The last bird of 2017

I hope everyone had a peaceful new yrs and if you made resolutions I hope you can make it happen!

 I dragged my feet on getting my end of year post up so this post should have been put up before the year end  but I just couldn't make it  happen.  And even tho I was victorious in my search I had little to show for this bird in the way of photos...but I will share what I found.

It's a beautiful area...

                                         Bennet's Point rd

I get the SC eBird Rarities alert in my inbox daily.  I had seen for about a week people reporting the Eurasian Wigeon in the area we call the Low Country, low meaning it is barely above sea level at Bear Island.

 

    Mary's Pond the birds are way at the back can't even see them can you? Neither could I!

I have blogged about Bear Island before it is a Wildlife Management Area in Colleton County, SC not too far from Charleston. Y'all may recall.  It's a solid 2 1/2 hrs south of me,  south east of I-95.  They do a great job with the water levels and keeping the habitat just right for waterfowl, waders, shore birds, forest birds, mammals and reptiles! BUT unfortunately Wildlife Management means hunting is allowed...so they close the place down every year (Oct 31 - Feb 8th)...just as all the ducks arrive! It's so infuriating.  The main gate is closed but if you have the secret code you can get in and kill your limit...grrrrrrr

        It was easy to see the Tundra Swans, I counted about 55 in total.

I was able to get a zoom on the big birds and see the little bit of yellow at the base of the eye on the beak to ID as Tundra Swans. 
 
The wigeon had been spotted in Mary's Pond which happens to be at the entrance and one can hang by the bank...so me and one other guy froze our asses in a stiff wind to look at the flotilla.  He was not looking for the wigeon, but he so kindly allowed me to scan with his scope and I did find it...all the birds were so far away it was especially hard trying to take photos...I never thought of bringing my tripod! It would have helped in the wind...

This huge mass of ducks is mostly Gadwall, there is some Bufflehead in there, some Hooded Merganser, Canada Geese, and American Wigeon.  Some Ring Billed Gull flew around, Great Egrets were hanging out in the trees out of the wind, and a Bald Eagle kept buzzing the ducks scattering them around each time I hoped they would resettle closer to me, but they never did...I guess the guy and I was as scary as the Eagle to them.

                                              Bald Eagle Duck Hunting

                                                       and away they go...

Mostly Gadwall these few came a little closer to the road, until the eagle returned to flush them away.

A Tri-Colored Heron settled in some marsh grass to look for a meal from a higher perch...

The Belted Kingfisher watched from the high line, mostly he watched me and the guy try to figure out how to get any photos of the far far away waterfowl.  

 

 The Little Blue Heron found a perch and hunkered down keeping his back to the wind...

 Across the road one Great Egret came out to hunt....

 

The Eagle finally settled in some trees nearby when I went to the Van to warm up and have some lunch...

And not far from  him Black Vultures rested too...

 

I had some left over home made hummus and I made 2 wraps and some olives, and a piece of left over fruit cake too!  I saved one wrap for later.
It looks like he is saying...
"WHATTTTTTTTT you eatin?"

LoL

I tired several shots of the wigeon and this was the best shot I got of him he was soooo very far away...a very shaky wind blown shot; he is the bird in the dead center of this image.  It would have been a better shot if he hadn't stuck his face in the water just as I clicked.

      

   (Mostly white on the sides trailing off to grey and black on the back...a cinnamon head and you can just barely see the shimmer of white down the center of his face..and a darker shadow around the eye.)

And actually my shot was about in line with others who were there that same day...this couple was there early in the morning check their list from ebird.  
 
So I felt a little bit vindicated when I saw their photo was not much different than mine...we all did our best under the circumstances.  I did however notice one thing on ebird.  (this is an aside) One list that popped up today was submitted by a fellow who happens to be an area ebird reviewer, the reason I know this is he has reviewed me a couple times.  When you submit a bird and the rare birds pop up it's the reviewers job to "confirm" or "not confirm" the bird as being correctly identified...I just happened to notice some that were submitted with a documenting photo, were still listed as Unconfirmed...and yet his personal sighting without any Photo was listed as "confirmed" 
Who reviews the reviewer? hmmm  Corruption in birding politics? Without a photo I'd say unconfirmed...lol.

