Preppers Part II

I am certainly not making light of this pandemic.  I hope all the measures taken by our officials will help stop the spread! So this was our last day as sis called it the Big Push to see how many birds we could see while she is here.  New flight is leaving Wednesday at 2 pm so we have the rest of Monday and Tuesday to spend together...

inside the Visitors Center

I left us at Congaree National Park.  We had a great day.  Went home tired! We reviewed our photos and spruced up our ebird list, and stayed up late to see all the news on closings due to the Virus.  Now our town has issued a curfew!  Tuesday on the way out we saw a Goose in the vernal pool in the clear cut!

  

That was fun!  It is one of my goals to have birded every county in my State of SC.  There's 46 counties, and I need to bird 19 of those counties...and one of them is a neighboring county! I have seen many birds in Lexington county but never kept a list or turned it in...so we chose to go to Saluda Shoals Park.  It's a family styled park with lots of picnic areas, and walk/bike paths and the River is good for paddlers.  

We had our picnic first since it was lunchtime when we arrived...

It's hard to know if you have a virus or not with all this Pollen around! Notice it on the surface of the little turtle pond.  Even the turtle's back is covered.  

The Red Shouldered Hawk...landed near us to see what we were up to...

Then he followed us to  the river..

Sis spotted this Osprey across the river snacking on a fish he caught...

And a State Bird for both of us kept us scratching our heads at first, the Orange Crowned Warbler...

I've never seen the orange that it's named for...I guess it's like a Kinglet and raises it whenever he feels threatened...

And this Black and White Warbler was so obliging...I feel instantly under his spell.  

We had an eastern Bluebird waiting on us to return...We had one more stop for the day...we had seen on the Rare bird list a Pacific Loon had been seen and the photos proved it.  Since I needed it for my life list we headed to the Rusty Anchor Marina on Lake Murray, a huge lake in Lexington and Richland County.   

 

Where we scanned loon after loon.  All were Common Loons.  I tried like heck to make this one into a Pacific...but it's so obviously not one...

no chin strap!

But it was close! These are however beautiful birds so we enjoyed looking at each one they were FAR away except a few came close...

We had a long string of Red Breasted Mergansers on the opposite side...

So we gave up and headed home.

I looked at every shot I took not once but twice, just didn't see it...and Wednesday after taking Sis to the airport I went for a second look since I was withing 9 miles of the spot..

More gorgeous Common Loons, and no new reports of a Pacific...I drove back a few miles to the Dam area of Lake Murray, where a Horned Grebe was seen yesterday and he was still there and what a beauty...he is coming into breeding plumage or molting...

White tip on end of beak...ruby red eyes...

I wish Sis had been there to see it with me!  I'm keeping an eye out on the rare report to see if that Pacific Loon pops up again.  So I finally created a bird list for Lexington County and now I need only 18 more counties!  I had such a wonderful time with my Sis...we did exactly what we wanted to do nothing more and nothing less.  While the world went bonkers around us, we BIRDED!  I hope we can all just go out and do what we love to do until this thing blows over.  I am semi-sequestered at home now.  I will however visit my favorite birding spots when the mood strikes me.  

Tomorrow it is going to be 85 degrees...and it's Spring!
I know 3 dogs that need baths!  

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

AUGUST--> then fall

I am trying to bid on a couple cameras on ebay, I got outbid right away so we'll see.  Tonight I was in a last minute literally bidding war.  It was seriously tense..I lost! I'm actually bidding on the exact camera I have!  I love this camera, hate that I damaged it, but each ding, drop, and bang was earned enjoying my life and living it with zest!  Still it takes good photos, but it does not want to focus on digital zoom. So birds are hard to capture if they are far away. 

I wanted to catch the tail end of the cool weather spell we were having so up at 6 am last Sunday... I was off to the hotspot and had some of the expected birds up and about...like this Anhinga already drying his feathers from his morning swim.

There was a lifting fog still clinging to the lake 

This immature Chipping Sparrow along with his brother was on the ground exploring this big new world.

This Great Blue Heron flushed up to the top of this flat topped Cyprus...

While the wily Red Shouldered Hawk lay in wait...hopefully not for the young birds I see frolicking all around. 

The good news for this day was a (#114) White Breasted Nuthatch I spotted harassing some red bellied woodpecker by accident...so another addition for the 5 mile radius.  This is my only July addition.  Got this one really awful for the record shot...then he zoomed off to deeper cover when the red bellied mama got after him. 

You can just barely tell what it is. At first I thought I caught his backside but nope its his face, beak turned to the left.  I'm busy turning those grey bars to green in my hotspot ebird bar graph.  I changed July to green, and now onto August.  Today is the 209th day of this yr.  Even if not one bird is around there is always something lovely to see.  

 

On Wednesday we took our picnic to Poinsett State Park, named for the Statesman Joel Roberts Poinsett who is buried a few miles away.  I got a stamp for my book and we enjoyed some exploring, it was hot so we didn't wander too far from the car's AC.

And as is the case in most of our parks, the Civilian Conservation Corp was working here in 1934-1942.  

We chose to sit in the shade and keep Mom on the cement covered areas...and that worked out great for us.  We were able to admire the beautiful work of the CCC. 

the Sluice of an old Grist Mill 

I was a bit remiss on getting photos of our day! We didn't see many birds around only a few..we had a list of about 12 including this Eastern Wood Peewee who I wanted to be something more but with long wings Im sticking on Peewee There has to be an easier way to distinguish these empids..this one never made a sound otherwise it would be an easy call...

there was some young with her/him.  

We checked out the campground, no one there only a host!  And the 4 rental cabins, looked nice and rustic, and there is a lot of hiking trails for later on when summer is over.  It is not very friendly to handicapped people...as we had to wrestle mom's chair over rough paths and roots, the restrooms had no handicapped stalls so that makes life a challenge.  We really love taking Mom along on our outings, and although she does enjoy it, it's also sometimes hard for her to enjoy it when access is so hard.  

We stopped at Gen Thomas Sumter's memorial park, he is buried there along with his wife, and son and other family members...

 

On the way home we stopped at Boykin Mill Pond and saw hundreds of Egrets! The entire far bank was lined with them in the trees.  We also saw lots of Little Blue Herons, Double Crested Cormorants, Anhinga, some unknown ducks and lots of White Ibis, and I saw at least one really dark Ibis, possibly an immature or even a Glossy, but flying overhead into a dull sky impossible to tell... this is possibly a rookery?  It is a privately owned pond, and there is a tiny town called Boykin built along it's bank but everything was locked up tight..

We had a busy week and it was a great one too...hope your's was the same. 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.