Chunk of Georgia

I had finally made it to Georgia and was primed to start my short spring field job.  First, though, was where I was to be living during my stay here.  I was completely impressed with the situation; I was going to be living at the Altamaha Wildlife Management Area, just south of Darien.  I didn't know it at the time but this spot is likely the best birding location in the entire county and I was going to be living there every day.

The first thing to greet me was the field house, an old historical plantation house built in the 1920s:

The house is surrounded by lush vegetation and swampy woods.  Here is a view of the yard, right next to where I park my car:

If you look at that and think "Hmm, looks like there could be gators in there", you're definitely correct.  Here is a small AMERICAN ALLIGATOR that was sunning itself in the yard:

There's lots of other wildlife around the house too.  Here's a CAROLINA ANOLE:

Some of the common butterflies around the house include this CAROLINA SATYR:

And this HACKBERRY EMPEROR:

But as one would assume, my senses first keyed in on the local birds.  I had never lived in a place quite like this.  For one thing, BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING-DUCKS are abundant around the house.  I see and hear these every day, often perching actually ON the house:

Here you can see them using the observation platform across the street (no one said only humans could observe their surroundings from the platform, right?):

Every morning and evening, hundreds of WHITE IBIS fly over the house going to/from their night roost:

Arguably one of the most strikingly-colored birds here in North America is the male PAINTED BUNTING.  I've been lucky to have these around all spring.  In fact, as I'm typing this, the male is singing relentlessly out in the yard.  Here are some photos of them from this spring:

Another family of birds well-represented behind the house here at the Altamaha WMA are the rails.  There was a period where SORAS were abundant.  Here's one with good light:

I was rather keen to see and photograph a KING RAIL though; I had actually never seen this species before (despite hearing it several times).  The local rails provided for me.  At times, their relentless "kacking" in the yard actually became distracting and somewhat annoying!  Anyway, here's one peeking through the reeds:

One thing that was quite disappointing was the warbler migration here on the coastal plain.  I wasn't sure what to expect but migration was much slower than I thought it was going to be.  Here are some of the warblers.  First up, COMMON YELLOWTHROATS are still common breeders:

Coming from California, I was happy to lay eyes on BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLERS once again.  They came through the area in small numbers:

Another species of warbler that came through in decent numbers were NORTHERN WATERTHRUSHES.  It wouldn't be uncommon to hear these singing in the yard  Here's one skulking around:

I didn't realize it but one of the better migrant warblers I had was this very distant CAPE MAY WARBLER.  I only had a couple of these:

However, probably the most-uncommon migrant I had was this BLUE-WINGED WARBLER:

Nope, it's not a warbler.  The SUMMER TANAGERS are tending to be pretty common, even here at the wildlife management areas (but only in areas with decent chunks of habitat):

The first day of work was actually spent down at Bloody Marsh on Saint Simons Island trying to trap WHIMBREL.  Although we didn't catch any that day, we were lucky to catch a BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER.  I was still pleased, I had never handled a BBPL before!

The flock of Eastern and Western WILLETS there at the marsh was pretty impressive though:

We spent a lot of time sitting at the edge of the marsh and when you have THAT much time, things to start to come out of the woodwork for you.  The local CLAPPER RAILS are the tamest I've ever seen.  We got to watch every single aspect of CLRA life; mating, nest building, courting, calling, fights, chases, swimming, bathing, feeding, etc.  Here's one of the superstars:

Finally, it was time to boat out to some of the barrier islands to look for shorbs.  However, we couldn't even get out there without finding some cool stuff.  Here is a flexible LEAST BITTERN along the Altamaha River:

But yes, we finally got out to some of the barrier islands to start looking for migrant RED KNOTS.  My job in Georgia was extremely simple on paper; resight banded knots.  It didn't take too long to spot a few knots, although none of these were banded:

More interesting to me were the PARASITIC JAEGERS that we would see every once in a while.  I guess I hadn't expected to be around these and I found myself very out of practice:

The MARBLED GODWITS were still around in good numbers:

Terns are very well-represented here on the coast of Georgia.  Here are some ROYAL and SANDWICH TERNS along with a lone BLACK SKIMMER:

I'll leave you with a typical view of RED KNOTS here on the coastal islands of Georgia:

All these pictures were from only about a week of work.  I'll post a couple more times with more Georgian goodies.  Maybe before long I'll actually catch up??

