Friday was a little warmer

On Friday, it began to warm up just in time for the annual Weekend for Wildlife.
This is a weekend put on by our Georgia’s Department of Nature Resources, Wildlife Division Nongame program. This state group watches over our Painted Buntings, shorebirds as well as other migratory birds and animals. The Georgia car tag with a Bald Eagle or hummingbird is one funding source. The other funding source is the great weekend. The Environmental Resources Network, TERN for short, helps puts on the event at Sea Island’s Cloister Resort. I enjoy being part of the weekend by contributing art for auction and by helping lead a Friday birdwatching outing. This year we had a nice size group.
The first bird we all watched was a Piping Plover but a Bald eagle stole the show. This bird landed on the beach scattering the Double-crested Cormorants, gulls and shorebirds.

We finished the day at the Jekyll amphitheater looking at the collection of egrets, herons and even an alligator. It has warmed up!

A little cold

Well since Monday, it has rained and cleared up. A wicked wind blew out of the northwest making it very, very cold. It was too cold for some people, others tried anyway. On Wednesday, I hosted a Coastal Georgia Audubon Society's lawn chair birding event at Wild Birds Unlimited on Jekyll Island. The birds huddled on the bird feeders as a few hardy souls huddled on the porch.
Just a few of the hardy souls that ventured out to birdwatch on Wednesday
From left to right is Carl, Lynn, Len and John.

We ended up going inside and watching from the window.



Unabashed endorsement: Please stop by and visit Wild Birds Unlimited Nature Shop, Jekyll's "natural" shopping destination. We are proud to be able to give you the latest Jekyll birding information. I am generally there on Wednesdays. I love to meet you and hear about the birds you are seeing.

More on SeaNet

Sarah from SEANET just emailed. She has a blog on what SEANET is doing. It got lots of good information in it. "Way Cool!" I plan to visit it often. Here is the address http://seanetters.wordpress.com/ Scroll down to SeaNet goes to Georgia to see her blog about the day.

SeaNet comes to Coastal Georgia

Monday, I did something that was fun but also one more positive step for the shorebirds and ocean birds here on the coast. Stacia Hendricks of Little St. Simons Island invited a group of coastal barrier island people to a SeaNet workshop at the Georgia Turtle Center. We had a good group of folks from Tybee Island in the north all the way down to Cumberland Island in the south. Our guest speakers were Julie Ellis, PhD, DVM and Sarah Courchesne DVM from Tufted University and Kevin Keel from UGA CVM. Julie told us about the Seabird Ecological Assessment Network (SeaNet). They followed that with a group discussion of how to proceed with these surveys along our coast. This is going to be a long-term collaborative effort. We decided we would start small. We could cover the beaches of Tybee, St. Catherines, Little St. Simons Island, Jekyll Island and Cumberland. We will commit to doing surveys of the live and dead birds on these beaches at least twice a month. I was so honored to be included in this group of committed people. To find out more about SeaNet please visit the website http://www.tufts.edu/vet/seanet/ .

Here is our group

Savannah National Wildlife Refuge

January 31 was Coastal Georgia Audubon Society’s annual field trip up to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge. Ten people went despite the cold. John Galvani, our president, wanted to see if the Fox Sparrow was still at the entrance area. He had seen three on his visit in December. We walk around to the spot and the sparrow popped right up.

What a lovely sparrow.

Please forgive these pictures. I tried to take pictures all day with only minimal luck.

See, the Fox Sparrow in the tangle.

Well any way we all saw some very nice birds.

Like this Black & White Warbler

Here is a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker that was being very still.

Here we are looking at the Black & White Warbler and the sapsucker.

The Wilson's Snipe won the prize of the day for it was a challenge to find. We had stopped to watch some Ruddy Ducks. Marge's goal is to get photos of plants and animals to use as flash card for her teaching. She aimed her camera at a bird. She said, “That was a snipe!”

The bird very well camouflaged. We all looked. We could not see it, well until it moved.

Yep, it was a snipe all right.

Do you see the snipe? It is near the middle coot.

Here it is out in the open.

We finished the field trip and tallied up the birds seen. It was a nice list of 62 species. Great day of good birding

Back home back at work

Back at home. Jekyll and the Golden Isles have been shrouded in fog and rain. On Tuesday, I went to explore a new birding path on Jekyll. Well, it is not really new. It used to be the best place to watch feeding shorebirds. Today the marsh is reclaiming it and I wonder if it is still has the same value to the birds.The tide was going out. These birds are following a school of fish out to the river.

It was fascinating to watch as the birds scramble for the best place.

Nostalgic

Now here is one last photo from Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival. Please forgive me for being nostalgic. When I saw this gentleman, I had to take a picture. It reminded me of a time not so long ago. It’s just a memory, neither bitter nor sweet. We all need to be reminded of where we have come from and where we are going. For what is new and flashy today will be a memory soon enough. Time flies when you are living life!