Ground hog month

He saw his shadow so 6 more weeks of winter....On sunny days so I try to get out there and enjoy it...went to the Environmental Park, better known to me as Bramblewood, and the river is out of it's banks again...

the last 5 steps are a little bit  tricky

On the way out I stopped at the Sports Complex and something was enticing these Black Vultures in...

One day the weather man got it wrong, and I headed out thinking it would clear off it didn't saw some Turkey in a field...haven't been seeing any so this was good.  

On Wednesday it was very windy and cold but I went to my favorite spot to check for sparrows.  Found a few too,,,

Sweet Chipping Sparrows, saw at least 100 they really challenged me to check thru them looking for the Tree Sparrow...didn't see any but the chippy's are just so cute, 

NO disappointment there, and one of my favs is the Field Sparrow with his perfect white eye ring.  

Still a lot of Song Sparrow around too,,,

Sparrows used to drive me crazy, now I consider it a welcome challenge to look for those subtle differences, it's like trying to figure out Identical twins sort of,,,

And this is the Pine Warbler who was fantastic out in the sun, 

Im using Facebook to host my photos, it is working; so far so good.. 

Then on our last partly sunny turning cloudy day I went to a spot by the Wateree Lake Dam..  This place is so abused by bank fishermen leaving trash it's horrible. 

I picked up this and 3 times more of it, discarded fishing line, nets, it's such a killer of wildlife, 

LOTS of Common Grackle and RedWinged Blackbird around,,

And at least 500 Ring Billed Gulls downstream...

Couldn't get any closer, so I concentrated on what I could see...the Eastern Towhee, also a Sparrow

And this lovely little White Throated Sparrow,,,

Perfect in every way,,,and the female Cardinal with her beautiful orangey blush

Some Sandhill Crane were spotted not far away I double dipped on them,..and now the field is being plowed so that's that.   

I decided to give the Riverside Park a visit, it's dried out some there but the water level is high there too.  This place is upstream of Bramblewood...

They replaced the bridge that moved off it's foundation during a flood in 2019.  

There was a small landslide due to all the rain and parts of the riverside walking trail was lost but some parts they have been opened up again...

Got my FOY  Redheaded Woodpecker, brings to mind the song..."raspberry beret" 

A large flock of Killdeer swooshed overhead me a couple times, they eventually landed in the farm field on the other side of the river. 

On the way home I stopped at the Racetrack to check the pond, it has a lot of water, but the landscape crew has cut most of the bird cover away so that affects things...did see a Redtail taking a look around...

 

 

And that's it for me this week...hope you had an interesting week,..

Happy Birthday to my son, now 40 yrs old. 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Sunny Sunday...

Im having more and more trouble making it around the net on my old Windows XP! Google has somehow made it impossible for me and many other unhappy Chrome users to work with our photos in Flickr.  That is my main photo storage.  So now I have to create my blog using Firefox and that's fine it's just I have all my bookmarks and favorites all set up on Chrome.  It's such a PIA.  Living in this capitalism is so suffocating!

Okay lets just get out in the woods and forget all that.  Sunday started out being the perfect spring day so I left the dogs sunning in the yard and I made my way over to my 3rd visit at my new patch.  

The wild plums are blooming and it's really nice to see flowers and honey bees!  

He has those pollen sacs on his legs full!  It was so nice to hear them buzzing around..The birds were out but harder to find in the scrubs and thickets...

Got a glimpse of the White Throated Sparrow...

It looks as if they recently mowed one of the trails it's a nice walk to the trees in the back...I still haven't followed the trail all the way into the woods only the verge of it maybe next time. 

I usually walk up to the woods and the trail splits into 2 up there...one to the left and one to the right...today I went to the right.  

Still plenty of song sparrows, Its hard to get exact counts cause they flush so quickly and only one or two will perch up enough for me to see them.  So my numbers are guesses based on what I felt I saw in a flash...I didn't see any Northern Bobwhite today 

He looked down just as I clicked the shutter

 Up high I heard the repeating song of the Brown Thrasher, they are similar to Mockingbirds in that they mock other species, yet with the Thrasher they normally repeat a tune only twice. Just about the time I thought to "make a video" he saw me and ducked down and got silent. 

 

They are big birds, I normally see them scratching around under the edge of shrubs looking for grub...but now it's Spring time to get up there and sing your hear out!  And speaking of the devil, here's one of my favs, the Northern Mockingbird...

The are so successful, you can see them everywhere. Even in a field of Broom Sedge...

I had 19 species on my new patch and it was given Hot Spot billing after I requested it, I hope other birders will now go there!  I had another stop planned for the day so after an hour and forty-five minutes of walking I was ready to sit in the van and drive to my next stop...Along the way I passed through the McLeod's Peach Farm...and the peach trees are blooming for as far as the eye can see! 

