March Madness?

I have a lot of  clean winter up I need to be doing but I just keep going out and checking the trees for birds instead.  Tomorrow I may try to get a start on it.

Saturday of last week I finally made it to Sandhills.  I spent the majority of my time at Lake Bee Picnic Area where the lake has just been refilled a few months back and the little wetland  the water flows through on it's way out of the lake is open to the public again. 

OUT of all the habitat types I love wetlands the most! Because the diversity is unmatched!

The other end  has a highway running thru it so that is a huge negative, but it still has great potential.   I ran into several Swamp Sparrow...

You can just see the road that crosses this wetland...Once the trees green up the critters will have more cover and privacy.  Fortunately after the water passes under the highway it goes into the Wildlife Refuge where it flows into another small pond.,,and then it goes on and flows into what they call Pool D, 

Up by the picnic area are very tall Long Leaf Pine, and I found three of the rare Red Cockaded Woodpeckers,  pecking away and getting bugs out from under the bark. The males do have a little red spot on the top of the head which is rarely seen...

Glad to know the numbers are increasing all over our state...Thanks to some proper forestry management.   They nest in mature long leaf pine. 

On the way out of the Park I stopped at Pool D another of my favorite spots, and glad I stopped there I found a River Otter.  

He hissed at me....

Sunday it rained all day...so I did some window birding...A couple of the large Pileated Woodpeckers burrowed into the bark in the big pine in the frontyard...

Cousin to the Ivory Billed Woodpecker that is thought to be extinct now...there is some controversary about that.  If you ever see one of these with BIG white Wing patches, and a white bill, you have seen a bird thought to be extinct.  

And a Golden Crowned Kinglet was  soaked by the rain...but still managed to throw up his golden crown..

Monday was blue and pretty again and a flock of Cedar Waxwing came into the yard...they are amazing to watch..

These are the first I've seen in a long time!

 later I checked a couple of nearby Hotspots...Bluebirds are ready to get their families started...they make good use of the picnic tables At Goodale State Park,  to perch on while looking for insects.  

And the Yellow Rump Warbler (Myrtle variety) is a bird I will  see many times this breeding season...they are such great insect hunters! Here he tries very hard to blend in with this fading piece of mistletoe..

After that stop I headed to Bramblewood with some take out! I don't normal partake but I was starved so I got some junk food...sat n my van out of the wind and gobbled it up then checked out what was going on...The Geese are staking out good spots...

Tuesday I stayed home....got busy picking up lots of  sticks and such in the back which is a  wooded area, sort of the dogs play area,  I try to keep it picked up of all the big stuff...I don't mind the cones on the ground but sticks they can get tangled up in I try to keep picked up...So while I was in the yard I spotted the first Purple Finch of the year on the feeder.   

She had me wondering for a while if she could be a Rose Breasted Grosbeak, which sometimes do stop by but I couldn't pin it down and went with the safe bet, the reason I questioned  it at all was in one shot I got she had a yellow tinge to her throat.  I cropped this so the yellow can be seen...she has a sunflower seed in her beak...so looks a little weird, 

 either way she is a stunning bird. 

Wednesday I combined some chores with some birding...I had to empty my trailer of the sticks and such so I stopped at the recycle center to do that...

I decided to take up a challenge given by a Youtube channel I follow called Badgerland Birding.   Its a March Madness challenge and they tossed out 3 species for us to find...each participant is entered to win a prize, we don't know nor do we care what the prize is, we just love the challenge...SO in my region the 3 birds I have to find are the Song Sparrow, an Eastern Meadowlark, and a Northern Shoveler.  

I found my Song Sparrow right away...at Bramblewood ponds,..I have had better shots of a Song Sparrow but this is THE one I found for the challenge...

I had only just heard a Meadowlark on March 1st.  The challenge is to see or hear each bird beginning March 1st at 12 am to March 31st Midnight...so technically I got the Meadowlark...but I really want to SEE it as well.   I didn't hear about the challenge till that night of the 1st when I watched the video...so I just heard an Eastern Meadowlark singing and  marked it down on an accidental birding list when I dropped off the first load of trailer limbs on Tuesday...morning.  So according to the rules I did get it...BUT Im trying to see and photo one if possible and I have plenty o time to get it done.  

While looking I found a bird I don't see too often An English House Sparrow..

Seems they are nest building up in this piece of electrical equipment

I hope this was a good choice for them...

Also found another European bird, the Starling.  They are nest building up in the belly of this F- 4C Phantom Fighter Jet from the Vietnam era on display at our small air field..

Rocket bird!

On the day I was looking for the Meadowlarks, I didn't see one...I checked another spot where I normally find them but didn't see any there either-- saw a ton of Brown Headed Cowbird instead...

Such a lovely bird! So here it is Friday and I have more yard work to do it's supposed to be windy today so a good day to tackle more stick pick ups...and we'll see what the weekend holds for me, come my next post...HOPE all of you are happy n healthy and ready to enjoy the Month of March...madness and all..


Russia PLEASE  just stop!!

