The first week of March was a busy week for me...I think it took me 3 days to recover from all the walking I did on my camp trip. Once I was rested up and ready to get at it again I went to Sandhills to see what was going on. I like to park and hike in the area of Martin's Lake its diverse in that area...I parked the van got out and immediately smelled smoke,,,Boy spring is a tough time of year, this shot illustrates how smoke and smog can block out the sunshine...check the lake where its dull under the cloud and blue on the edge where the smoke is not blocking.
Soon the wind changed direction and that made it a lot better for me.,,and the geese
And the Killdeer running around the edges of the lake...
Again I ran into the Swamp Sparrows in the weird white web stuff I still cant figure out what that stuff is. T his little one was doing a split with a leg on opposing twigs.
I walked around the edge of the lake as far as I could go without tromping into the unmowed parts which is no fun, and stirred up some Savannah Sparrow hunting in the edges of the field grass...
Another beautiful Sparrow,
The safest place to be in a fire is in the lake!
But with all the rain we had most of the trail was flooded, I met two guys on the way out and they told me the water was over their shoes, so they suggested taking the Yellow short cut trail...so I did..It cut through from marker 6 to 15 on the map above.
And there were few birds down where I could see them...
If you check the trail map again you see where the trial follows the river at marker 15, so once I got over there it was nice to hear the rushing water, the Congaree Creek,
It felt weird to see an Anhinga so deep into the woods,
this section was not too wet, but
most parts were extremely muddy...so I didn't get away completely dry.
Took me an hour to get these boots cleaned up.
That night I was catching up with my email and the SC Rare bird list...and for the 3rd day in a row a RARE bird had been seen at Huntington Beach State Park, where I had been only last week day 2 of my camp trip....and seen the Long Tailed Duck. So I kinda had in the back of my mind, that I would like to go back again...
In the morning I woke up at 6am and was on the road by 7 ish and headed that way. I was on the beach by 10 am after arriving, getting into the park and there was a line of cars waiting to pay, drove to parking, got my gear together, put on ALL my clothes. It was COLD, and the wind was out of the North...BRRRRRR. I had on 4 layers and never took one single layer off all day.
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fat bikes seem to be the fav these days and most of them were ebikesThe sun was not out either...Right away I stopped to scan the water found much of the same I had found last week, with Horned Grebes ducking thru the breakers...and then someone came up and said,
"I know why you're here."
"Oh yeah?"
He said, "to see the Dovekie!"
Yes I said Dovekie. The Little Auk! These birds don't come here...period.
Here is a map of their normal range.
"Despite being one of the most abundant seabirds of the Northern Hemisphere, Dovekies live so far north that relatively few bird watchers get to see them"
So I met Andy and we walked the almost 2 miles to the Jetty together...sure made the walk go faster to have someone to share bird stories from this location in the past.
A flock of Sanderlings rushed in and out along the edges, the day was on the foggy dull side also...and this made me wonder if we would be able to see anything once we got down there. The long 2 mile walk to the jetty facing a headwind!!
On the way we encountered returning birders who said they saw it,..and some Purple Sandpiper also on the rocks...and we were told to head to the sea end of the jetty...So we did.
Talk about a needle in a haystack, the large flock of Ruddy Turnstones camo'd that Purple Sandpiper pretty well can you pick it out? This shot has 1 Sanderling, 2 Ruddy Turnstones, and 1 Purple Sandpiper.
See him just about to fall off the rock on the left...LoL...very hard to pick out of this group...
Andy had a good eye and right away we marched down the Jetty and found the little dot which we verified pretty much to be our target bird, then about that time a boat came by and scared him away...
DARN....so we scanned and the water on the channel side of the Jetty was choppy, I noticed the water was calmer on the Ocean side of the jetty and kept hoping the little auk would figure that out. By now we had hooked up with 2 other birders, Tammy and Petra and with 4 pairs of eyes searching he didn't stand a chance of not being seen...then Andy said "there he goes." This tiny little football shaped object was actually flying to the calmer side as I had hoped he would..
I was at the back of the line and got everyone in my sights as they zeroed in the Dovekie...then I got closer..
There he is!
And then the shutters began to click like it was Prince Harry and Megan, and there he was just sitting there tiny little thing no bigger than the Turnstones nearby.
Thats Andy up front and Petra, and Tammy was behind me now...Im not in the picture cause I took the picture..lol
He preened and we watched
Then he waddled back into the water...and floated around.
Life Bird for all of us!
Andy wanted to see the Long tailed Duck and it did fly by so he was happy I took a walk to see a group of shorebirds, mostly Dunlin, with some others mixed in like the Black Bellied Plover and about then my SD card was full...I had left my 64 GB card at home, and found a spare one luckily in my camera bag but only 2GB so the rest of the day I enjoyed just looking and Andy's battery died so between the 2 of us we had nothing going on recording the rest of the day!! LoL
It was a cold but very rewarding day...the Dovekie is still being reported and exciting birders from all over the state who are coming to see him... I was home before dark, and super pleased with the day and meeting some nice people. I imagine some people came in from other states a shot in the arm for the park and Georgetown county.
PEACE
Every day is a new Adventure.