The chill of the afternoon was really setting in by 2 pm and the man left, and an hour later so did I, he gave me his card and asked me to check out his website...so I did. 
Andrew Griner Nature Photographer.  He was an older man with some disabilities, and yet he was out there brazing the cold and enjoying himself while his supportive wife waited in the car.  I noticed she got out and helped him load up all his gear...it was sweet.
Take a look n see...some of his work is really good!

 https://andrew-griner.squarespace.com/

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Huntington Beach COLD last day!

Huntington Beach State Park, SC

This was the last day of my winter road trip, so like I said, depressing--One of my facebook friends said, "If travel was free Sondra would never come back" she is right!!   If only, but who knows what our futures hold I AM thankful for what I have every tangible and non tangible bit of life-experience home and away from home. 

The weather was bitter cold, and yukky grey.  Without the wind chill I would venture a guess of about 30ish-F with more like teens. Hardly the kind of day I would find much in the way of bird-life as they hunkered down pretty good.  I had on 2 coats, gloves, 2 hats, could barely move!!

This group of Snowy Egrets were having a hard time keeping those feather in shape!

 ...The ponds on each side of the causeway at Huntington Beach State Park were not filled with ducks as I had hoped.  The fog also made photos pretty blurry, auto focus loves to focus on water droplets.  The birds were hanging close to the Far Away Side I assume to get out of the wind more...I saw a small number of northern shovelers males and females, didn't get a decent shot of any thing I saw. 

and a large raft of Gadwalls Males n females too..

Normally I would hear rails, and see large numbers of wood storks poking around in the mud flats, and the marsh...a couple great egrets flew over low but landed closer to the trees also in Far Away range.  I did see Lesser Scaup male n female, 

And this Immature RedHead? The thin blue line is how I came to this conclusion...the one about 1/2" up from the tip of the beak.

Bufflehead 2 pairs, and Ruddy Ducks were present. 

  Hooded mergansers were out and about.  

I trekked down the boardwalk ...there were no surprises here some Double Created Cormorants.  

Noticed the water level was higher than normal this may account for the low bird count also...Maybe If I had waited till low tide... 

the wind was so cold look how miserable this tri color heron is with his crest feathers flying  back over his face...LoL poor thing..

Casey and I took a walk on the nearby beach and I saw one willet and 2 ruddy turnstones and one sanderling...that was it!! no photos of those guys.  Even gulls were not to be found.  

Casey is so light he threatened to blow away....This shot really shows the dreary day going on...

There was this really cool poster with the names of shells...I really would have liked to have one of these...little note said available in VC, but it was closed when I drove past I was out rather early.  

...before leaving  the beach access parking lot I set up my cook stove in the protected space created by opening the 2 back doors of the van and heated up some roasted tomato & basil soup and it was the best thing ever on my cold nose and hands and it put my cold induced hunger to sleep.  After doing the dishes and putting everything away I drove the 138 miles to home.

(Other birds seen but not mentioned or pictured were:

Northern cardinal, pine siskin, tufted titmouse, carolina chickadee, white throated sparrow, yellow rump warbler, pied billed grebes, northern mockingbird, brown thrasher, and american crow!) 

I had a great trip added 5 birds to my life list, saw my first
American crocodile, (in the wilds) enjoyed all the wonderful bromeliads, alligators, and the miles of saw grass, all the marvelous birds, put 9 new stamps in my Passport to the Parks Book, saw the smallest post office in the country, and met all sorts of nice people from all over the world, and added a new friend to my facebook!! Also enjoyed some ridiculous pelican and skimmer action, and watched some freaky tourists do some really silly things too!!  I enjoyed good weather in FL, 2 overnight rain storms and some partly cloudy days, a few skeeters,  but all in all perfect choice to go South!!

Since back at home I had to do the usual pick up the sticks that fall every single day in the yard, and I've been clearing out the woods on my land a bit trying to get rid of so much of the wild grape vine that has choked everything out...then I started back to work on the House!! Now I'm spending my evenings plotting my next adventure.

PEACE

Eleanor Roosevelt: You must do the thing you think you can not.