Overnight survey was a privilege producing a life list species, a trifecta...oh, and shorebirds

Fri 18 May 2018

Due to scheduling conflicts I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to conduct a waterfowl/shorebird survey on Bulls during the current high tides. Thanks to the suggestion from my wife (thanks Nan!) I requested permission to spend Tuesday night in the Dominick House to be on site for Wednesday’s earlier forecast high tide, i.e., earlier than typical for my ongoing survey efforts. It all worked so well that I’ll be making similar requests for overnights more often. 

I didn’t depart from Garris Landing until after 4:00 PM Tuesday after seeing the Coastal Expeditions ferry passengers disembark back at Garris Landing. The only thing hurrying me along for that boat ride out was seeing a heavy cloudburst a few miles south of my location, and I didn’t see that until I was about half-way to Bulls. Once safe and dry on the island I took an evening bird walk around the picnic grounds, out Beach Road and Lighthouse Road then back by Big Pond Road and Sheepshead Ridge Road. Somehow one specific bird high up in a tree caught my eye. I had never seen a Rose-breasted Grosbeak before but knew instantly that that was what I was looking at. Chalk up another life list species for me from Bulls!

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

I had planned to walk until dark so that I could listen for Chuck-will’s-widows (CWWIs) at and after sunset. Turned out that I had enough time after my walk to drive up to the main shorebird high tide roost, specifically the oceanfront saltwater marsh at Jack’s Creek, to see what was there. I had a half hour on station as the sun set and as the high tide peaked almost simultaneously. I tallied 17 species there including over 500 Red Knots. 

Driving back along Lighthouse Road in the dark I heard my first Chuck. Almost immediately after that the truck headlights picked up an unusual, at least to me, reflection from the roadway ahead, so I stopped. It was so brightly reflective in the dark, and at such a great distance, that I first thought it might be some forgotten artificial reflector as used along roadways to mark ditches and driveways. It had this weird orange to yellow-orange color and was right down on the road. Then it blinked at me, several times. I was able to drive much closer before flushing a Chuck-will’s-widow from the roadway. Then in about another hundred meters I saw another one just like the first. Very cool to see those eye reflections.

But I wasn’t finished with Chuck-will’s-widows. Wednesday morning in bright daylight as I walked off the North Beach I flushed a Chuck-will’s-widow from the roadway. It flew a very short distance, landed on the ground again, and started doing a little hooded wing flutter behavior. I ended up with killer spotting scope views and several digiscope pictures of a Chuck both on the ground and on a tree limb. My best view ever of a CWWI. I’ll call that a trifecta: heard calling (several times), reflective eyes, and posing in full daylight!

Chuck-will's-widow

Another of the nightjar species, a male Common Nighthawk, also entertained me with both its peent vocalizations and its wing “booms” made at the bottom of its steep courtship dives. In fact I was beginning to think that this particular bird had taken exception to my presence as it appeared to dive directly above me three or four times in quick succession, “booming” its flight feathers on its wings as if to drive me off. A memorable interaction.

I also studied a pelagic bird at distance over Bulls Bay through my spotting scope. I’ve not yet identified this bird, but it initially reminded me of a Northern Gannet (by approximate size, shape, location, and behavior). It had a big, longish, non-forked tail; long, pointy wings; light ventral plumage; and dark dorsal plumage. It appeared to hold its head well out in front (straight out), slightly down (loon-like), and with a fairly pointy bill shape. It was larger and leaner than a gull. If anyone has a suggestion on a possible ID I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts.

Not to be outdone by these great birds, the shorebirds were resting in good number at the oceanfront saltwater marsh at Jack’s at both Tuesday evening’s high tide, as related above, and again during Wednesday morning’s high tide. Red Knots, Dunlin, Semipalmated Plovers, Black-bellied Plovers, Semipalmated Sandpipers, and Short-billed Dowitchers were present in high numbers, almost all showing full alternate (breeding) plumage. 

