CBC Mountain Trip Day 2

For the second day, we were scheduled to go to Max Patch Rd. and Lake Junaluska. Our leader today was Steve Tracey, a great birder. When we arrived at Max Patch, we stopped at a church that was know to have Least Flycatcher. It did. We had one nice male singing and my first male Orchard Oriole. Both were FOYs. We stopped numerous times along the road and on the first we heard a Black-billed Cuckoo, but never got a visual. At that same spot we picked up a lifer Chestnut-sided Warbler! #196! We had a bunch of great birders in the group including Jeff Click, John Ennis, and Kent Fiala. The next time we stopped we got a great lifer, Golden-winged Warbler! We even got pretty good views! At that same spot, we got RE Vireo, a pair of Scarlet Tanagers, FOY Veery and some Pine Siskins. Sorry for the terrible quality.


Golden-winged Warbler

 



After that it was lunch time, we stopped at the picnic area to have lunch. Unfortunately, me and my dad didn't bring anything, so we went birding, good thing we did too. We found a wave of warblers, including Chestnut-sided, Black-and-White, Blackburnian (lifer), and Northern Parula (lifer). This whole mess put us at 199. We only needed one more. After that, we headed to Lake Junaluska, a large lake in Haywood County. We found Northern Rough-winged, Tree, and Barn Swallows. We got two lingering American Coots and FOY Spotted Sandpiper. Then came #200, Cape May Warbler! It was a beautiful female that we found at "the Cross". The bird was actually in the tree know to locals as the "Cape May Tree". We finished up early so we decided to go check out Hooper Lane in Hendersonville for shorebirds. We only found one, a single Killdeer, but we did find a flock of about 40-50 Bobolinks! #201! That was the final lifer and the last stop of the trip. In the end we finished at 201 for our life list, 199 for NC, and 152 for the year! It was great!!!!!