Wed 25 Mar 2015
Wil Christenson and Mary Lou Dickson joined me today for the ongoing Bulls Island waterfowl/shorebird survey. As so often before Coastal Expeditions (CEX) provided us with boating transportation over the Bulls and back. Many thanks, CEX!
The water level in Jack's Creek has dropped below the staff gauge so further readings will be estimates. The water from Pool 3 has dropped more, too, since the dike failure of almost three weeks ago. Between the shallow water remaining and the now extensive mud banks along the margins of Jack's , the shorebirds were very actively feeding in many corners of Jack's. And Upper Summerhouse Pond appears to have completely filled up after the dike failure there this past late August.
We were expecting that the waterfowl numbers would be down markedly since migration "ought to" have begun in recent weeks. Boy were we pleasantly surprised to find thousands of ducks hanging out on Jack's Creek along with thousands of shorebirds both in Jack's Creek and in the oceanfront marsh at Jack's. Check out the numbers, below, of Gadwall, American Wigeon, Blue-winged Teal, Northern Shoveler, Green-winged Teal, Semipalmated Plover, Dunlin, Short-billed Dowitcher, Least Sandpiper, and Western Sandpiper. We tallied 41 species on the survey proper, 74 on the day's outing. Our two eBird checklists are combined and presented below.
At one point we watched a mature Bald Eagle fly over Jack's Creek flushing thousands of ducks, hover (very much like a Belted Kingfisher) for perhaps 30 sec, then fly off. A few minutes later, with no apparent raptor overhead, thousands of the same waterfowl rose off of Jack's, climbed high into the sky forming not swarming masses of flushed ducks but multiple lines of ducks that then appeared to fly off the island into/across Bulls Bay. We thought that we may well have witnessed the beginning of a mass migration flight of waterfowl off the island. Very cool to witness regardless of their intent.
S.C. DNR was hosting some out-of-town shorebird banders as they have often done in March of previous years. They had successfully cannon-netted many shorebirds in the oceanfront marsh at Jack's and were banding them when we arrived at that location. They were out along the dune line, and we were on the dike. Nonetheless Wil counted 2300 shorebirds right there apparently little affected by the canon netting and banding activities or by our presence. Interestingly we spotted a banded Semipalmated Plover that they had likely banded in a previous year. I'll report the banding sighting both directly to them and the the USGS. I've reported other shorebird species with bands, but this was my first observation of banded Semipalmated Plover.
Non avian sightings included Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphin (one fully breached the surface of the water!), fox squirrels, and white-tailed deer. Mosquitos, white flies, and no-seeums were also hanging out in the lee of the island. We were glad for fairly consistent winds to keep the bugs hunkered down.
Our targeting the 12:45 PM high tide today worked well (the breach along Alligator Alley has changed our timing around the island, so we'll try similar high tides again). Looking ahead at the tide calendar suggests the following dates for our next survey.
Thurs 9 Apr 2015 4.6 ft high tide at 11:30 AM
Fri 10 Apr 2015 4.5 ft high tide at 12:20 PM
Stay tuned for further plans.
Regards,
David
dcmclean
BirdLog Checklist Summary for: Wednesday, Mar 25 2015
Number of Checklists: 2
Number of Species: 74
Checklists included in this summary:
(1): Bull's Island Ferry
Date: Mar 25, 2015, 8:40
(2): Cape Romain NWR--Bull Island
Date: Mar 25, 2015, 9:36
2200 Gadwall -- (2)
300 American Wigeon -- (2)
28 Mottled Duck -- (2)
167 Blue-winged Teal -- (2)
500 Northern Shoveler -- (2)
140 Green-winged Teal -- (2)
27 Lesser Scaup -- (2)
8 Black Scoter -- (2)
32 Bufflehead -- (1),(2)
3 Hooded Merganser -- (1),(2)
1 Red-breasted Merganser -- (1)
11 Ruddy Duck -- (2)
1 Common Loon -- (1)
17 Pied-billed Grebe -- (2)
8 Horned Grebe -- (1),(2)
14 Double-crested Cormorant -- (1),(2)
6 Anhinga -- (2)
1 Brown Pelican -- (2)
3 Great Blue Heron -- (2)
26 Great Egret -- (1),(2)
14 Snowy Egret -- (1),(2)
5 Little Blue Heron -- (2)
23 Tricolored Heron -- (1),(2)
1 Green Heron -- (2)
1 Black-crowned Night-Heron -- (2)
101 White Ibis -- (2)
4 Turkey Vulture -- (1),(2)
1 Osprey -- (2)
3 Northern Harrier -- (2)
1 Bald Eagle -- (2)
2 Sora -- (2)
13 Common Gallinule -- (2)
209 American Coot -- (2)
4 American Oystercatcher -- (1),(2)
2 Black-bellied Plover -- (1),(2)
8 Wilson's Plover -- (2)
400 Semipalmated Plover -- (2)
2 Piping Plover -- (2)
4 Killdeer -- (2)
1 Spotted Sandpiper -- (2)
14 Greater Yellowlegs -- (1),(2)
21 Willet -- (1),(2)
49 Lesser Yellowlegs -- (2)
1 Ruddy Turnstone -- (2)
1 Sanderling -- (2)
1455 Dunlin -- (1),(2)
30 Least Sandpiper -- (2)
100 Western Sandpiper -- (2)
1176 Short-billed Dowitcher -- (2)
1 Bonaparte's Gull -- (2)
11 Laughing Gull -- (1),(2)
2 Forster's Tern -- (1)
1 Royal Tern -- (2)
5 Mourning Dove -- (2)
5 Belted Kingfisher -- (1),(2)
5 Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted) -- (2)
8 Blue Jay -- (2)
1 Fish Crow -- (1)
3 Purple Martin -- (2)
202 Tree Swallow -- (1),(2)
1 Barn Swallow -- (2)
2 Marsh Wren -- (2)
1 Brown Thrasher -- (2)
7 Northern Mockingbird -- (2)
1 Common Yellowthroat -- (2)
3 Northern Parula -- (2)
3 Pine Warbler -- (2)
20 Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) -- (2)
15 Chipping Sparrow -- (2)
1 Savannah Sparrow -- (2)
3 Swamp Sparrow -- (2)
5 Northern Cardinal -- (2)
50 Red-winged Blackbird -- (2)
12 Boat-tailed Grackle -- (1),(2)
This trip summary was created using the BirdLog app for iPhone and iPad.
See BirdLog for more information.
--
David C. McLean, Jr.
Sent from my iPod
