Interesting birds on Jekyll

Amphitheater pond on Jekyll Island

Thursdays are just fun. I get to explore Jekyll Island. Finding interesting birds is a bonus. Well this Thursday, I found a bird species that is an old friend which I don't see much any more. Years ago I volunteered at California's Point Reyes Bird Observatory for three months. What an experience! I learned to band birds and how to do surveys. One of the surveys was monitoring the house flock of White-crowned Sparrows. The birds were color banded so they had names and we knew their history. It was eye opening to find out about these birds from the notes we had on them. It changed the way I looked at birds. So on Thursday when one popped up on a branch near the dunes, I was thrilled. We follow the bird for a while. I tried to take some pictures but the bird did a good job of staying just out of range.

The White-crowned Sparrow is there you just have to look sorry about that.

Toward the end of the morning it was getting quite warm. In fact, we set a new high for the day. Anyway we were looking at all the night-herons roosting around the Amphitheater pond when I spotted a Roseate Spoonbill. This is the third year that this species has been on Jekyll in December. Will it winter here? I will keep you posted.

This is a picture taken back in January 2008. The bird was in the exact same place on Thursday.