Autumn in New York

                                                        Red-tailed hawk

      We are are back in the Empire State and are enjoying the sights, the aromas, and the sounds of our prettiest season.  Fall has arrived in full force and the mountains are ablaze with the oranges, yellows and reds of Autumn.  Along with the changing colors comes a changing cast of characters in the avian play as warblers and other migrants depart and move through the Hudson Highlands.  We spent yesterday at Croton Point Park along the banks of the Hudson.  Birders around these parts seem to agree that the migration is a little later this year and indeed we had a good number of warblers passing through yesterday.  (See Yellow-rumped warbler image below)  Of course, along with the song birds, we get a decent passage of raptors.  We had Red-tails, Harriers, Kestrels, and Cooper's hawks in the area looking for a quick meal.

                                             Yellow-rumped warbler

                                             Cooper's hawk

     The days continue to grow shorter and the nights longer and cooler as we work our way deeper into fall and closer to winter.  In the meantime, we will enjoy the splendors of Autumn in New York and witness the evolution of summer into winter.

                                                    Brown creeper

Another Day in South Carolina

  

     Well, we are winding up our trip to SC and spent Tuesday of this week at two of our favorite birding havens.....Huntington Beach State Park in Murrell's Inlet and Myrtle Beach State Park.  Huntington Beach is great at this time of year for finding birds which are getting ready to make the trip south to Florida.  The most prominent "specialties" in October are the Wood storks, Roseate spoonbills,  and Avocets.  We arrived at the Park early this morning and were blessed with a dead low tide.  The flats were abuzz with activity as shore birds, herons, egrets, and the storks took advantage of the bounty offered by the mud flats. Wood storks were all around us....on the flats, in the trees, and lined up along the impoundments as if taking part in a morning "coffee clutch".  We could have spent the entire morning just observing the feeding frenzy taking place, but we wanted to get over to Myrtle Beach SP while it was still early.

     AT Myrtle Beach SP, we found our favorite song bird site....a grove of trees adjacent to the Ranger Station.....to be as productive as normal.  Black-throated blue, Common yellowthroat, Magnolia, and Nashville warblers were all busily feeding in the tall live oaks as a Brown thrasher and a Catbird flitted in and out of a thicket of Pokeberry bushes.  Further along the entrance road, we ran into a number of Northern mockingbirds which were interacting noisily as they chased one another around the thick overgrowth.  Why there was so much ado among these mockers kept us guessing, but for whatever reason, the show was most entertaining.  We'll be heading back to NY the day after tomorrow, so we'll try to squeeze in one more afternoon of birding at the vast marshlands around Shallotte, NC where we have heard both Virginia and King rails.  Wish us luck!!!

After the deluge - South Carolina

       We enjoyed a great weekend with trip leader Warren C and fellow members of the Mearns Bird Clb from NY at Cape May and have now continued south to the Carolinas. We didn't get much birding in the past several days as we were flooded in our friends' home in New Bern, NC.

       Over a period of three days, we had 27" of rain! We finally did get a break in the weather, however, and today we visited Huntington Beach State Park below Myrtle Beach, SC. Had a number of nice birds in spite of excessively high water. Sightings included Wood storks, Avocets (image below), several different sandpipers (see Spotted sandpiper below), Clapper rails, many Great and Snowy egrets, Kingfishers, Great blue and Tricolor herons, and White ibises. Looking forward to getting more species as the flood waters abate and the temperatures moderate.