Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The weather here is great

One thing about March along our Georgia coast is no matter the weather you have to be outside. It is beautiful. That is my excuse for not putting this blog out sooner.

Coming up to Thursday March 15 Bird Ramble I wondered if I was going to be rained out. I had ten people lined up to go along with me. The clouds and rain didn’t happen. The day turned out to be perfect. We started out exploring the marshes along the causeway. This was Wes’s last time to go out this season and I wanted to give him one more chance for those elusive marsh sparrows. The tide was not quite right but it was early enough in the day to try. We look over the marsh but really we were a little too late so we moved on to the south end for shorebirds. Along the way I spotted the pair of Bald Eagles that have taken up resident near the Jekyll River Bridge. Our little group watched as the eagles sat side by side overseeing their territory. We wished this young pair the best and left them to rule over the river and road.

At the southend we were very excited to see that our summer resident Wilson’s Plovers were back. For a couple of months I had worried about these birds. They are normally here by January 25. Now they are back calling, singing and scooting around. We got to watch them for quite a while. Further down the beach there were three Piping Plovers. It was a plover day with the addition of Black-bellied Plover. We round out the beach walk at Jekyll Point where we were treated to a small gathering of Dunlins and Sanderling feeding in the surf and right along with them were three Red Knots.

Here is the list of birds seen and where they were seen on Jekyll.
71 species seen from 8 am to 1 pm
JI SHOPPING CENTER
5 Eurasian Collared-Dove
1 Northern Parula
1 Yellow-throated Warbler
3 Boat-tailed Grackle

CAUSEWAY
1 Pied-billed Grebe
3 Brown Pelican
5 Great Egret
10 White Ibis
6 Wood Stork
2 Bald Eagle
3 Red-tailed Hawk
4 American Kestrel
3 Belted Kingfisher
10 European Starling
3 Marsh Wren
100 Tree Swallow
50 Red-winged Blackbird
50 Boat-tailed Grackle

4-H EAST
2 Blue Jay
4 Fish Crow
2 White-eyed Vireo
1 Eastern Bluebird
1 Hermit Thrush
2 Gray Catbird
2 Carolina Wren
2 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
150 Tree Swallow
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
1 Northern Parula
2 White-throated Sparrow
2 Eastern Towhee
5 Boat-tailed Grackle

4-H WEST
50 Laughing Gull
5 Royal Tern
30 Forster’s Tern
8 Black Skimmer
Flying from here to SW Beach
20 Willet
25 Sanderling
10 Least Sandpiper

4-H WEST
4 Black-bellied Plover
4 Wilson’s Plover
3 Piping Plover
5 Herring Gull
SOUTH WEST BEACH AREA
1 Northern Gannet
20 Brown Pelican
1 Red-breasted Merganser
15 Dunlin
10 Ring-billed Gull
TIDELANDS NATURE CENTER AREA
2 Great Egret
2 White Ibis
1 Red-bellied Woodpecker
1 Northern Flicker
1 Pileated Woodpecker
2 Carolina Chickadee
5 House Finch
Yellow-rumped Warbler
1 Yellow-throated Warbler
5 Chipping Sparrow
1 Common Grackle
2 Brown-headed Cowbird

JEKYLL ISLAND CAMPGROUND SANCTUARY
5 Blue Jay
2 White-eyed Vireo
1 Gray Catbird
1 Carolina Wren
1 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
10 Carolina Chickadee
1 Northern Parula
Pine Warbler Heard
1 Prairie Warbler Seen by Anna Collins
15 White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
2 Common Grackle


AMPHITHEATRE POND AREA
1 Pied-billed Grebe
5 Anhinga
2 Little Blue Heron
1 Snowy Egret
2 Great Egret
10 Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
8 Black-crowned Night-Heron
1 Roseate Spoonbill
1 Black Vulture
1 Downy Woodpecker
2 White-eyed Vireo
30 Cedar Waxwing
1 Carolina Wren
1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Pine Warbler Heard

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