Sparrows, shorebirds and a few ducks those were the targets for Monday’s birding. Hallie Mason had emailed me back in November that she was coming to Jekyll to bird, bike and golf. Jekyll was a perfect fit. We emailed back and forth so when she show up it was like meeting a long lost friend. Our first goal was to find the marsh sparrows. Oh my, those marsh sparrows can be secretive. We did have the tide in our favor so we went first thing to Andrew’s Island Causeway. We drove down the very muddy road and parked. A Western Palm Warbler was our greeting committee. We just walked a just a little when we spotted movement. The first bird was a Nelson’s Sparrow while we were looking at that bird another bird popped up. Another sparrow flew across and landed on another blade of grass. It was a Salt-marsh Sparrow then another one popped up in between the two. It was a Seaside Sparrow. You could see that the Seaside was a larger sparrow. What a show! I could not believe my eyes. These beautiful little sparrows were up. They were looking around. We were not in mud in fact our feet were dry. How often does that happen?
Well the whole morning continued in that kind of unbelievable luck. We had a neat little Piping Plover on East Beach on St. Simons Island. There were two eiders on Sea Island. Both eiders were males and one was the white and black adult male. Ok now that was good birding.
Sorry It was such a great morning of seeing some wonderful birds, I forgot about my camera. But here is Hallie at the amphitheater.
6 comments:
Hi Lydia,
What a great picture of my sister! She's having a lovely time and can't say enough about your hospitality and birding expertise. We sure hope you'll come up to Ohio and visit us one of these days.
Best wishes,
Sally
Wow, that was some good luck with the sparrows. I still haven't managed to see them all on the coast, I'm more than a bit embarrassed to say.
Hi Sally, It was so much fun to have your sister here for a week. She saw some pretty nice birds. She told me about seven Roseate Spoonbills at the Jekyll Welcome Center and a unidentified hummingbird. I hope those birds stays around for our Christmas Bird Count. Lydia
Hi Grant, On January 30, our Coastal Georgia Audubon is going to have our annual Ammodramus Search. It will be the right tide to push all those sparrows up to the edge of the marsh. We meet at Andrews Island Causeway at 8 a.m.
Mark your calendar and join the search.
I wish I could make it down for that, but probably won't be able to. But I'm heading down there next week while I'm off work, and then again in Feb for the shorebird survey. So I'm hoping to see some sparrows during those visits.
That's my good friend Hallie. Can't wait to hear all about her trip and see her photos. Su
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