Welcome to World Shorebird Day

If you cannot join us, choose a day between September 6 and September 10 and count shorebirds where you are. These birds are coming from the Arctic and heading to their winter home. They travel long distances. When they land on the beach or a sandbar, they need to feed and rest. We can help these amazing globe-trotting shorebirds by letting them rest.  Education is the key.  World Shorebird Day is an excellent way to start.

Butterfly surveys 2018

August and September are hot and humid months. Some things still get us to go outdoors. Early bird migration is going by us. Barn Swallows are streaming south. Prairie Warblers are bouncing through the wax myrtles heading south. There are always a few surprises to be on the lookout for outside.

We know about birds. But, what about butterflies? Did you know that Gulf Fritillaries, the orange spangled winged butterfly migrates? Christa Hayes is our coastal butterfly guru. She wants to find out more about these butterflies. This year I have joined a group of volunteers to monitor butterfly migration. Yes, butterflies migrate. I am still learning.

We are watching for three butterfly species: Gulf Fritillary,

Gulf Fritillary flying to fleabane

 Monarch,

monarch on fleabane

and Cloudless Sulfur.  Jekyll Island Authority’s Wildlife Manager, Joseph Colbert has assigned me to the marsh. No, don’t worry! I am not slogging through mud. 

Butterfly survey plot

Latham hammock is a marsh island near Jekyll Island. In fact, it is part of the Jekyll Island Causeway. This hammock is where my survey points are located. The survey is relatively simple. At my survey point, I face east for ten minutes and count the number of the three species that are fluttering south, then I face west and count butterflies for 10 minutes.

There are other butterflies to learn. Here is a Palamedes swallowtail  not on the survey list but isn't it beautiful

 In 2000 and 2001, I helped with a marsh project for the Savannah Wildlife Refuge. I learned so much about the different kinds of marshes. The marsh is always surprising me, so I look forward to learning even more about this salt marsh and the creatures that make it their home. 

Kites and shorebirds counting

This week has been hot, but the birds are not stopped by the heat. There is a family of Mississippi Kites flying around the south end of St. Simons Island. They rested in my neighbor's tree two days ago. There were six sitting in the tree and one flying around.

Here they are. 

Yesterday, there were five of them near the St. Simons Elementary School. Today, when I was running a survey, I found 3 Mississippi Kites flying over Massengale Park. They are chowing down on the abundance of dragonflies. Anyone know dragonflies? They are most orange-red about two and a half inches long. They are everywhere around the island.

Yesterday, was the day we did our International Shorebird Survey. I invited Mary Jo Townsend and Abby Sterling along to help.  Abby and I are setting up a route to begin a disturbance survey.  It will have six stops from Massengale Park to Gould's Inlet. More to come on that survey.

in photo left to right Bob Sattelmeyer, Abby Sterling, and Mary Jo Townsend on Coast Guard Beach St. Simons Island, Georgia

Sadly, The Fish Crows scared the Least Terns from nesting at Gould's Inlet. I had a few volunteers, so I have been trying to get them out to learn. Thursday, July 26 a small group of us were out on the beach and pointed our scopes at the sandbars. This is where the Least Terns have been hanging out. It is always fun to search the area for early migrants. Here is our group. Thanks

Gray Kingbirds on St. Simons Island

We have a few pairs of Gray Kingbirds that nest on St. Simons Island. One pair is at the St. Simons VIllage. They like to hang out in the little oaks in the pier parking lot. In June, My birding buddy, Melanie and I discovered the kingbirds had fledged a couple of youngsters. 

There was an adult always around. One adult was busy chasing a Fish Crow.

One was just hanging out above the fledglings. 

But there is one pair, I love to watch. The birds are in a most unlikely place. They are in the parking lot of the Winn Dixie. It is fun for me because I enjoy hearing them sing. Look at where they are hanging out.  See the one on top of the light?

 This is him or her on the light.

This is right down the street from my home. I watch them all the time. It makes my day perfect.