Wandering in Florida

I started making my way back down to Florida, this time at a much more leisurely pace.  I had a week to spend down south before my job in Georgia began.  It had been a while since I had seen some of the spring migrants that the east has to offer so I kept myself busy enjoying those.

For example, I was birding at a local park in South Carolina when I found myself actually enjoying the company of things like BROWN THRASHERS.  Remember, having spent the last two years in California, these rich-brown guys were a welcome sight:

It didn't take long to make it back down to Florida though.  I have some family that lives in Lake County so I visited with them for several days.  Evening walks around the neighborhood put me in a very different world from one out west.

The nearby wildlife kept my camera busy too.  Here's a LITTLE BLUE HERON:

.... with a small AMERICAN ALLIGATOR nearby:

This CATTLE EGRET was surprisingly wary but they're still fairly attractive little herons if you just take a moment to appreciate them:

I ventured to some nearby scrubby areas on a couple of days too.  I was actually targeting SHORT-TAILED HAWKS but where ever I went, I failed to find any.  As a consolation prize, I stumbled onto a bunch of FLORIDA SCRUB-JAYS one day, upwards of 15-20 of them.  Here's an unbanded bird on a power line:

The abundant BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHERS were in high gear with the upcoming breeding season ahead of them.  This one was gathering nesting material:

A species I had seen probably fewer than ten times was another side-target of mine.  The BACHMAN'S SPARROW favors the open undergrowth underneath pines here in the southeast.  They are endemic to the USA and, as luck would have it, fairly common where I was birding that day:

I started paying more attention to butterflies while I was in Florida as well.  Here is a Zarucco Duskywing, an abundant species in the areas I was frequenting:

My grandfather and I set out one day to capture something that we both thought would make for an interesting picture.  Luckily, it couldn't have gone better.  The invasive BROWN ANOLES were abundant around the neighborhood and this one did exactly what we wanted; he extended his dewflap:

Before I knew it, days were passing and I had to start venturing north again, this time to the Brunswick, Georgia area.   But remember how I was trying to find SHORT-TAILED HAWKS?  Right, as I was driving north, leaving Florida, luck caught up with me and I had two directly over my car.  Cutting it close but I didn't mind.

Once in Georgia, it was clear that BOAT-TAILED GRACKLES really were going to be one of the most abundant species around:

... but I didn't mind, the water was warm

Shorb chasing

Let's be honest, the decision to drive from Florida to Indiana for the SPOTTED REDSHANK wasn't all that hard to make.  Shorebirds have long interested me more than others and with a chance to see this Eurasian visitor, it was impossible for me to ignore this sighting.

Five states later, I made it to Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area and immediately found the long line of cars parked along the side of the road.  The main question was whether the bird was going to be easy (and be in the field along the road) or hard (in the flooded field a mile out along the levee).  From the grumpy-looking people milling about with their caffeine-induced consciousness slowly draining from their faces, I figured it was going to be hard.  It was worse.  Nobody had seen the bird in more than 4-5 hours.  Of course, you don't let news like that go to your head.  I mean, I wouldn't miss this bird by mere hours after driving all the way from Florida, right?  Riiighttt?  Hmm...

I joined the throngs of people scanning the fields.  There was a real depression hanging in the air.  Or maybe that was my breath (it was REALLY cold!).  I traded phone numbers with a few birders in case they caught wind of it being seen elsewhere.  Hours went by.  Then a rumor started to trickle in from somewhere that somebody had the bird.  Really?  Where?  It was posted on the Indiana listserve... and I'm sitting there and was clueless to the fact.  Who the crap posted it?!  Why wasn't anyone rushing to the spot?  WHERE IS IT?  We all gathered by the distant pond, apparently somebody was "pretty sure" they had it somewhere out there.  We all scanned the pond thoroughly, no bird.  Then a bunch of the yellowlegs got up and flew out of the pond altogether.  The group disbanded and everybody sluggishly went following the birds to who-knows-where.  I decided I'd rather stay and keep scanning where we had been for the last hour.  All the people probably thought I was nuts.

