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Bird's-Eye View: Head to the mountains to spot birds rarely seen
David Disher Photo
Yellow-bellied sapsuckers are winter residents in most of North Carolina.
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Published: April 17, 2009
Spring has arrived, and with it has come all those birds that spend the winter in the tropics. And scarlet tanagers, summer tanagers, rose-breasted grosbeaks and warblers of every description -- will soon return.
Some of the birds will just be passing through, and others will stay to find mates, build nests and raise their young. In turn, many of the birds that spend the winter with us will be winging their way north where they breed. But not all of them.
Yellow-bellied sapsuckers, yellow-rumped warblers, golden-crowned kinglets and dark-eyed juncos are winter residents in most of North Carolina. But at higher elevations of the North Carolina mountains, lower temperatures create an environment that resembles conditions found farther north. At elevations of 3,000 feet or higher, these birds and red-breasted nuthatches -- rarely seen in the Piedmont even in winter -- occupy the southernmost reaches of their breeding range.
At home in the mountains
Above 4,000 feet, Carolina chickadees tend to give way to the more northern black-capped chickadees.
At 5,000 feet, temperatures are much lower. This is where you will find forests dominated by hemlocks, red spruce and Fraser fir, with a dense understory of rhododendron and mountain laurel. This is the habitat favored by winter wrens, brown creepers and the elusive red crossbill.
Many of these birds winter at lower elevations throughout the state, but they return to the mountains for the breeding season instead of migrating north.
Unfortunately, these highest elevations are also the plant community at greatest risk from air pollution and global warming. Vast stands of Fraser firs are dying of acid-rain effects, which make them susceptible to insect infestations. This climate that makes the mountaintops favorable for these trees, birds and other wildlife, is threatened by global warming. Even minute changes in average annual temperatures can adversely affect these birds.
Listen to them sing
Since birds usually sing only on their breeding grounds to attract mates and repel competitors, we don't usually hear the songs of birds that only winter here. That makes seeing them in the mountains rewarding, since you often get to hear their songs.
Golden-crowned kinglets are common in the winter, but their only sound is a thin, soft note, often delivered three at a time, that is so high-pitched that many people can't hear it. But if you hike along a mountain trail in late spring or early summer, you may hear a series of notes, accelerating then dropping off to a jumble of notes. The first few times you hear it, you are surprised that such a complex song could come from such a tiny bird.
In the Shining Rock Wilderness area south of Asheville on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I woke up on a June morning to the ethereal song of several veerys. The flute-like notes of competing males seemed to spiral down from the ridges into the mist-shrouded ravines of the mountains. This thrush only briefly passes through the Piedmont during spring and fall migration, but it nests at this higher elevation in the southern Appalachians. It nests here along with other typically northern birds such as the saw-whet owl and the Canada warbler.
Where to go: The Blue Ridge Parkway offers the easiest locations to see these birds in spring and summer. Most of the parkway is above 3,000 feet between U.S. Highway 21 near Sparta and U.S. 421 near Boone. The best places to bird include Doughton Park between mileposts 238 and 248, Moses Cone Memorial Park at milepost 294 near Blowing Rock, and Price Park just a short distance away.
Farther south between Boone and Asheville, the parkway reaches even higher elevations, much of it at 4,000 to 5,600 feet. The best birding places include Grandfather Mountain near milepost 305, Crabtree Meadows at milepost 340 and Mount Mitchell near milepost 355.
For more information on this subject, see Birds of the Blue Ridge Mountains by Marcus B. Simpson. Simpson will be the speaker at the Audubon Society of Forsyth County's next meeting on April 28 at 7 p.m. at SciWorks. See forsythaudubon.org for details.
■ Bird's-Eye View is a joint column by Ron Morris and Phil Dickinson. Today's column was written by Morris. Morris retired after 24 years as curator at the N.C. Zoo. He has studied birds around the world and is the vice president of the Audubon Society of Forsyth County. Dickinson is a legal writer. He has been an active birder for 15 years, and he is a past president of the Audubon Society of Forsyth County and chairs the conservation committee. If you have a birding question or a story idea, write to Bird's-Eye View in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27101-3159, or send an e-mail to birding@wsjournal.com. Please type "birds" in the subject line.
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