Late summer survey shows, perhaps, the last of the summer residents while fall shorebird migration continues

Fri 18 Sept 2015

   Even under heavy overcast skies and light rain yesterday the golden seed pods of the Spartina alterniflora saltmarsh cordgrass continue to herald the arrival of fall in the Cape Romain NWR. 

   David Gardner and Aubrey Greene, each an accomplished naturalist and birder, joined me yesterday for the ongoing Bulls Island waterfowl/shorebird survey. Wil Christenson and Nick Johnson were busy running us over to the island on the Coastal Expeditions ferry so were unable to join the day's survey effort, but we couldn't have done it without them. Thanks, CEX, for your continuing support.

   It was David and Aubrey's first trip to Bulls Island, and each of them tallied good birding observations. David was able to add four, maybe five, new species to his Charleston County list, and Aubrey tallied at least one life list species.

   Summer resident avian species are in declining numbers and fall migration continues. We tallied 30 species on the ferry, 50 target species on the island, 69 total species on the island, and 75 species on the whole day's outing. Our eBird checklist from the island is appended, below, FYI. Notable sightings included Reddish Egret, Blue-winged Teal, American Black/Mottled Duck, Sora, Piping Plover, American Avocet, Caspian Tern, Common Tern, and Wilson's Phalarope.

   Recent rains have raised the water level in Jack's Creek a couple of inches (as a guess), but, since Jack's is so shallow, those very few inches spread out the water surface appreciably. Most of the bottom remains exposed, however, and continues to attract shorebirds and even a few ducks. Now that the failed dike between Pool 3 and Jack's has been repaired, the water levels in Pool 3 are beginning to rise, but there has been a significant growth of tall plants that is, at least visually, choking out Pool 3. Maybe those plants will die off once that pool is fully reflooded. And the North Beach continues to accrete with early dune formation supported by vigorous vegetative growth, especially Carolina saltwort and sea oats.

   Thanking both David and Aubrey, we had had frequent naturalist discussions of different non-avian observations that we had on the day including seashore-elder growing just above the high tide mark on the accreting North Beach, monarch butterflies, banded water snakes, yellow flies (a.k.a. deer flies), a shark (blacktip, maybe bonnethead, 24 inches to 30 inches, dorsal fin and tail showing a distinct black trailing margin) swimming in 6 inches of water at the edge of the surf, and Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins.

   Looking ahead at the tidal calendar suggests the following dates for the next survey:

Wed 30 Sept 2015 6.7 ft high tide forecast at 10:02 AM

Thurs 1 Oct 2015 6.5 ft high tide forecast at 10:56 AM

Fri 2 Oct 2015 6.3 ft high tide forecast at 11:52 AM

David

Cape Romain NWR--Bulls Island, Charleston, South Carolina, US

Sep 17, 2015 9:53 AM - 3:33 PM

Protocol: Traveling

14.1 mile(s)

Comments:     Conducting the ongoing Bulls Island waterfowl/shorebird survey with David Gardner and Aubrey Greene. Effort: 10.6 mi and 1 hr 30 min by truck plus 3.5 mi and 4 hr 10 min by foot. Weather: overcast with trace rain all day; temps 72 F to 75 F; winds relatively steady from NNE at 8 mph to 10 mph; barometer steady at 30.10 in Hg. Tide was forecast 5.3 ft high at 10:54 AM.  <br />Submitted from BirdLog NA for iOS, version 1.6.3

68 species (+1 other taxa)

Wood Duck  1

American Black/Mottled Duck  3     No white trailing edge at speculum, plus a very vertical takeoff from water

Mallard  2

Mottled Duck  25

Blue-winged Teal  63

Pied-billed Grebe  8

Wood Stork  1

Double-crested Cormorant  34     Many on sand bar off North Beach

Anhinga  1

American White Pelican  18

Brown Pelican  140     Many on sand bar off North Beach

Great Blue Heron  2

Great Egret  8

Snowy Egret  14

Little Blue Heron  1

Tricolored Heron  5

Reddish Egret  5

Black-crowned Night-Heron  3

White Ibis  12

Turkey Vulture  2

Osprey  2

Clapper Rail  4

Sora  1

Common Gallinule  21

Black-necked Stilt  1

American Avocet  2

American Oystercatcher  2

Grey Plover  19

Semipalmated Plover  159     Most in oceanfront marsh at Jack's Creek

Piping Plover  4     No observed leg bands or flags.

Killdeer  1

Spotted Sandpiper  1

Greater Yellowlegs  8

Willet  37

Lesser Yellowlegs  14

Ruddy Turnstone  14

Sanderling  124     Dispersed through Jack's, North Beach, and oceanfront marsh at Jack's

Least Sandpiper  1

Pectoral Sandpiper  2

Semipalmated Sandpiper  98     A fairly accurate estimate

Western Sandpiper  102

peep sp.  80     Unidentified sandpiper species

Short-billed Dowitcher  20

Wilson's Phalarope  1

Laughing Gull  27

Great Black-backed Gull  2

Gull-billed Tern  2

Caspian Tern  34

Black Tern  2

Common Tern  1

Forster's Tern  2

Royal Tern  5

Black Skimmer  42

Mourning Dove  4

Ruby-throated Hummingbird  1

Belted Kingfisher  3

Eastern Kingbird  12

Blue Jay  2

Carolina Chickadee  3

Carolina Wren  5

Blue-grey Gnatcatcher  1

Eastern Bluebird  2

Northern Mockingbird  1

Common Yellowthroat  3

Northern Cardinal  4

Painted Bunting  3

Bobolink  4

Red-winged Blackbird  6

Boat-tailed Grackle  2

View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S25080010

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (/content/iss)

1 Sept 2015 survey. Fall is coming to the salt marsh, and the bird of the day was a sparrow.

Tues 1 Sept 2015

   The Spartina alterniflora (saltmarsh cordgrass) is producing seed heads and turning the grass tips to an ever-so-slightly-golden color. The full-on-summer green grasses are beginning to change. Fall is coming to the salt marshes.