It wasn't more than 10 minutes later when my scope passed this:

Woaha!  Yep, that's my bird!  I made a phone call to one of the other birders and the whole herd rushed back to the spot.  Although the sun was getting low in the sky, we all were able to study the bird.  I took some more pictures too:

Whew, that was kind of a close call.  At least that's what I thought.  Turns out, it REALLY WAS a close call.  After I left the bird that evening, no one saw the bird again!  Ok, well, nobody saw it again for another month or so (then somebody DID find it again).  My drive to Indiana was not wasted.

The plan for after Indiana was to chase a different shorebird, this one was a long-staying rarity in Virginia.  The BLACK-TAILED GODWIT was the last godwit in the world I needed and I had been eyeing this specific rarity for months.

So after a couple of days of driving from Indiana, through Kentucky and West Virginia, I finally arrived at Chincoteague Island, Virginia.  This rarity didn't take quite as long; maybe 2 hours went by before somebody spotted it.  Success looked like this (Marbled Godwit on the left, Black-tailed Godwit on the right):

So I was in Virginia and two lifers richer.  Where to next?  My job in Georgia didn't start until 15 April, ten days from then.  It was high-time to go back to Florida, visit with family, and take it easy until my job began.

Starting south that day, the hundreds of NORTHERN GANNETS and a single PURPLE SANDPIPER along the Chesapeake Bay bridge/tunnel made things interesting:

On to Florida.  More later from the Sunshine State....

Nanday Pintail?

Let’s be honest, one of the only reasons I was even in Florida was to chase these things called “life birds”.  No, I don’t expect any sane person to really understand the draw of the chase but different people have different interests, right?  Ok, so, I spent most of March 30 targeting two life birds.  First was a drive up to Pelican Island NWR to look for the continuing WHITE-CHEEKED PINTAIL.  

Now, to be clear, this species is often kept in captivity and in fact, very few records of this species make it through the records committees.  HOWEVER, because this species IS on the official ABA Checklist (see ABA checklist here), it is up to the birder whether or not he/she wants to count it on their ABA list.  The word on the street was that a lot of people felt quite good about this particular one; it was shy (like a wild bird would be), it was foraging with Blue-winged Teal (as opposed to taking bread from the hand of Auntie Thelma in the city park), and there were no obvious signs of captivity.  The short side of the story was that I should actually look for this thing, whether or not they accept it.

I arrived at the refuge and found a few birders walking back to their cars.  “Did you see the bird?” I asked and they all nodded their heads and gleefully said “Sure, it flew off that way.”   Well, great.  I had no other option but to stick it out and see if it would come back.  Sure enough, it wasn’t 5 minutes before I spotted it tucked away in a different corner of the pond.  Here are a few pictures of it associating with a Blue-winged Teal flock:

Although I hate to say it, I should get used to seeing more MOTTLED DUCKS because I’ll end up being around them a lot in Georgia.  Here are two:

 

There were some other birds flying around like this WOOD STORK:

 

I also snapped picture of this GREAT SOUTHERN WHITE since it was flying around in front of me.  It wasn’t a new species but it’s still an attractive and native butterfly.

 So, now the dilemma.  I needed to see NANDAY PARAKEETS (formerly called “Black-hooded Parakeets”) in their “official” range over by Tampa and St. Petersburg.  Easy drive.  I made the jaunt to other coast of Florida and before I could even arrive at Lassing Park in St. Petersburg, I noticed these things flying all over the place.  Ahh, easy!  I got out of the car at the park and in the first palm I looked at, these two were looking back at me:

Success, two new birds today.  However, my mind instantly did a full reboot at some news coming out of Indiana.  A code-4 SPOTTED REDSHANK was being seen.  And I was in Florida.  I did some calculations and made a plan.  Easy, I was driving to Indiana.