Fairfield county, 1/1/2001

["Donna S. Bailey" <dsbailey@conterra.com>]

Some pre-count scouting for the Lake Wateree CBC by Molly Bonnell and me
yielded a few interesting birds - 8-9 Common Snipe and 15-20 Hooded
Mergansers.  The snipe were cooperative and allowed us excellent looks.  We
didn't find any Bonaparte's Gulls today, just Ring-billed and a flyover
single Herring.  Other ducks we found today were Mallards and
Ring-neck/Scaup (we couldn't get a good enough look to distinguish).  We had
several examples of why it is profitable to bird Wateree with a boat.  There
were several large shoals of gulls too far away to ID and those Ring-neck/Scaup.

However at the house here things were quite interesting.  The feeders were
overflowing this morning.  I counted 43 Goldfinches at one point.  As I
stood outside listening to a HETH "tut" and "phew" at me, I heard another
chip note, a sparrow chip note.  About that time, a sparrow flew to the top
of a nearby tree.  Looking at it through binos confirmed my ear ID - a Fox
Sparrow, a handsome "foxy" one.  This afternoon, on a walk through the
creekbottom, I found, among the few birds found this afternoon, a Winter
Wren.  I didn't get a good look, but between a quick glimpse and the few
call notes heard and what it was doing (fidgeting around in the roots of
washed up weeds on the shore of the creek), I figure it was a Winter Wren.
That is my first one for the winter in the creekbottom.

And, just for fun, a few transient weather factoids:

According to the Weather Channel, Billings, Montana, will be warmer than
Charleston, SC, tomorrow.  By just a degree or two, but...and the high in
Copenhagen, *Denmark*, will be higher than Columbia tomorrow.  Think I'll
move someplace warmer - like Billings, Montana!

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