Georgetown County, SC Big Day

I opened my eyes to Sam calling my name. I look down at my watch and it's 5:45 a.m. We slept in by an hour and fifteen minutes, whoops . . . I guess our alarms decided not to wake up either. But we made up for it, we were out pulling out of the gates of DeBordieu by 6:10 a.m. Our Georgetown Big Day had now began as we pulled through the causeway of Huntington Beach State Park, another prominent birding jewel in Georgetown, SC with over 300 species year round, and spotted  our first bird: Great-Blue Heron. We now began cupping our ears for Virginia and Clapper Rails calling in the tidal salt marshes from the boardwalk that stretches into the middle of the marsh. A few Clappers respond to playbacks and suddenly I spot, not just hear one, foraging in the low tide mud. Then on the other side we spotted a smaller rail with a slightly decurved bill actually swimming like a coot in the water, a Virginia Rail! These shy, chicken-like marsh birds often obscure themselves in the dense vegetation of marshes, only coming out at low tide to feed; it was a pleasure to actually see both species at the same time!

We all three left the boardwalk with the Virginia Rail as a lifer and made our way to the beach. After the mile walk down the beach the jetty was finally insight, we had a new companion on our big day team who was there to greet us: a curious Ruddy Turnstone, who we named Levi. Levi was not nearly as skittish as the rails and kept following us around on the jetty.

Levi, the curious Ruddy Turnstone.

After we filled up our memory cards with Levi, we got to some scoping. We walked up and down the jetty as the strong winds pushed waves over the side of the jetty spraying us. We quickly spotted all three scoter species: Surf, Black, and White-winged Scoter. 

Lucas Scoping Scoters

Sam checking out Loons

After the Scoter Grand Slam, a few Common Loons, and a Common Eider; we quickly got out of the way of the strong winds and made our way to a few trails behind the sand dunes. There was no success with spotting any Seaside or Nelson’s sparrows just Savannahs plus an American Kestrel. After the long walk back, we hopped in the car and drove towards the freshwater pond, Mullet Pond, to scope for more waterfowl. The pond had a nice variety from Blue and Green-winged Teal, Scaup, Shovelers, and even American White Pelicans feeding in a rhythmic motion each bobbing their heads in and out of the water one after the other.

Mullet Pond, filled with waterfowl

Our last stop in Huntington was at the feeders to see if any Painted Buntings; a cousin of the cardinal dressed in a beautiful plumage of red, green, and blue that is summer resident; might have stuck around for the winter. However, there were none, but as we were walking in the parking lot to leave, a small passerine with an olive colored back and blue head stuck out like a sore thumb in the never ending flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers. I brought my binoculars against my eyes, and a Blue-headed Vireo was hopping around in the tree limbs of a cedar tree. Then another warbler made an appearance in the cedar tree, a Black-and-White Warbler, two birds I thought we would miss. We left the park at 11:00 a.m. satisfied that we had quality views of all 72 species of birds.

We arrived at DeBordieu after treating ourselves to a nice lunch of hot dogs and milkshakes, ready to bird another 28 species strong, at least to break 100. I knew a perfect place to start, a dirt road that runs parallel to a small, shrubby canal that leads you out to the marsh. We saw an immature Wood Stork, Killdeer, a female Wood Duck, and a Seaside Sparrow that flushed out of the marsh. These were all birds we didn’t see for the rest of the day. However, there were some others that we encountered little to none, Woodpeckers. There is patch of beautiful Longleaf Pine forest in DeBordieu that just has woodpecker written all over it on the tree trunks, but we only heard a Downy Woodpecker call from a far distance. After our frustration with woodpeckers, we got another great photo opt. with this Anhinga:

 Once the Anhinga flew off, we sped the car down the road and checked a spot we knew was reliable for our 100^th bird: Black-crowned Night Herons along with two Eurasian Collared Doves as 99^th. By dinner, we had broken our previous record of 102 species that we set in the OBX of NC. We were munching on our pizza at 106 species for the day, with Least Sandpiper being a nice surprise and a Northern Harrier being our last bird seen in broad daylight. The day’s not over yet; we still had some nocturnal numbers to add to our list.

