Our Birds of the Day for THIS Weekend -- September 15 & 16

          I was quite ready for this weekend and quite ready to spend it at home editing photos.  Carl was restless for birding elsewhere however.  I woke up extra early on Saturday morning and since I managed to edit a few photos during the wee hours, I decided that I would join Carl on a birding excursion.

Saturday, September 15
          After tossing a few ideas around, we decided to do the regular Saturday Bird Walk led by the informative Keith McCullough at Caw Caw Nature & History Interpretive Center, one of our excellent parks in the Charleston County Park System.  For my readers who do not live close-by, if the name Caw Caw rings a bell, yes I have blogged before about birding here last September.  Here's a link to that previous post if anyone wishes to revisit it.  Thus, Carl and I joined Keith and a group of other relatively experienced birders.  Our group, composed of birders we already knew and others who were new to us, was delightful, friendly, fun and helpful.  We slowly made our way through the woods, the swampy areas and around the old rice impoundments in search of our quarry -- BIRDS!  Some of the birders, like us, came loaded with their photography gear also.

Carl and another birder/photographer shooting a Great Blue Heron across the canal -- CawCaw Interpretive Center -- Ravenel, SC -- September 15, 2012

The Great Blue Heron across the canal -- CawCaw Interpretive Center -- Ravenel, SC -- September 15, 2012

           Thanks to Keith's and the other birders' expertise and help, we accumulated a list of 56 species -- several warblers, Indigo Buntings, and Painted Buntings were my favorites.  I missed some of the birds the others saw, unfortunately.  Ah well -- there will be more opportunities this Fall for finding the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo and the Swainson's Thrush.  I did locate this delightful green and red katydid, known commonly as a "Red-headed Meadow Katydid," singing on a reed though.

Red-headed Meadow Katydid -- CawCaw Interpretive Center -- Ravenel, SC -- September 15, 2012

               Photographing birds, when in a large group of birders, often takes a back seat to birding.  This is particularly true when I am on bird counts.  So I am not usually as successful photographically in such situations.  I do not mind because the camaraderie as well as the opportunities to learn and find more birds are rich indeed when birding with other talented birders.  Besides, I already have a huge pile of unedited photos on this hard drive of mine.  Yet, I did manage to acquire this OK shot of a backlit Black-and-White Warbler.

Black-and-White Warbler -- CawCaw Interpretive Center -- Ravenel, SC -- September 15, 2012

 
And I am very happy to report that Saturday I did get decent shots of "Our Bird of the Day" -- a leucistic Eastern Kingbird!  In the preceding link, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology defines the paleness characteristic and compares it to albinism in birds.  This Eastern Kingbird is leucistic instead of albino because there is some color in his feathers.  The location of these faint deposits of color, as well as the bird's shape and size, helped us to identify it as an Eastern Kingbird.

A leucistic Eastern Kingbird -- CawCaw Interpretive Center -- Ravenel, SC -- September 15, 2012

A leucistic Eastern Kingbird -- CawCaw Interpretive Center -- Ravenel, SC -- September 15, 2012

A leucistic Eastern Kingbird -- CawCaw Interpretive Center -- Ravenel, SC -- September 15, 2012

 Also, to help confirm the ID, he was hanging out with another Eastern Kingbird.
 

An Eastern Kingbird -- CawCaw Interpretive Center -- Ravenel, SC -- September 15, 2012 -- Photo by Carl Miller

 
             What a great find!  Since this was our most interesting bird find for the day, it qualified as "Our Bird of the Day!"  We returned home, happy, to edit photos, of course.


Sunday, September 16
            I again woke up earlier than Carl and began editing photos.  When Carl came into the office, he again tried to persuade me to leave the computer to go birding with him.  Since I had just read on the Carolina Birds listserve that our birding buddy Chris Snook had seen on folly Beach on Saturday the Lark Sparrow -- the same Lark Sparrow that Keith McCullough had seen on Friday, I caved in at 9 am and told Carl that I would go to Folly Beach with him to get that bird.  A Lark Sparrow would be a life bird for both of us -- no. 327 for me!  With the temperature rising, we quickly left and arrived at Lighthouse Inlet Heritage Preserve at 9:30 a.m.  Following Chris' clues, we hung out by the foundations of the old Coast Guard Station, and perused the roadside, the brush and the trees.  Chris had said that the bird liked to forage next to the blacktop and would fly back into the bushes and trees when flushed by the beach-goers coming down the roadway.  Within 10 minutes, Carl saw him and beckoned me over to confirm the ID!  Yes, indeed!  The Lark Sparrow was ours to photograph and to add to our life lists!  Thus, no other bird could possibly be "Our Bird of the Day" today!

Lark Sparrow -- Lighthouse Inlet Heritage Preserve, Folly Beach, SC -- September 16, 2012

Lark Sparrow -- Lighthouse Inlet Heritage Preserve, Folly Beach, SC -- September 16, 2012

Lark Sparrow -- Lighthouse Inlet Heritage Preserve, Folly Beach, SC -- September 16, 2012

         So why have Carl and I never seen this bird before?  Well this is not a bird that is usually found in South Carolina.  By visiting All About Birds Lark Sparrow page (by Cornell Lab of Ornithology), you will see a range map showing that this bird generally remains west of the Appalachian Mountains!  So what is he doing here?  It is possible that Hurricane Isaac blew him eastward off his usual migration track.   This species account on the National Geographic site shows a range map that includes Florida and coastal Georgia and coastal South Carolina as potential winter ranges.  So maybe this guy will stay the winter with us!  When I checked the eBird range map for the  Lark Sparrow, it showed only three sightings of this species since 2008 on our coast and one of those sightings is this bird seen this weekend!  Also, I ran a search in The Chat (the official publication of the Carolina Bird Club) database.  Sightings of this bird have been very occasional for the Carolinas even though there have been  a very few rare instances of some breeding pairs in North Carolina.  Indeed, I believe that these resources provide pretty solid evidence that a Lark Sparrow can be considered an unusual find.  Hooray!  How nice to know that Carl and I have not been missing a common bird all of these years! 

         Even though the backlog of photos needing editing is still rather daunting, I cannot complain about the opportunities to see our 2 great birds for this weekend.  No, no!  We celebrate those 2 birds by sharing them with you here in this blog!  So maybe I will stay home next weekend to edit those photos..... Ha! Ha! Ha!