Bird Class for Scouts

It has been a busy week for me here on the Georgia Coast. I was talking to Margaret Evans or  http://memargaret.com/odd-birds/ this week. She was assigned to write about migrating birds on Jekyll for Jekyll's magazine "3181." We hit off right from the start because she and I have a lot in common. Birds were the topic, and she likes to look at birds the same way I do. She reminded me that I have been neglecting my blog. On my, it has been a long time. Let's see if I will keep on posting. There is a lot of birding going on here on our coast.  Thanks Margaret!  I will try to be better about keeping it up to date.
Today, Gene Keferl and I lead a birding Merit badge class for a Cummings, Georgia Scout Troup. We had  10 teenage boys and their leaders. I did my "Draw a Bird" talk. Adding that drawing in the field helps reinforce your sighting of birds and give you memories of your day in the field. Gene talked about using binoculars.

After the introduction to the birds. We went out to find some birds. The group was fascinated by the Ibird Pro app I used. They liked that they could carry it in the field. We spotted Pileated Woodpeckers, Nothern Parulas, Great-crested Flycatchers. A male Ruby-throated Hummingbird sat on a wire for everyone to see. The guys could not believe that hummingbirds could just sit on a wire.

After a walk around the Jekyll Island Campground, we went up to Clam Creek Picnic Area. We watched as hundreds of Royal Terns flew back and forth to the bird island.  Here is the whole group with Gene.  Go birding!

Finished 2016 with a Weird Gull

On December 30th, 2016 I found this gull.

I thought it was a Ring-billed Gull. It had a yellow bill and yellow legs. Its back was a middle gray.

However, it looked strange. 

It had a winter hood of salt and pepper.

So I took a picture.

I got it home and looked at it. It seemed like a Laughing Gull.

But I blew it up, and the computer and it looked weird.

 Is it a Ring-bill Gull hybrid? But wait, what is the other gull?

Well, what do you think?

Least Tern are wrapping up nesting

It is August 6, 2016. The sky is beautiful, and it isn't as hot as it has been. I enjoyed this survey.

The Least Terns and Wilson's Plover are still out in the northern enclosure, 

especially in the middle and southeast side.

There are two Least Tern chicks very close to fledging and 

one Wilson's Plover chick that is maybe a couple of weeks away from fledging.

 The terns and plovers are using the north enclosure to rest at around high tide. 

This a young Least Tern. Isn't it lovely? It makes this nesting season worth it.

I counted 190 Least Terns total and one pair of Wilson's Plover. 

Least Tern Colony News

Look what I found the first thing on my survey of Saturday morning July 23. 

This chick took me by surprise.

I thought that we would be through with the Least Tern project by July 19^th, but these birds won’t quit. They have found a near perfect nesting area and they are going for with all the gusto they can muster. Last week, there were a little over 80 birds still in the two enclosures. 

Adult Least Tern is flying by as a Least Tern chick sits in the shade of a Russian thistle.

The Wilson's Plovers appeared to be finished.  Boy! was I wrong.

Isn't this Wilson's Plover just cute?

Granted there were fewer terns this week. I counted around 50 terns inside the enclosure.  There were more chicks than last week.  I watched as one Least Tern worked on a scrape.

To top that one Wilson’s Plovers was sitting tight on a nest. 

Live and learn. 

The Beach Bird Stewards were at Georgia's Department of Natural Resources Beach Week on St. Simons Island, GA June 29.

We had a table with information about Wilson's Plovers & the large Least Tern Colony at Gould's Inlet. 

Thanks to Devon, Linda, Sarah,  Mary Jo, Marge, and Marty for helping the birds.

The Secret Life of Least Terns

Once a year for the last 16 years, my friend, Melanie Kist comes to Jekyll with her family. She is a gifted photographer. I often used her photographs in my bird conservation work.

This year I invited her to see the Least Tern colony. Here are a few of her photos. 

They give us a peek at what these terns are doing on the beach.

Don’t they just melt your heart?

These are few more pictures of the secret lives Least Terns.

