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Fairfield County NAMC preliminary




As has been reported, the weather made for different birding for this year's
Fall North American Migration Count for Bob Ellis, Kathleen O'Grady and me
in Fairfield county.  Ironically, I think the wind is to blame for both our
good and our bad fortune yesterday.

By 6:30 AM, I had already been listening to heavy winds blow for two hours.
Two hours of nocturnal listening yielded three birds - a half-heard Screech
Owl, a "maybe a Swainson's Thrush", and a "was that a Veery?"  I kept hoping
the winds would lay down but they never did.

When the first Turkey Vulture appeared over the treetops before 7:00 AM, I
knew it was going to be a different kind of day birding.

As I expected, the wind forced the smaller birds to hide themselves and made
hearing them difficult.  We ended the day with four warbler species, one of
them a year-round resident. We managed to scare up Pine Warbler (a few),
Northern Parula (1), Magnolia Warbler (1), American Redstart (2).  

What the winds brought us instead were raptors.  We ended the day with a
excellent selection of raptors, including Bald Eagle (3), Osprey (2),
Northern Harrier (1 - and previously unrecorded in Fairfield county for
NAMC), American Kestrel (4), Broad-winged Hawk (1), Red-shouldered Hawk (2),
Red-tailed Hawk (3).  As usual, Bob Ellis spotted and identified all the
good "wire birds", most of them hawks, before the rest of could even get our
binoculars to our faces.

The winds also had to be responsible for the highlight of our day and the
easiest to find birds of the day.  Two Caspian Terns sailed over our heads
as we walked out a restaurant/marina on the banks of Lake Wateree where we
stopped for lunch.  While I had had a spare thought or two about hoping to
find the Black Terns that come to Lake Wateree in August, I hadn't given a
thought to Caspian Terns.

It was a different day.  Warblers on the coast, terns in the Piedmont. Fall
NAMC is always a surprise when you put the whole puzzle together!

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