I'm Back! Updates and More.

General Updates 

Live Oaks at Maides Park during midwinter visit in January 2022

Hello readers, welcome back to Carolina Bird Gardens and More. I know it has been a while since I posted a new article or added photos (I think nearly four months or more). As you may have seen in the last post, I have been quite busy over the last few months and also had a number of personal hardships back in February and March 2022. I had a fairly rough semester and am at a crossroads on my path forward at the university (but managed to get through this term). Aside from issues related to the change in teaching method for French and disorganized class format (the professor was very helpful though) I was facing burnout from confusing or unclear requirements for my degree, class unavailability due to instructor shortages, and reluctance to return to campus due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and project with our home. Anyway, this was one of the worst semesters I have ever had and my mom and I getting sick in March (not Covid Fortunately), only made things worse as I fell behind. Obviously it has been very hard to regain my motivation to write quality articles, share garden and bird table tips, or research topics that might interest nature lovers, birdwatchers, and home gardeners. Now I am on summer holiday and will have more time to work on the blog.

News 

My best photo of the Mountain Bluebird "Rocky" at Wrightsville Beach March 23, 2022 

New Garden: We currently in the process of getting a new house built it is still within the Wilmington Area. This process will keep me and my mom busy through the summer with the usual caveats of supply issues, labor, and demolishing the existing structure. The good news is that we have quite a bit of land and will be creating a new habitat garden, home farm and front garden that will serve as an outdoor laboratory and a better habitat for songbirds, reptiles, amphibians, and insect life. Stay tuned for updates and garden plans. 

I will miss the townhouse by Greenfield Lake as for six years I enjoyed watching dozens of species of birds come to my upstairs bedroom window, and was only a short walk to Greenfield Park with 221 recorded species of birds including forest interior and swamp species. We also had a nice urban garden in our dooryard with plants transferred from Backyard Habitat 1A that helped to showcase how even small urban or suburban areas can be used has habitat areas while looking nice. The new site will only be one floor and is not near a park or lake, though Burnt Mill Creek is within a few blocks, and the neighborhood is heavily forested like my childhood home. This is a new beginning and I hope to create one of our best garden habitats yet. 

Photography: Another new thing that I have gotten into (or back into) is photography as I now have places to host photos and need photographs of birds and other wildlife for field notes and to support evidence of unusual, rare, or new species. While I have used decent digital cameras in the past (early 2010s), I have relied mostly on digiscoping with my iPad or new phone which has better cameras than some of the stuff in the 2000s/2010s but can only take you so far when photographing long-distances or trying to get blog quality photos (rather than a photo to enter with eBird data, to place in a paper, or to ID a bird, reptile, insect, or plant with my library of keys or field guides and online). 

A few weeks ago a retired ferry captain and bird photographer got in contact with me through some birdwatching friends and gifted me a complete set of Nikon cameras complete with lenses, monopods, memory cards, manual focus, and everything you need for photography. We met him in the parking lot of the mall and talked for over an hour about nature stories, his career on the ferry, how he photographed nearly 390 species of birds, as well as his experiences with photography. Meanwhile the sound of Least Terns and Killdeers could be heard from the Belk's rooftop. He was very nice and I hope to meet him again in the field. Thank you for the cameras and I am excited to get in advanced photography.

Over the summer I hope to spend time learning how to use the Nikon D300 and its lens and run software to edit and organize RAW files. Not only will this allow me to capture more birds, mammals, reptiles, and natural landscapes on "film" but will give me original high-quality photos for this blog and other projects. 

Field Projects: On top of the house project, and my new venture into photography, I have a number of nature related projects that I want to return to. For at least two years, I have been collecting bird data at Wilmington and New Hanover County parks via eBird and observing patterns, indications of breeding, and feeding habits with each snapshot. Greenfield Lake has been my main study area with most lists running between 25-50 species depending on the season, with the entire 6.5km (4mi) look being covered each time. I found and documented evidence of breeding forest interior species, early successional species, and at least three species of raptors plus the Barred Owls. I have also visited  Longleaf/McRae Park, Carolina Beach State Park, Fort Fisher Basin Trail, Wilmington Riverwalk, and Wade Park, as well as various spots in NHC such as utility right of ways, woodlots, and small urban parks. Along with contributing information to eBird's dataset I plan on using this data to develop an updated document about breeding, resident, and migratory bird trends for this county. Aside from this I am also studying ant, bees/wasps, and the role that urban or suburban ecosystems play in ecology. 

Blog Updates 

Green Heron "Bittern" at Greenfield Lake Boathouse May 31 2021

My initial plans of returning to Carolina Bird Gardens in More is to improve the site's format to make it easier to navigate, and to emphasize the directory with past articles, documents, and other pages. Before I went on hiatus, I was working on an article about urban trees and tree planting efforts in New Hanover County, and had plans to create more bird/wildlife profile articles, a updated bird table/feeder guide, and to develop a page for basic urban/suburban habitat gardens. These projects are still in the pipeline along with other subjects that I have mentioned in past updates. I also hope to create a business card with the blog's name so people can find it easier as it is a long name. Below is a list of subjects or articles that I hope to do over the summer. While I have no idea what my posting schedule will be although once construction begins on the house, I will have a lot more free time up until the next semester in August.

1: Complete unfinished article about Urban Trees 

2: Possible species profile, I was thinking about Corvids (Crows and Ravens), Woodpeckers, or possibly a more specific profile about the Brown Thrasher (which is doing very well this year and its melodic fluting songs radiating almost every woodland or hedgerow around). 

3: I feel that I need to update and possibly rewrite the bird table/feeder article as I have learned new information and want to make it more like a beginner's guide. Such articles have been hard to write as there individual experiences vary, and the same types of birds can have different tastes across communities.

4: Stay tuned for an article about my initial plans for Backyard Habitat 2 and what features, plants, and elements will go into the redesigned garden. One thing is certain, there will be a permanent water feature for frogs, songbirds, and beneficial insects with aquatic/marsh plants. 

5: Create a new page about habitat gardening (long-term) so people can get an idea on how to tailor wildlife friendly landscapes to their gardens, dooryards, or even an balcony. 

6: I may do a special article about rare and usual birds given the recent uptick in western, and southern vagrants visiting New Hanover County including the first report of a Mountain Bluebird in North Carolina when a male stayed at Wrightsville Beach Park for two months.