Other observations from this great overnight birding outing included the obvious absence of horseshoe crabs (at least on the North Beach where I’ve seen many in prior Mays). I saw two black racers (snakes), raccoons, two deer, several fox squirrels, Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, butterflies, deer flies, dragonflies, and American alligators (all but one staying in the water; the one out sunning was actually gaping its mouth perhaps attempting to keep cool). 

A dragonfly, perhaps a female Four-spotted Pennant, on my tripod

Unfortunately Upper Summerhouse Pond is heavily stressed showing an off color, many jumping fish, and a big fish kill; I don’t know the source of this stress (the pond is really shallow and should easily turn over in the winds thus keeping the aeration sufficient), but something has hurt it, badly.

Even though there were distant cloud banks at Tuesday’s sunset, I was able to see both Jupiter rising in the eastern sky and Venus setting just behind the sun in the west. Jupiter was so bright that I first mistook it for Venus. It occurred to me Tuesday night that I was very likely the most geographically isolated person in Charleston County, likely further afield. The solitude and rest was the opposite of isolation, rather I felt relaxed, comfortable, and immensely fortunate to be able to have the island, and likely the entire Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, to myself. 

My daughter, Ann, and I recently helped Mary Catherine Martin (SCDNR) in posting beach closings on the southern end of Lighthouse Island in the northern reaches of the Cape Romain NWR. It is a disappointing reality that any areas within a National Wildlife Refuge need to be closed to protect the wildlife, but this is the reality. Similar closings have been made on many other coastal beaches, banks, and sand bars both developed and undeveloped, along S.C.’s coast. Audubon S.C. continues its shorebird stewardship program to educate people on avian conservation efforts. The simple message is for people to share the beaches with the shorebirds. It’s shorebird nesting time, and the shorebirds need simply to be left alone. Do go out to see the shorebirds, study and observe them from a distance, but keep both people and dogs away from posted closings. It’s the shorebirds’ home, and it’s likely a life-or-death interaction for the specific birds nesting right there on the sand. Give the birds this simple respect of leaving them alone and, thus, give them their best change of living and reproducing. Then there will be more birds to see and enjoy!

David

Tufted Duck still present in Jack's Creek, but many ducks have apparently already left

F 23 Feb 2018

We had a special two day, overnight survey on Bulls this past Monday and Tuesday, 19 to 20 Mar 2018. John Cox and Kent Bedenbaugh were able to join me for what is always a more relaxed and enjoyable survey effort capped off by an overnight stay in the Dominick House on Bulls. We weren’t the only birders on the island though as the house was full of shorebird researchers, a couple of whom are staying in the house from January through April and about a dozen of whom were there for a few days and nights attempting to net and band shorebirds. John, Kent, and I watched the sun set across the marsh (John and Kent both saw the green flash through their binoculars, I missed seeing it without my binoculars) then we watched the sun rise over the Boneyard Beach the next morning. Over the two day survey we tallied 80 species of birds.

The Tufted Duck (TUDU) has been seen by several other birders and is being listed on eBird checklists as a “continuing bird at this location.” We were fortunate enough to see the TUDU from three different vantage points around Jack’s Creek: from the Old Fort, from the elbow of the emergency dike oceanfront at Jack’s, and from the Observation Deck at the terminus of Sheepshead Ridge Road. Each time the TUDU was easily located floating, apparently contentedly, with Ruddy Ducks and an occasional Lesser Scaup. Scopes were needed to confirm the duck’s identity, but we could easily see the TUDU with binoculars as being different from the other ducks. Most of the Lesser Scaup that the TUDU was associated with when we originally located it appear to be gone. Seems somewhat early for waterfowl migration, at least according to the calendar, but this is why we tally the birds in the first place. I’ve begun looking at the big picture of six years of survey data and will next look at waterfowl in Jack’s trying to get a specific handle on spring migration dates. I’m hoping that the TUDU will hang out in Jack’s until the next survey.

