NC_N8's solstice birds (Dec. 2008)
Who: NC_N8
Where: Buncombe County, North Carolina, USA
Bird list: Birds o' the solstice
Link: The mountain in winter.
Report:
I had high hopes for this day's birding, not only because I wanted something good for the Solstice project, but because it involved traveling to a location I'd been to several times, but in an entirely new time of year. Unfortunately, reality has a way of screwing with our best laid plans, and my quarry was notorious for not showing up when expected. Birds fly, after all.
Well before the latest sunrise of the year I was on the road, heading west on I-40. When the sun rose behind me I was close enough to see the broad low Appalachians in the distance rolling towards the horizon. I was feeling really good. In the pre-dawn hours I'd passed the cold front that had swept through the night before, the rain giving way to cold blue skies and the promise of some northern finches riding the winds in. Crossbills, grosbeaks, dare I dream of Golden Eagle? Saw-whet Owl?
The temperature gauge in my car read 45 degrees as I began my ascent of the Blue Ridge. My Garmin had decided to eschew the main roads, it has a problem telling the difference sometimes. I didn't mind when two big flocks of Wild Turkeys shot past, a sight I wouldn't be likely to see on the pavement, but I soon found myself scaling a gravel road up the side of a mountain, twisting back and forth and feeling a big unnerved. As the road, sans guardrail, dropped of precipitously my gallinaceous ambitions turned to hopes of preventing my car from recreating a giant game of Plinko, one in which I would be unlikely to win the cash prize, or even the home game.
Thankfully reaching the top, and noting the temperature had dropped to 30 degrees, I turned towards Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi River and home to wide expanses of pine forests the likes of which can't be found anywhere else in the state. In fact, at this altitude the ecosystem more closely resembles Canada rather than any place in the south. As I began to make the ascent things started getting hairy.
It's a steep road up to the top of the mountain. I watched the temperature drop. 30 degrees, 25, 20, 17. It was snowing, horizontally. The wind was so strong that just off the road I watched a tree's roots strain to hold it in the ground. The clouds were whipping past at eye level. Still I climbed to the top, parked and stepped out.
I was nearly bowled over by the gale. I walked around the parking lot, nearly falling twice on the ice covering the asphalt. There were no crossbills around, no grosbeaks, let alone eagles or owls. I snapped this picture.
Living in the south as I do I don't have to deal with inclement winter weather often, but I know two things. 1) Be very considered and patient when driving and 2) Know when to turn around when you're beaten. I was beaten.
I stopped at a couple more protected areas on the way down to have a look on the leeward side of the mountain, but there was absolutely nothing moving in the pines. Not even the Juncos that were all over further down on the actual parkway. I ended up spending about an hour hanging out out of the brutal wind (far less than the time I had allotted for Crossbill searching and the subsequent basking in Crossbill glow), waiting for anything to pop up, but birds are apparently smarter than I am. They fly after all.
Further down on the Parkway there just aren't the extensive pines that they like, and searching here was predictably futile. Frustrated, I began the drive home, stopping at a small lake looking for Goldeneye, but finding only Buffleheads and Coots. When I got home, it was 50 degrees and sunny, with no sign of the weather fury that exists on North Carolina's highest point.
I wish I had more for you, dear reader(s), but as I've said many times (far too many, really) Big Years are about the birds you miss as much as the birds you get. I've got a few days on the Outer Banks the last week of the year to pick up those last five.
At the very least, the weather may have been excellent preparation for something else I've got planned next month.
Text and photos copyright © 2008 NC_N8, used with permission. Originally published at http://thedrinkingbird.blogspot.com/2008/12/mountain-in-winter.html
