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Singing Blue-headed Vireo and some shorebirds



Had my first singing Blue-headed Vireo of the year today, Monday 3/10,
while birding along the elevated boardwalk at Congaree Swamp NM.  Also heard
3 or 4 Yellow-throated Warblers, and saw a couple of Winter Wrens, Hermit
Thrushes and Ruby-crowned Kinglets.  This is my favorite time of year, seems
like everyday brings something new.  The water level along the boardwalk had
dropped at least a foot since my visit yesterday.  Yesterday I also saw a
Mud Turtle and a Spotted Turtle, the first Spotted Turtle I have ever seen.
At the flooded fields along Beckahm Swamp Rd. this morning were a bunch of
Killdeer, scores of American Pipits, a half dozen Savannah Sparrows, 3 Wood
Ducks, 3 Hooded Mergs, 10 Lesser Yellowlegs, 5 Greater Yellowlegs, 30
Pectoral Sandpipers and 48 Ring-billed Gulls.  A rather bizarre spectacle
was as many as 25 large carp rooting around the open fields, trapped by the
receding flood waters.  The vultures and gulls will have a field day
(literally) picking at the carcasses of these carp when the water runs out
of there in the next couple of days.

Mike Turner
Columbia, SC