I was pleased to get a fair look at the shorebirds for the first time this winter. Having missed several survey dates in both December and January, and then being distracted by the Tufted Duck in early February, I’ve missed shorebird surveying opportunities since November. I was disappointed to find absolutely no shorebirds on the North Beach on Monday. We did see a few Black Scoters and Northern Gannets in the waters off the beach plus numerous gulls, terns, and pelicans on Bird Key Bulls Bay (the sand bar in Bulls Bay off the North Beach), but nothing at all on the sands of the North Beach itself. I believe that this is the first time in my survey efforts that the North Beach had no shorebirds of any species or number. It’s not the high tide shorebird roost that it used to be. The beach itself appears to recovering nicely from the effects of Hurricanes Matthew and Irma offering good shelling, slowly growing dunes and vegetation, and its usual constant shoreline flux.

There were fair numbers of shorebirds, however, in the oceanfront saltwater marsh at Jack’s. The shorebird researchers, about a dozen of them, were on site in that marsh setting up drop nets trying to net some of the shorebirds. Fortunately we were able to survey the shorebirds present before they were ready to drop their net. I don’t think that we interfered with their effort nor do I feel that they interfered with our effort. We did tally two Piping Plovers, both banded birds that we’ve seen on Bulls before, and a Wilson’s Plover along with the expected Dunlin, Short-billed Dowitchers, and Semipalmated Plovers. Unfortunately for the banders the birds didn’t cooperate; the birds didn’t walk under the net set, refused to be corralled towards the net, and ultimately flew off to the beaches as the tides were dropping thus exposing apparently good feeding grounds. 

On Tuesday morning, after watching the sun rise over the Boneyard Beach and after looking, unsuccessfully, for the TUDU again in Jack’s (from the Observation Deck), we spent about an hour birding the grounds around the Dominick House, one of my favorite birding locations. In that hour we tallied 26 species including a White-eyed Vireo. The highlight of Tuesday’s survey was a large, loose raft of Black Scoter off the front beach (though not in the defined survey area proper). Both Upper Summerhouse Pond and Lower Summerhouse Pond were slow birding, so we spent much of that time looking at all the American alligators hauled out enjoying the warm February day.

David

A rare Eurasian visitor to Bulls: Tufted Duck

Sun 4 Dec 2018

Bulls Island is a special place, even among the many wonderful natural settings along the S.C. coast. Last June Bulls hosted a (likely), first S.C. record Black-whiskered Vireo (BWVI). That Floridian and Caribbean specialist species, closely related to our summer resident Red-eyed Vireo, found something of value on Bulls. I wrote about that BWVI on an earlier post to this blog dated 14 June 2017. Once again Bulls has produced another (possible) first state record sighting, this time of of a Tufted Duck (TUDU). This abundant species is normally distributed throughout Europe, Northern Africa, northern Asia, and Southeast Asia but is a known rare visitor to North America, usually along the western coast from Alaska south to California. It is listed as a rare to very rare visitor to the eastern coast of North America, but that status was sufficient that it even got included on the artist’s plate of bay ducks of my trusty 1980 Peterson [east] Guide.

David Youngblood joined me last Friday for our ongoing waterfowl/shorebird survey on Bulls Island. We had just arrived at the Old Fort on the bay side of Jack’s Creek, our first stop on the survey, and were scoping ducks that were out on the open water of Jack’s. We started scoping from the roadway where we were partially hidden from the birds and before we walked out to the open edge of Jack’s; we wanted to see what we could before possibly flushing the ducks as we walked out. From that location, and mostly looking into the sun on a brightly overcast morning, we started calling out duck species including Lesser Scaup, Ruddy Duck, Pied-billed Grebe (okay, they’re not a duck proper, but they are “ducky”), Gadwall, and Ring-necked Duck (RNDU). RNDU are not common on Bulls so I was trying to get a positive view for identification. That RNDU call turned out to be premature.