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Keystone Species

It was 79 degrees!  It was an amazingly beautiful day as the humidity was only 39%.  I worked outside gathering up what I hope will be the last wood pile I will need.  I find the recently fallen trees, or ones that are about to fall and that is what I use...I don't cut a tree UNLESS it's a hazard, has grown in  a spot that it can not fit, or is so deformed it will be a hazard.  

  

Today I found a Longleaf Pine seedling as they just replanted the clear cut area..So I found a seedling laying in the road I brought it home and planted it! In about 100-150 yrs it will reach maturity!  Some can be 500 yrs old.  It's a Keystone Species...and native to SC  This means we could have Red Cockaded Woodpecker numbers increase as now as much as 40% of pines planted are Longleaf.  These are being planted for a cash crop so they won't be allowed to reach that ripe old age...anyway I planted that one and there's others growing here too.

I took a Sunday Drive to this spot:

Beaver is also a Keystone species for ecosystem development! I did find a scientific paper about the Beaver, it will take hours to read and even more for my under-educated brain to comprehend...but I'm going to try. To me it's only smart to want to increase the size of Riparian areas especially since so much wetland (286 Million acres) has been drained to increase farm acreage, build roads, and subdivisions! 

Can you imagine with a little work and a lot of planning Beaver could actually bring more water to the Deserts.  The Beaver was eradicated due to early settlers having a fur hat on their head.  There was no rules or regs on taking them same as the Buffalo.  Today, on private land they can be hunted year round and on public lands like this place there is a season of Oct 1 - Mar 1  So currently in season! The reintroduction of beaver was a success but not completely. 

I found this lodge! No Beaver around but another River Otter, (above photo) he was very camera shy...

               I hope there is a Beaver sleeping inside this lodge. 

When I was in Canada I saw Muskrat lodges, they have lots of mud in them and grasses and smaller twigs are not finely thatched like a beaver's work  is, it's like a lazy attempt to be like a beaver..lol But I also saw Muskrat out of the water and it's really a cool animal I saw them in Texas, Florida, and Colorado!

you can see the beaver habitat, and the lodge on the right upper before the tree line

I did not find the dam This is a beautiful wetland on the Singleton Creek in the  Wildlife Management area and a hunter could come here and shoot a Beaver in season...and an OTTER too! I found 3 kingfishers in this area, you can see the beaver pond is still somewhat intact maybe his dam is under the bridge I had no way to see under the bridge I was on.  Here is the opposite side.  It is flowing toward me, and then under the bridge, it heads on till it empties into the Wateree Lake.

red-headed woodpecker

There is another road I can take it winds down to where Singleton Creek flows into the Wateree Lake.  So next time I will explore that road. 

This is a huge WMA.  I would avoid it during main deer hunting season tho.  And I  wished for my sisters and their 4 x 4's and all wheel drive vehicles to  continue on the road with as you see it in the distance in that shot above.  I went in as far as the Kiosk which I forgot to get a photo of...I didn't sign in since I was not staying there was one other person in there he signed the log book and said he was hunting squirrel...can you imagine that?  It reminded me of some stories my Mom told us. 

Belted Kingfisher

My Mom's family used to go on hunting camp trips.  They would bring back turkey and squirrel, and camp by the river cooking and warmed by huge campfires.  They slept on a 'bed roll pallet" on the ground.   This game meat was used to feed the family.  The Appalachian women would gather star grass or peel shiny haw bark, which was a medicinal remedy for women who were prone to miscarry their babies  

It was the bark of the Black Haw tree with a shiny black color, known to the mountain people as "Shiny Haw." My mom spoke often of time spent with Grandmother Dovie, riding her horse Dixie down into the "hollers" to gather medicinal plants for trade with the "traveling store."

Anyone who can afford a vehicle to drive way back into these woods in 2020  does not need to kill a squirrel for food!  Even if you're homeless you can go to the Food Bank and get food free of charge.  My Mom's family would all crowd  into an old T-model with kids riding the running boards, or walking behind. 

What would turtles do without this Beaver Pond to live in? They need slow water and not the swift current of the creek.  I thought of Mom's camp trips while I watched this water slowly creep by.



... way on the other side of the pond a Great Blue Heron was also hunting...the beaver has created the perfect ecosystem...there is room for  Otter, Kingfisher, and Heron and they are finding food.  Snags provide perfect nesting cavities and  insects/worms for the Red Headed Woodpecker...and where there is small prey there must be a bird of prey to help keep that in check...

 

a red-tailed hawk

Shy River Otter swims back and forth

On the way I pass a few lake access points so I cruised down one, and found a Common Loon swimming around...that was fun, not a bird I see often. 

Spring is here in between we will have more cold snaps for sure..it will be interesting to see just how hot it will get this summer around the World. 

Don't forget to participate in the Backyard Bird Count coming up Feb 14-17.  All you do is keep a list of the birds you see in your backyard in a 15 minute time frame...Find out more by clicking the link. 

Till next week...I'm taking life  day by day. 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.