 Thank Melanie 

       

Operation Plover Patrol spreads out

Hi all
Well, the Wilson's Plovers are well cared for on Jekyll. Thanks to Ben Carswell, Yank Moore, and Ranger Bre.
This year Gould's Inlet has a huge sand spit. The Least Terns saw it as perfect for nesting. The Wilson's Plovers agreed. I was asked to help set up a Plover Patrol on St. Simons at Gould's Inlet. 14 volunteers have step up to help.
Tim Keyes, our DNR Shorebird person, got our vests. Here is one modeled by his son Walker.

Tomorrow evening these vests will get their first use as Team Bird is out in force on World Ocean Day!

Ducky Day

Tuesday, we went to Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge. It is a charming small refuge on the Blackbeard's Creek. It has a lot of interesting history. I was an airforce base then it went to the McIntosh County, and finally, it became a Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge.
The first birds we saw was a large flock of grackles. There is a rhythm to large flocks of blackbirds.

But we came for the ducks, so we went on to Bluebill Pond. There we found ducks, lots of ducks.

There were lots of Blue-winged Teal. There were a few Gadwalls.

But we were there to see another duck. There he was swimming with the Blue-winged Teal.

It was a young Cinnamon Teal. He gave a few look looks and flew to the middle of the pond.

Here he is on the right with his head tucked under his wing. We watched the other ducks
                                                       Here they are feeding.

The Ducks were not the only birds as we walked around Billbill Pond up to Woody Pond; I spotted this Little Blue Heron. It was an excellent end to a Ducky Day.

It was a Ruff day

Last Wednesday evening, there was a post on Georgia Birding Online (GABO) listserv. This post said there was a Hudsonian Godwit and RUFF seen on Onslow Island. Now for twenty some-odd years I have NOT been in the right place at the right time to see the shorebird called Ruff.  Well, when I saw that post on GABO, I was ready to go the next day. There was a problem.

Onslow Island is part of the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. It is a spoil island. Right now, it is only open on Wednesdays to birders.  We were going to have to wait six long days before we could try and see this rare shorebird. But wait we did.

It is Wednesday. Plans to carpool congealed and we- Sterling Blanchard, Bob Settelmyer, John Galvani, Priscilla Fleshmen and I piled into Sterling's car and went. Thoughts of will it be there whirled in our heads, but then the email came. The ruff and Godwit were there. Even more exciting news from that post was that there were two Ruffs!

We got to the parking area, and cars were jammed into every nook and cranny. We parked and walked, meeting smiling birders who had been there and seen the birds.

We topped the dike. There in front of us were the impoundment ponds.

There were shorebirds and ducks scattered across the area. We were lucky right off the bat.  The Hudsonian Godwit was in the area out in front of us. Tick that Georgia bird. Godwits are elegant shorebirds so what luck. It was there long enough for us to see it and watch it for a few minutes and then it flew up and over the tree line to drop down out of our sight.

Sorry about the poor quality but it was out in the middle of the impoundment pond.

After greeting some of the other birders who had come from far and wide, we settled down to looking for the Ruffs. Lesser Yellowlegs and Pectoral Sandpipers were checked out and ruled out. There is always a period of adjustment when I get to a new area. 

We moved over to the west side of the impoundments and shuffled through the yellowlegs. Finally, I found one bird that didn't look like the other shorebirds. The bird I was looking at was a little browner, and the bill look shorter. I called James Fleullan over. He was the one who had seen it the week before. He confirmed the "smaller Ruff."  LIFEBIRD what an incredible feeling to have looked and missed for so many years and there she was.  

Here is the Reeve on the left and the yellowlegs on the right.

It was fun watching them but where was the "bigger one." The group went looking and found the Ruff feeding on the edge pond.  

So I didn't just get a lifebird, I got two parts of the whole picture of the lifebird, both male and female. 

Onslow Island is a good little shorebird spot and Priscilla, and I will be back. Please remember that this area is only open to birders on Wednesdays. Be good birders so all of us can enjoy this Georgia Shorebird spot.