Day 21: January 21st - Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, GA

Mostly sunny, warm (70's), calm winds

        Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge has become one of favorite stop-overs as we travel back to New York from Florida in the spring.  It is a haven for Yellow-crowned night herons and other herons and egrets as well as many passerines returning north along with us for the warming climes of their breeding grounds.  For whatever reason, however, we rarely pay a visit to this refuge during the winter months.  We are anxious to see what birds will await us when we visit today.

        Well, we are somewhat disappointed by the lack of the night-herons...both black and yellow-crowned.  But at the Woody Pond where we are used to seeing the herons, we do find many other birds.  In the distance, a lone Red-shouldered hawk is watching over the pond which is littered with coots, Hooded mergansers, a few Pied-billed grebes and two pair of Buffleheads.  In the low-lying brush adjacent to the pond, a diminutive Ruby-crowned kinglet is picking little bugs from the undersides of the leaves.

Ruby-crowned kinglet

     Waxwings and robins fill the surrounding trees as Chipping sparrows and Goldfinches work the lower brush and grasses.

Chipping sparrow

        We travel on around the wildlife drive and park the car to walk in along one of the old roadways of what was a military air field.  Lesser scaup, a Little blue heron, some more Hooded mergs, and Buffleheads are in the shallow impoundments as an occasional Forster's tern flies overhead.  The best sighting for me, however, is a small group of blackbirds perched in a tree overhanging the shallows.  A quick glimpse with the binoculars reveals that pale iris which says, "Rusty blackbird", a bird I haven't seen in a couple of years!

Rusty blackbird

A nice addition to the year list which makes the stop at this marvelous refuge well worth the time and effort to visit here.  I'm sure when we return in May, we will finally get those Yellow-crowns we missed today.  For now, we'll gladly take the Rusties.  Time to get back on I-95 as we continue our journey south.