And the same scene was behind me too!  No wonder this area has so many bees!  The peaches are good but they are small compared to ones from Palisades in Colorado!! 

 This post is getting long but I want to keep going so  I'll split it, part 2 will follow in 24 hrs!

Remember when we went to the movies back in the days, and they had an Intermission???  Now they make you sit there for hours no intermission....

 They didn't run ads they just had a huge screen with the word INTERMISSION on it! You'd run out and get another coke or more popcorn and use the little girl's room...and we would always play in the wooden telephone booth!

        I'm going to keep typing and part two will post 24 hrs after this one...
 

Time for an intermission.

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

New Patch!

Congratulations to the Winner of the ABA Big Year  Yve Morrell, who I have been following and for whom I have much admiration, finished with 814+4 Provisionals...just barely eking out the win. Check up on her by clicking  the Dancing Birder on the right sidebar.  Don't forget that many excellent birders are not into ebird, and they seek no fame for their skill, there are many birders out there who prefer to remain anonymous.   I have very little skill but I do it for sheer fun of being out in nature!! 

So here is something I'm doing....I have been planning to check this spot for a while now and finally I did.  It's a Wildlife Management Area. It's about 12 miles from my home.  It's maintained for hunting by the DNR (Dept of Natural Resources).  But you know what I think, hunting is not as prevalent in my area as it once was...thanks to the ATV craze! (silver lining?) I think it's gotta be hard to sneak up on any game riding one of those things, and again "techie" outdoors-men have changed the face of the game, just like in birding.  With the decline of quail and dove in our area, Wild Turkey has become the target game bird.  Waterfowl hunting seems to still be holding strong...but let's just give it some time...this place is signed NO ATV'S.  So it's walk in....and that is awesome.  It's 300 acres and it's open grass, shrubs, and forest.  I haven't walked the whole thing yet.  But I'm covering it in sections.  I already know where the Quail hang out.  AND....Seven species of sparrow so far!  They have great scrub cover. 

It was not listed on ebird, so I assume I'm the first person to bird there.  So far I've made 2 visits and logged 25 species.  As the season changes I hope to tally many more species.   

And now that I've put it on ebird more birders will come.  That excites me because I've asked for it to be designated as a hotspot.  I saw lots of deer tracks.  There is too much pine and not enough oak for Turkey.  Maybe I can drop a few acorns around next time I go I have plenty of acorns ...I'd love to see them plant some sunflower for the birds.  The DNR normally just plant corn, since they are baiting the game birds, in this case Turkey...so...Heck maybe I can drop some sunflower too. There is no water on the tract, but some nearby...and some low spots where rain water is slow to dry.  There is a lot of Wild Plum, and birds do love that...some Sumac, but I'd like to see more and I saw no thistle.  I did see American Goldfinch so I'm assuming there is something in this grass they want. 

                                                                      Savannah Sparrow

They do prescribed burns...so I will have to learn when they do that.  And I hope it's not smack in the middle of nesting...but it's very possible....Im not sure they take that into consideration when they plan a burn. 

                                                                         Song Sparrow

                                                   windblown Chipping Sparrow

                                                                          

White Throated Sparrow

my photos pretty much suck but this is what I got...

Fox Sparrow

That one is almost obscured, but I thought it was when I saw it a Fox and I still do...they are not as many of these around as what I used to see....also another bad photo.  They have plenty of cover here and that's why they're here!  This one I was happy to see...saw 3 on day one and 8 on day 2 they stayed together in a fairly tight flock. 

Field Sparrow  

Had 2 swamp sparrows on day one but none day 2 there is a small wetland about 1/10th a mile away so they probably were on their way over there...as the bird flies it's probably just past the tree border, but as far as I can tell the wetland is on private land. 

As far as Raptors go I saw Red Shouldered Hawk, Red Tailed Hawk, Northern Harrier, Turkey Vulture, so far.  Along with Northern Flicker, and Red Bellied Woodpecker.  I feel I can find at least 4 and maybe 5 more Woodpecker species here in time.  Had Northern Cardinal, Blue Jay, Brown Headed Nuthatch also. 

                          Red Bellied Woodpecker with a Brown Headed Nuthatch up top

On my first visit I flushed about 10 Northern Bobwhite Quail and today I flushed up 5 more.  There was mourning dove also.  So I'ts a good bet they will nest there.   If I can get over there at least once a week I expect to find a lot more going on!  I hope for more sparrows, and soon more than just yellow rumped warblers!  

                              So I've got a brand new Patch to wander around in...

                                                              
                                                         PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.