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Lake Wateree SP & other, 13 April 2002




Kathleen O'Grady and I visited Lake Wateree SP today, after a long stop at
the Road #41 "Blue-headed Vireo" stop and Taylor Creek Landing.

At the Road #41 stop, we opened to the car doors to a veritable wall of
birdsong.  These are the spring mornings I live for!  Among the singers at
Road #41 this morning were Ovenbird, Worm-eating Warbler, Black-and-white
Warbler, Prairie Warbler, American Goldfinch, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Eastern
Phoebe, Yellow-throated Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, and, of course, the star of
the show, Blue-headed Vireo.  The Barn Swallows have returned to the area
under the I-77 bridge over Road #41.

We stopped at the Taylor Creek Landing to check on the nesting Cliff
Swallows under the bridge, but there were a few surprises waiting for us at
Taylor Creek.  A slightly different warblersong set me to looking for the
author and I wasn't too surprised to find the singer to be a Yellow-rumped
Warbler.  A "wire bird" turned out to be a newly-returned Eastern Kingbird.
A Common Yellowthroat sang persistently in a regenerating clearcut at the
back of the parking area.  The swallows were abundant and busy under the
bridge.  A search for the singer of what I thought was a fragment of oriole
song proved fruitless but I knew if the Orchard Orioles were back, they
would be at Lake Wateree SP.  

At Lake Wateree SP, we found a few lingering Ring-billed Gulls and singing
Prothonotary Warblers, along with quite a few singing Yellow-rumped
Warblers, singing Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Wood Duck, many Double-crested
Cormorants, singing Red-eyed Vireo, singing Brown Thrasher.  Though several
searches for suspected Orioles proved as fruitless as the first, late in the
afternoon, finally, Kathleen and I saw a lovely male Orchard Oriole.
Another year for the records - for eight years now, the Eastern Kingbird and
the Orchard Oriole have returned on the same day to the same favored nesting
areas in Fairfield county.  Usually that day is April 14 but this year they
are a day "early".  In the yard here, for many years, they nested in the
same tree, the only species of bird I ever saw the Kingbird tolerate near
his nest.  

So the returning migrant tally for the day is three:  Eastern Kingbird,
Prothonotary Warbler and Orchard Oriole.  A morning of warblersong and an
Orchard Oriole in the afternoon. Other than a Northern Mockingbird in the
parking lot of Lake Wateree SP who kept doing an excellent rendition of the
Summer Tanager's "nipee tuk tuk" call and causing me to look every time, it
was an excellent day afield!   

["Bird news only readers", hit delete]  Non-avian sighting of interest was a
Brown Water Snake (Nerodia taxispilota) swimming at the edge of the water in
Lake Wateree SP, a nicely patterned individual showing all the lack of
concern for human observation that the genus usually displays.
Donna Slyce Bailey
Winnsboro, SC

e-mail: dsbailey@conterra.com

URL: http://www.conterra.com/dsbailey
     "Where are the Birds?  Migration across South Carolina"