Trail 20: Middle Crabtree Creek (Part B)

05/05/2012.  8:40 AM.

Start:  GPS N 35, 48.818, W 78, 37.092
End:   GPS N 35, 48.277, W 78, 36.487

Access to this part of the Crabtree Creek Trail (East) can be found near 2500 Atlantic Avenue. It looks like there might be some unpaved parking next to the entrance on the west side of the road, but there was construction equipment parked nearby when I arrived, so I parked about half a block down the road in a parking lot instead.

This trail is one of the most interesting so far, and is also the trail that originally inspired this blog. Last November, I took my car in for an oil change at Tilden Car Car Center (which I highly recommend) on Atlantic Avenue.  The wait was going to be about an hour, so I decided to take a walk because it was a nice day. About 10 minutes later, I happened on the Middle Crabtree Creek Trail. I followed it for about half an hour, and noticed a good number of birds along the way. When I returned home, I looked up the Capital Area Greenway, and that's when I decided to try to bird all of the 70+ miles of it.

My arrival on this day was quite a bit earlier than usual. Normally I get started closer to 10 AM. Perhaps for that reason, bird activity was very slow at the outset. I could hear a few calling, but most were not moving around much, so it took almost 15 minutes to identify my first species visually. I don't count birds unless I actually see them, partly because I'm not yet very skilled at birding by ear. It took another 20 minutes to identify a second species. Not a very satisfying start to the day...but it would get better.

The trail has three major sections. It is also bisected by a railroad track just after you pass under Capital Blvd. The first part of the trail is level ground and it follows the course of Crabtree Creek. The second section is a raised wooden walkway (left) that slowly takes you up into the treetops along a high bank next to Crabtree Creek. There are a couple of large businesses on one side, more or less at the same level as the walkway, while on the right, there is a drop of perhaps 100 feet down to Crabtree Creek. The third section of the trail starts again along the bank of the creek, but quickly becomes another wooden bridge that takes you out over marshland, and then over a true wetland (see photo below). So the scenery is interesting and the habitats are varied. Given that, I'm a little surprised that I did not see more species on this trip than I did.

Birds Sighted Between Atlantic Avenue and Capital Blvd:

Carolina Wren:  GPS N 35, 48.815, W 78, 36.977. I later saw a group of four of these birds moving around together, perhaps a family.

American Robin:  GPS N 35, 48.880, W 78, 36.860.

Northern Cardinal:  I saw this one right after the American Robin, and from this point (9:15 AM) on, bird activity became more steady.

Downy Woodpecker:  Male and female. The two of them seemed to be jumping around a lot within a space of only about 3 cubic feet.

Carolina Chickadee:  GPS N 35, 48.887, W 78, 36.780.

Blue Jay:  GPS N 35, 48.795, W 78, 36.623. This was the first new species seen on the elevated walkway.

Common Grackle:  At least two.

Mallard:  One female and her duckling down in the water.

Birds Sighted Between Capital Blvd and Raleigh Blvd:

Barn Swallow:  At least eight of these. One may have had a nest beneath the railroad overpass. This is a new species for the Capital Area Greenway list.

American Crow:  Identified by sight and call combined.

Great Blue Heron:  In flight. I didn't know that the wetland was coming up, but this should have been my first clue.

Great Crested Flycatcher: GPS N 35, 48.483, W 78, 36.521.

Canada Goose: GPS N 35, 48.421, W 78, 36.521.

The trail ended at Raleigh Blvd, though another section continues from the intersection of Raleigh Blvd and Crabtree Blvd.

New Species Sighted on Return Trip:

European Starling: N 35, 48.660, W 78, 36.680.

Eastern Phoebe:  Flicking its tail while perched on one of the supports for the railroad bridge that passes over Crabtree Creek.

Fish Crow:  At first I assumed this was an American Crow.  Fish Crows and American Crows are hard to tell apart by sight.  However, the call seemed quite different, so I pulled out my iBird Pro App on my iPod Touch and checked the calls against each other.  The call of this one was that of the Fish Crow.  This is a new bird for the Greenway list and also for my lifelist.

Gray Catbird:  GPS N 35, 48.750, W 78, 36.657.

Red Bellied Woodpecker:  GPS N 35, 48.884, W 78, 36.590.

On this outing I saw a total of 17 species, two of which were new additions to the Greenway List, and one was a new addition to my lifelist.  The total species count for the Raleigh Greenway is up to 57. Looking over the results of the last 10 outings, it is interesting to note which birds were more or less common in the area between Shelley Lake and Raleigh Blvd. Of course, some of these frequencies are strongly influenced by time of year, and a few are probably influenced by my lack of familiarity with certain birds. But along the 10 trails followed since mid-February, some birds that had been sighted further north were not sighted a single time, while others were seen on almost every outing.

The birds not seen recently, but which were observed during the first ten outings include: Black Vulture, Brown Creeper, Chipping Sparrow, Field Sparrow, Pileated Woodpecker, Red Headed Woodpecker, Red Winged Blackbird, and Song Sparrow.  In general, I noticed that along these trails, sparrows were quite a bit less common than they had been further north.  The most common birds (spotted at least 8 times on 10 outings) include: Northern Cardinal, Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Red Bellied Woodpecker, Carolina Wren, American Robin, American Crow, and Canada Goose.

Occasional sightings (3 or fewer times) include:  Yellow Bellied Sapsucker, Ruby Crowned Kinglet, Ring Billed Gull, Red Tailed Hawk, Northern Mockingbird, Mourning Dove, Double Crested Cormorant, Common Grackle. Turkey Vulture, Red Shouldered Hawk, Northern Flicker, Hairy Woodpecker, Gray Catbird, European Starling, Eastern Bluebird, Cedar Waxwing, Brown Headed Cowbird, Blue Gray Gnatcatcher, Belted Kingfisher, Pine Warbler, Palm Warbler, Northern Rough Winged Swallow, Hooded Merganser, Hermit Thrush, Great Crested Flycatcher, Fish Crow, Brown Headed Nuthatch, and Barn Swallow. Woodpeckers have been decidedly less frequent since moving south of Shelley Lake, and three of the less common species of water birds have only been seen around Shelley Lake (the cormorants, gulls, and mergansers). Some of the less commonly sighted birds, like the flycatchers, have probably only recently returned from their wintering grounds.