We returned to the dirt road running parallel to the pine forest where we had heard Eastern Screech Owls two nights ago. Three responded to our playback with their whiny, monotonic trill. By the end of the night Screech Owl was the only owl that decided to respond, and we were able to get another cousin in the Rail family to let out a quick call through the thick and grassy marsh later that evening, a Sora. Thus the climax of the weekend had ended once the Sora responded. The Bird Nerd Herd now has a new Big Day PR of 108 bird species and learned another step or two of how a big day should be done. The marshy jewel that has been the subject of many chapters in my birding stories, DeBordieu, did not disappoint as usual. It would not of been possible if we did not have the golf, perfect chasing birds in DeBordieu:

  Here is the chronological order of bird species we saw on our Big Day.(Thanks Lucas)

Huntington Beach State Park

1. Great Blue Heron
2. Clapper Rail
3. Hooded Merganser
4. Sedge Wren
5. Snowy Egret
6. Little Blue Heron
7. Greater Yellowlegs
8. Virginia Rail
9. Tricolored Heron
10. Tree Swallow
11. American White Pelican 
12. White Ibis
13. Ring-billed Gull
14. Double-crested Cormorant
15. Forster's Tern
16. American Crow
17. Boat-tailed Grackle
18. Yellow-rumped Warbler
19. Carolina Chickadee
20. Mourning Dove
21. Northern Cardinal
22. Tufted Titmouse
23. Carolina Wren
24. White-throated Sparrow
25. Dunlin
26. Willet
27. Semipalmated Plover
28. Northern Gannet
29. Sanderling
30. Red Knot
31. Bonaparte's Gull
32. Brown Pelican
33. Pied-billed Grebe
34. Herring Gull
35. Horned Grebe
36. White-winged Scoter
37. Black Scoter
38. Ruddy Turnstone
39. Red-breasted Merganser
40. Surf Scoter
41. Common Loon
42. Common Eider
43. Red-throated Loon
44. Savannah Sparrow
45. Great Egret
46. Black-bellied Plover
47. Short-billed Dowitcher
48. American Kestrel
49. Belted Kingfisher
50. Lesser Scaup
51. Brown Thrasher
52. Blue Jay
53. Northern Mockingbird
54. Northern Flicker
55. Mute Swan
56. American Wigeon
57. Gadwall
58. Redhead
59. Northern Shoveler
60. Green-winged Teal
61. Blue-winged Teal
62. Lesser Yellowlegs
63. American Coot
64. Ruddy Duck
65. Greater Scaup
66. Bald Eagle
67. Turkey Vulture
68. American Robin
69. Golden-crowned Kinglet
70. Osprey
71. Blue-headed Vireo
72. Black-and-white Warbler

Debordieu Colony

73. Black Vulture
74. Wood Stork
75. Eastern Towhee
76. Wood Duck
77. Red-bellied Woodpecker
78. Chipping Sparrow
79. Red-tailed Hawk
80. Red-winged Blackbird
81. Song Sparrow
82. Killdeer
83. Seaside Sparrow
84. Common Gallinule
85. American Black Duck
86. Brown-headed Nuthatch
87. Eastern Bluebird
88. American Goldfinch
89. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
90. Pine Warbler
91. Common Grackle
92. White-breasted Nuthatch
93. Fish Crow
94. House Finch
95. European Starling
96. Cedar Waxwing
97. Eastern Phoebe
98. Anhinga
99. Eurasian Collared-Dove
100. Black-crowned Night-heron
101. Mottled Duck  
102. House Wren
103. Great Black-backed Gull
104. Downy Woodpecker
105. Least Sandpiper
106. Northern Harrier
107. Eastern Screech-Owl
108. Sora