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a weekend of migrants




With the early returning migrants already back (in the lower Piedmont of SC,
that is Red-winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles in mid to late February
followed closely by the Brown-headed Cowbirds returning on March 1),
Kathleen O'Grady and I headed to Congaree Swamp on Saturday to catch the
first of the warbler migration.  We were not disappointed, finding a good
number of singing Yellow-throated Warblers and a glimpse of a non-singing
Parula.  We also found a few Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. Winter visitors still
present included Ruby-crowned Kinglets (unfortunately not singing yet),
Golden-crowned Kinglets (who were singing), Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers.  We
also found Tufted Titmice signing and courting, as well as courting Carolina
Chickadees.

Today, I observed just a trickle of raptor migration.  About noon, from the
comfort of my own front steps, I watched a Sharp-shinned Hawk make a
half-hearted run on my feeders, perch in a nearby oak tree for a moment then
fly off.  As I watched, he found a thermal and climbed higher and higher
into the thermal, eventually heading out WNW from the thermal.  Half an hour
later, another Sharp-shinned went by, high overhead and flapping
occasionally, headed in exactly the same direction. Less than ten minutes
later, two buteos flew over high overhead, found the same thermal that the
first Sharp-shinned had and rode up for a ways.  One buteo winked out before
I had a chance to identify it; the other was a Red-shouldered Hawk, who
eventually headed off in exactly the same direction as the Sharp-shinneds.
While we have resident Red-shoulders, these two acted like migrants, flying
high and catching thermals and lining out and away.  Oddly enough, all these
birds were following almost exactly the same path or arc of the sky that
most of the night migrants seem to travel along when they are migrating.
Then a wind from the north started and I saw no more birds until almost
sunset.  At that hour when the thermal lift begins to disappear and soaring
migrants begin to come down from the sky, I watched in amazement as vultures
began to drop down, literally out of the blue, winking into view almost
directly overhead.  I had four small groups of vultures before they stopped,
for a total of about thirty birds, mostly Turkey Vultures but including 5-6
Black Vultures. They followed each other in ragged lines, all headed for the
same point, WSW of my observation point.  

Migration is underway!



Donna Bailey
Winnsboro, SC
e-mail: dsbailey@conterra.com
URL: http://www.conterra.com/dsbailey
     "Where are the Birds?  Migration across South Carolina"