a Blackburnian Warbler away (always a treat to see, those flame-throated birds) and took off again. I would love to get better looks at the Cerulean Warbler but I'll settle for that for now.

Not a Cerulean Warbler but another vibrantly colored shade of blue--Indigo Bunting, Passerina cyanea, near Mt. Mitchell.

On June 2, Ben and I started the long drive south to New Orleans, where we would then head West along the coast of Louisiana. I won't bore you with all the details of the trip in one post but will follow up this post with vignettes and photos to catch you up on what we saw and experienced!