Migratory birds take flight north from N.C.

By Connie Sage

Correspondent

Guided by the light of a full moon, many of the tens of thousands of migrating waterfowl in northeastern North Carolina began heading north last week.

Strong southerly winds, warmer temperatures and longer hours of daylight triggered the start of the exodus of swans, geese and ducks, said Joe Fuller, migratory game bird coordinator for the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

Each year, Fuller spends one week - this year it was Jan. 5 to 12 - counting birds from an airplane flying at 150 to 250 feet.

The aerial survey showed just less than 77,000 migrating waterfowl for the week this season, compared with 69,000 last year and about 73,000 in 2007, Fuller said. Other years have seen as many as 80,000 birds, he said.

Most of the waterfowl come here in November and leave mid-February through late March, he said. There have been fewer birds here in recent days, Fuller said on Friday.

"If they didn't make a temporary move to another river system, more than likely they've migrated north," he said.

Fuller said clear skies, a full moon and the recent warm weather coincided this year and the birds started their trek back north. If it had been overcast with colder temperatures, "we may not have seen the movement," he said.

Fuller tracks the northeastern part of the state along the coast. He said the largest numbers of migratory waterfowl "by far" are found at Lake Mattamuskeet, the largest natural lake in North Carolina, followed by the Pungo Lake and the Lake Phelps area. The greatest number of swans are found from Hyde County north to the Virginia line.

Fuller said he tracks every species of waterfowl he can see, including tundra swans, Canada geese, snow geese, Atlantic brant (a member of the goose family that closely resembles a Canada goose), and 15 to 18 species of ducks.

The biggest surprise this year, he said, was a record 40,000 scaup, a small diving duck sometimes called a bluebill, that were seen on the Albemarle Sound.

Some 38,000 snow geese were sighted, about 1,000 more than last year. A higher than average number of Canada geese - 21,000 compared with 16,000 - also were counted this year. That includes "resident" as well as migrating Canada geese, he said.

More than 7,000 tundra swans were counted on the Chowan River on Jan. 9, he said, which is higher than usual. The largest number of ducks he saw last month were the green-winged teal, followed by northern pintail. Most of those ducks were at the 50,180-acre Lake Mattamuskeet, an Indian name meaning "dry dust."

The tundra swans fly here from the greatest distance each year, traveling nearly 4,000 miles from the Arctic in Canada and northeastern Alaska.

Adult tundra swans are white with long, straight necks and have a wingspan of about 5-1/2 feet. Younger swans are light gray. They mate for life, and it takes three years for them to become sexually active, Fuller said, although they'll start forming pair bonds before that.

"This is as far south as they go," said Fuller, who is based in Edenton.

Migratory Canada geese also tend to end their winter migration here, he said. Other species, such as the northern pintail, keep heading south where it's warmer.

Fuller said the agency's only waterfowl field sanctuary program is in the Blackrock development of Bertie County, just south of Edenton along the Chowan River.

To provide a secure place for the birds to feed and rest, he said, the Wildlife Resources Commission leases land from the property owner in the winter and pays her to leave corn out and to grow winter wheat.