My eye kept being drawn back to one floating duck with a bright white flank. The more I looked at that clean white side the more the duck’s very dark, even black, back drew my attention. After a very quick mental accounting I couldn’t recall any expected duck species with such a sharp contrast between a dark back (what duck has a black back, I kept thinking to myself) and a bright white side? About that time I focused on the duck’s head that it was keeping tucked between its wings and noticed an obvious feather tuft being blown around in the wind. I’d never seen any duck with a tuft on its head, but I did recall seeing such a species in a field guide. Couldn’t be, I thought as a hustled back for my paper field guides. But there it was in my Peterson Guide, a Tufted Duck. 

Exciting prospect, indeed. Quick, take photos! Study through the scope. All seems right for a Tufted Duck. Move closer but still partially hidden then repeat photos and scope study. Convinced. What else could it be? Just how many ducks are there with dark head and neck, dark back, dark butt, and a strikingly-contrasting bright white flank, yellow eye, and showing a distinct feather tuft on its head? We finally moved fully out to the edge and as close to the flotilla of ducks as we could get. David Youngblood took many photos and videos and I took what I hoped would be documentary digiscope images with my iPhone camera. 

Boy, we’ve gotta tell someone about this! Just then Sarah Dawsey, Cape Romain NWR Refuge Manager, pulled up to the Old Fort with a couple of alligator sleuths and began unloading a jon boat. I ran over and eagerly motioned for them to come see this rare duck that we were watching. What better confirmation of our finding than by the Refuge Manager! They were gracious and respectful of our sighting, but David and I were wearing ourselves out with excitement! [Their alligator story was also compelling. Seems there had been a recent die off of American alligators across the island. They were there to haul out and necropsy those gators. Five of the 8 gators had stomachs full of ducks. This was largely an unexpected observation as it’s generally thought that alligators don’t eat much during the cold of winter; they need warmth from the sun to properly aid in digestion. Though David and I saw many, many alligators out warming in the overcast sun on Friday, they’re still trying to figure out possible causes of this particular alligator die off.]

We were absolutely convinced that we were watching a Tufted Duck. Here’s the description that I wrote for our eBird checklist (https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S42446245): “Scaup-sized, dark head showing distinct tuft, dark back, dark butt, bright white sides below folded wings. Dark throat and upper breast ends sharply to a bright white lower breast. Yellow eye. Bright white sides contrasts very sharply and with razor-sharp borders to the dark head/back/butt. Tuft seen clearly on bird resting with bill tucked between wings and when holding head up alertly.”

Photo by David Youngblood.

Photo by David Youngblood.

In all we spent more than 2 hours watching, studying, photographing, and videoing this one duck. Unfortunately that meant that we had really missed the morning’s high tide that pushes the shorebirds to high tide roosts. So we missed almost all the shorebirds for the day, but the consolation was a rare Eurasian Tufted Duck, possibly a first state record. David has graciously shared this link to his Flickr page where many of the photos and several of his videos are available for viewing: https://www.flickr.com/photos/55533409@N08/ 

I was back on Bulls Island yesterday, Saturday 3 Feb 2018, leading a field trip for the Charleston Natural History Society. Coastal Expeditions and Captain Chris Crolley dropped us off on the North Beach from where we walked to the Old Fort on Jack’s to look for the Tufted Duck. Along with a few other birders chasing the Tufted Duck that morning we had several scopes searching among a flotilla of 1600 Lesser Scaup and Ruddy Ducks, but failed to relocate the Tufted Duck. Given that collective effort, I’m confident that we had a better than even chance of spotting the TUDU had it been there in that raft. Our consolation for the day’s field trip was a tally of 84 species on the day including Northern Pintail, American Black Duck, Mallard (not at all common on Bulls), Ring-necked Duck, Bald Eagle, several passerine species (that I mostly don’t see on my surveys because I’m usually looking out onto the water), and very few shorebirds (we skipped looking for shorebirds to look instead at ducks).

Our next survey on Bulls will be a special 2-day overnight survey on Mon 19 Feb 2018 to Tues 20 Feb 2018. Anyone want to stay overnight in the Dominick House? Hopefully the Tufted Duck will hang out until then.

