One of my favorite parts of any road trip is stopping at the national wildlife refuges along the route. In this case, we were heading from Columbia, South Carolina, where we’d visited family, to a vacation with friends on the east coast of Florida. And it just so happens that there is a series of refuges running from Pinckney Island NWR near Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, to Wolf Island NWR near Darien, Georgia. As we only had time to stop at one of those, we chose Savannah NWR, on the South Carolina – Georgia state line.
Category: Birding Trips
Getting out to look at the birds
Florida Offers A Mid-winter Reprieve
I admit it—sometimes I’m spoiled. It’s mid-winter here in Colorado, but we just returned from a road trip to Florida, courtesy of an invitation from some much-appreciated friends. Even on the coldest days, the beach was so much nicer than the snow arriving at home! (more…)
Birding Hamden Slough NWR
I hadn’t really planned to spend time birding in Minnesota. We were on a road trip around the Great Lakes, and we had finally turned toward home. But my high expectations for Whitefish Point, in northeastern Michigan, had been squelched by high winds, and we decided to cut and run, saving the time to spend someplace more accommodating and birdy. That someplace turned out to be Hamden Slough NWR.
Anticipating Florida
Pete and I have been invited to visit friends in Florida next month. Of course, we accepted the invitation! I’ve arranged time off from work, I’ve made my packing list, and our house sitter is all lined up (with instructions on keeping the feeders filled). Now I’m eagerly counting the days until we leave.
While there are plenty of logistics involved in escaping winter for a couple of weeks, I’m also trying to prepare for birding in a relatively unfamiliar location. Yes, I’ve been to Florida before—twice, in fact—but it’s not my usual birding location, and those aren’t my usual birds.
A Goose with Pink Feet
Have you heard? There’s a Pink-footed Goose at Milavec Reservoir (about 30 minutes north of Denver)! The word spread quickly throughout Colorado’s birding community. This was amazing. This was incredible!
As the Audubon website explains,
Although many Pink-footed Geese nest in Greenland and Iceland, these birds all migrate across the North Atlantic to spend the winter in Britain and northwestern Europe. Strays that have gone the wrong direction have been found in North America only a couple of times, in eastern Canada.
Is that a Northwestern Crow?
I spent Thanksgiving week in the Pacific Northwest, visiting family (granddaughters!) and friends. Somehow, in the midst of tickles and snuggles, craft projects, and a delicious turkey dinner, I managed to squeeze in an hour of birding—and it wasn’t even raining.
Since we were in Federal Way for lunch that day, we headed for the tiny Dumas Bay Sanctuary. And I do mean tiny. If you walk north along the narrow beach, you quickly run into signs warning of private property. And if you head south instead, the park boundary markers stop you after only a few yards. At least the birds have permission to trespass, and we birders have binoculars.
Birding Niagara Falls
(If you’ve just tuned in, this is the fourth post in a series about our 2017 trip around the Great Lakes.)
By the time we left Grand Rapids, I had spent some enjoyable mornings birding Michigan while my husband, Pete, had attended a number of successful meetings. We had also visited two of the four states I had been missing, moving me that much closer to my goal of visiting all fifty. The trip was going well. And now it was time for Pete to check off his own bucket list dream.
Birding Michigan, Part 2: Shiawassee NWR
On the bank of the Shiawassee River, in central Michigan, Shiawassee NWR was touted as “a critical migration stopover site for waterfowl.” We were there on the last day of August, just over a year ago. With habitats ranging from marshes to forests to prairie, and a long list of bird species, some of which I’ve rarely (if ever) seen, I was hoping to see more than just waterfowl.
Michigan in September (part 1)
I was excited to finally be going to Michigan, my 48th state. While the trip wasn’t exclusively a birding trip—we also had people to see—it was new territory for me. I was sure to get at least one lifer, and hopefully many more. On the other hand, my expectations had been tempered by the less-than-spectacular birding at Magee Marsh a few days earlier. At this point, I just wanted to see birds, any birds.
Hot Day, Cool Birding
It was another hot day. Usually by now, the weather has moderated, but we’ve been in the middle of an unseasonable heat wave and I was completely wilted. I was yearning to go birding—my new job had kept me indoors far too much lately—but the only time available was from mid-morning through early afternoon—the hottest time of the day. As much as I wanted to get outside, I had to ask myself, why bother?
Often, I think the birds are smarter than the birders. When the heat gets oppressive, they don’t stand out in the sun with binoculars. No, they adapt. Most migrating birds fly at night, feed in the early morning hours and just before dark, and rest during the heat of the day. Birders know this, which is why most field trips start early. But sometimes, our schedule just doesn’t allow us to do what we know is optimal. We have to take what we can get and make the best of it.
Still, I thought, maybe I could emulate the birds, and manage to both enjoy nature and stay cool at the same time.
Mountain Plover 