flocks of birds and birders

Flocks would describe the birding this past week. Flocks of Cedar Waxwings, flocks of American Goldfinch, mixed flocks of Eastern Bluebirds & Pine Warblers, and flocks of shorebirds. Flocks of House finch & their song fill the air.

On Sunday it was a flock of birders for this was our 5th annual Team Birding Event. This is an event was started as a way to allow Coastal Georgia Audubon Society (CGAS) to get in touch with folks who might be a little bit afraid of going to a regular field trip. The idea is to team up with experienced birders who would help them learn about this birding thing. Dawn Zenkert of Tidelands Nature Center holds the Art Inspired by Nature fundraiser at the same time. It is heaven for me, birding in the morning & talking to folks about my printmaking in the afternoon. .

To help start the Great Backyard Bird Count weekend off, CGAS has a refresher course Thursday night. This prepares us for Sunday.

This Sunday February 17 was perfect weather. We had around 30 people come out to go birding a lot of those folks were birding for the first time! To give you a little perspective our normal field trips generally has around 3 to 5 people.

I rushed over to the Jekyll Island Convention Center to set up my art and the Audubon booth. Marge came in to help set up our computer and watch over the booth while we were out birding. Once that was done I raced over to set up the birding part. We had divided Jekyll into 6 sections. The North end group was lead by Wes a birder from New York. The Midsection group was lead by Gene. The Historic District group was lead by John. The Causeway and shopping center group lead by Mike. The Tideland and mid southend lead by Marjorie. Then I lead the southend group. The groups formed and we were off by 9 am. We counted birds until noon when we returned to the convention center and share what we found. We found 83 species altogether. But what was more important is that we found some new birders!