David

P.S. I’ve come to understand that there is an ongoing discussion about our Tufted Duck ID on the ABA Rare Bird Alert Facebook page. A suggestion has been made that this specific duck may in fact be a hybrid individual between a Tufted Duck and a Ring-necked Duck. We are also awaiting confirmation from the eBird reviewers. We’ll soon submit a report to the S.C. state bird records committee but don’t expect a decision from them for several months.

Ducks, ducks, and more ducks.

Mon 15 Jan 2018

It’s been tough getting out to Bulls Island for the past couple of months. Multiple conflicts, including archery hunts for deer, holiday schedules, and temperatures so low that outboard motors froze, have kept me off of the island. Fortunately I was able to assist with the annual mid-winter Bald Eagle survey last Friday and that got me out to the island. 

One route, of many, for the mid-winter Bald Eagle survey covers the boat ride out to Bulls and the territory of Bulls Island itself. David Youngblood and Dan Hoke joined me for the day. This one survey route, specifically on Bulls, includes a waterfowl survey that serves as the mid-winter waterfowl survey for the island. With a late morning low tide allowing the shorebirds to disperse into their feeding grounds, it was less than ideal timing for shorebirds, but that was OK because I was back on the island.

A good friend of mine is fond of saying that any day you see a Bald Eagle is a good day’s birding. (Thanks, Starr. That’s good advice that I am fond of sharing.) With that in mind, our day’s birding got off to a terrific start as one of our first birds was a mature Bald Eagle perched atop a navigation marker. That ended up being our one Bald Eagle sighting on the day; another survey team surveying up the ICWW from Garris Landing to the Cape Romain Lighthouse on the same day made up for our low count by tallying 16 Bald Eagles on the day. 

Our next best birds of the day flew past our boat on the back side of Bulls. Six ducks flushed ahead of our boat, flew away before circling back by our boat then disappearing across the marsh. Through rain-spotted and fogged optics we identified six Long-tailed Ducks! David Youngblood was able to take a series of photographs through the rain and at distance (one is presented here with David’s permission). See all of David’s photos on our eBird checklist at: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41882402.

Photo by David Youngblood.

Our third best bird for the day was the last species that we tallied for the day. Floating in a mixed flock of ducks on Jack’s Creek near the Old Fort was one Canvasback! I tallied a pair of Canvasbacks on my last Bulls survey (24 Nov 2017); perhaps Canvasbacks may be spending the winter on Bulls. I recall Canvasbacks as being fairly numerous along the S.C. coast back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, especially at Huntington Beach State Park, but have found this species to be rarely seen along this coast since. 

So our mid-winter Bald Eagle and waterfowl survey on Bulls was bookended by really great sightings. For the meat of that survey sandwich we were left to identify and count thousands of ducks, mostly on Jack’s Creek. High numbers of Gadwall, American Wigeon, Redhead, Ring-necked Duck, Ruddy Duck, and American Coot were accompanied by other good waterfowl species including Northern Shoveler, Mallard (not common at all on Bulls), Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead, Hooded Merganser, and Pied-billed Grebe. We had a scattering of Blue-winged Teal but no Green-winged Teal. (I found 1200 Green-winged Teal on Saturday’s Charleston Natural History Society annual field trip up to Santee NWR’s Bluff Unit; maybe that’s where they’ve all been hiding out.) 

I will be leading a field trip for the Charleston Natural History Society, a.k.a. Charleston Audubon, out to Bulls Island on Sat 3 Feb 2018. We’ll be taking the Coastal Expeditions (CEX) Ferry Caretta departing Garris Landing at 7:30 AM; they will drop us off and pick us up on the North Beach thus allowing us to bird the best shorebird habitat and waterfowl habitat that Bulls offers while minimizing our hiking distance on the island. Please join us for this field trip to see some of the wonderful waterfowl and shorebird numbers present on Bulls. Book your seat through CEX’s online booking site: https://bookeo.com/coastalexpeditions. 

David