   Steve Moore and Irvin Pitts joined me today for the ongoing Bulls Island waterfowl/shorebird survey. And what a beautiful day it was after such a wet weekend. Coastal Expedition's Captain Chris Crolley gave us the royal treatment in getting us over to Bulls Island. As Chris said, "This boat stops for sparrows." We pulled over to chase a likely Seaside Sparrow into the grasses and drifted right up to a Clapper Rail trying to manage the king tides that were dominating it's world today.

   We tallied 67 species on the day, not counting Irvin's list from Garris Landing where he tallied Bobolinks and Yellow Warbler among other species. Our eBird checklist from the island is appended, below, FYI.

   Recent rains on the island (approximately 1.6 inches on 26 Aug 2015 and approximately 3.1 inches over the last two days) has raised the water in Jack's Creek a guesstimated 3 inches and greatly expanded the margins of the water to cover much of what had been uncovered and drying for several months. The water level is still low, however, and will likely stay low with continued high evaporation rates from the late summer heat. The birds didn't seem to mind the change in water level too much…hope it doesn't interfere with the ongoing dike construction. And the failed dike along Alligator Alley between Pool 3 and Jack's Creek has been repaired and reopened. Pool 3 is already beginning to fill up with the recent rains.

   The bird of the day was not one of the target species. The first bird that we flushed in front of the truck driving north on Old Fort Road was a sparrow that quickly revealed itself to be a Lark Sparrow. Turned out to be a county list species for Irvin and a life list species for Steve. What a great way to start the day's birding! Other species of note included Reddish Egret, American Avocet, first-of-season (FOS) Blue-winged Teal, White-rumped Sandpiper, Black Tern, Piping Plover, and Pectoral Sandpiper.

   Non-avian sightings included a glass lizard, a cottonmouth, a bottle-nosed dolphin, a queen (i.e., butterfly, 2 of them actually), and numerous other butterfly species. Oh…and many mosquitoes and deer flies too.

   Looking ahead at the tidal calendar suggests the following dates to consider for our next survey:

Wed 16 Sept 2015 5.4 ft high tide forecast at 10:19 AM

Thurs 17 Sept 2015 5.3 ft high tide forecast at 10:54 AM

Fri 18 Sept 2015 5.3 ft high tide forecast at 11:31 AM

Sat 19 Sept 20155.3 ft high tide forecast at 12:14 PM

David

Cape Romain NWR--Bulls Island, Charleston, South Carolina, US

Sep 1, 2015 10:05 AM - 3:15 PM

Protocol: Traveling

13.599 mile(s)

Comments:     Conducting the ongoing Bulls Island waterfowl/shorebird survey with Steve Moore and Irvin Pitts. Effort: 10.1 mi and 1 hr 30 min by truck plus 3.5 mi and 3 hr 35 min by foot. Weather: sunny, warm, and humid; temps 78 F to 88 F; AM winds NW at <= 6 mph, PM winds SE at 6 mph; barometer steady at 30.05 in Hg. Tide was forecast 6.3 ft high at 10:23 AM.  <br />Submitted from BirdLog NA for iOS, version 1.6.3

64 species (+2 other taxa)

Wood Duck  3

Mottled Duck  19

Blue-winged Teal  33

Pied-billed Grebe  1

Wood Stork  1

Double-crested Cormorant  3

Anhinga  2

Brown Pelican  106     Estimate.

Great Blue Heron  1

Great Egret  29

Snowy Egret  37

Little Blue Heron  3

Tricolored Heron  7

Reddish Egret  4

Green Heron  6

Black-crowned Night-Heron  10

White Ibis  10

Glossy Ibis  1

Turkey Vulture  5

Osprey  2

Red-shouldered Hawk  2

Common Gallinule  5

Black-necked Stilt  2

American Avocet  4

American Oystercatcher  15

Grey Plover  81     A fairly accurate count.

Wilson's Plover  2

Semipalmated Plover  92

Piping Plover  1     No obvious leg bands or flags.

Spotted Sandpiper  5

Greater Yellowlegs  4

Willet  45

Lesser Yellowlegs  1

Marbled Godwit  70     Estimate.

Ruddy Turnstone  10

Sanderling  45     A fairly accurate count.

Least Sandpiper  4

White-rumped Sandpiper  1     Distinct primary feather extension beyond tail feathers. Moderately long slightly decurved bill. ID independently agreed upon by 2 observers.

Pectoral Sandpiper  1

Semipalmated Sandpiper  13

Western Sandpiper  10

peep sp.  10     Too distant for ID to species.

Short-billed Dowitcher  5

Laughing Gull  104

Least Tern  3

Gull-billed Tern  3

Caspian Tern  6

Black Tern  32

Common Tern  12

Forster's Tern  19

Royal Tern  56

Sandwich Tern  6

Black Skimmer  55

Mourning Dove  8

Ruby-throated Hummingbird  1

Belted Kingfisher  3

Red-bellied Woodpecker  1

Downy Woodpecker  1

Eastern Kingbird  2

crow sp.  2

Barn Swallow  18

Northern Mockingbird  3

Lark Sparrow  1     Heavily streaked head plumage; distinct central breast spot on otherwise uniformly light gray breast plumage.

Northern Cardinal  6

Red-winged Blackbird  1

Boat-tailed Grackle  1

View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S24855871

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (/content/iss)