Heading North

     Our time in Florida for the winter of 2011 has drawn to a close and it's time we begin our own migration north.  Leaving the sunshine state at the end of April assures us of a wonderful seasonal journey....two springs each year.  We have watched as the first waves of warblers....Yellow-rumps, Black-throated blues, Yellows, Parulas, and others....have pushed through the south and now we will catch up to them and see the rest of the songsters as they arrive in the north.  On our way back to our New York home, we made two side-trips to a couple of our favorite birding locales on the east coast....Santee NWR in South Carolina and then Bombay Hook in Delaware.  The first day was a day of playing cat and mouse with some severe storms moving up the coast.  We tried to move slowly enough to just stay behind what turned out to be some of the most damaging tornadoes in US history.  Our plan worked well as we arrived in Santee just in time for the skies to start clearing and the birds to start singing.

Blue grosbeak

Orchard oriole - First summer male

     We added a couple of "year-birds", the Blue grosbeak and the Orchard oriole, to our list as we totaled over 40 species in several hours.  Believing that we had given the storms plenty of time to get far ahead of us, we then made our way further north up to Fayetteville where we stayed for the evening.  The next day we headed up to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel so that we could stop and visit the Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR.  Had our first Chipping sparrows of the year as we ate our lunch on the grounds.  From there, it was up to Bombay Hook where we were able to spend a couple of hours of twilight getting great views of such elusive reed dwellers as the Clapper rail and Marsh wren.  As we left in the waning hours of daylight, we were treated to a brief spotting of a Red fox peering out from a field to our left.  After seeing us, however, he darted back into the grass and I could not get a shot off from the Nikon.  In the morning, we returned to see what he early daylight would conjure up for us.  It was a chorus of birdsong awaiting us as we checked off Purple martins, White-crowned sparrows, another Blue grosbeak, Yellow warblers, and splendidly hued Goldfinches before ever getting out of the parking lot of the Visitors Center.

     The rest of the morning was equally productive, but the sighting of the day was not avian, but rather another beautiful Red fox which had come out behind our vehicle to watch us drive down the dirt road.  Had I not glanced into the rear view mirror, I'd never had seen him.  As I exited the vehicle, he paid me little mind and allowed me to watch and photograph for several minutes before he trotted off across the field.

  Bombay is well know for its fox population as well as its birds and today we were not disappointed.  We are home now and preparing for what the rest of the spring migration may bring.  We are most assuredly looking forward to our "second spring" of 2011.