Summer School: Ornithology

While on vacation,

we saw a painted bunting for the first time at Skidaway Island,

near Savannah, Georgia.

This is where we camped for the first two days of our vacation.

We heard more birds than we saw.

In fact, we woke up to a chorus each morning

and had difficulty identifying the birds we heard

because there were so many

and because we are not familiar with coastal birds.

This is the 1st time I have ever photographed a hummingbird.

It was taken near our campground at Skidaway Island.

This is a lake at Harris Neck Wildlife Refuge, near Savannah, Georgia.

We saw little blue herons, common moorhens, black-crowned night herons,

wood ducks, cattle egret, northern bobwhite and white ibis here.

We also heard many types of warblers, buntings, and other song birds.

The white birds in the trees closest to the foreground are

great and snowy egrets.

There were also many anhingas mixed in with the egrets.

On the trees in the background were wood storks.

We spent three days in Charleston, South Carolina.

Here are the boys bird watching on The Battery in historic downtown.

They spotted royal tern, brown pelican, laughing gull, and boat-tailed grackle.

You can also see Fort Sumter behind them in the distance.

We (Wilbur was 1st to see it and gets major kudos for this spot) 

also spotted ospreys nesting in trees along the highway

to the beach we visited each evening.

We were unable to get a picture because of the location

along the very busy road.

We ended the birding portion of our vacation at Francis Biedler Forest,

about one hour north of Charleston.

We saw many prothonotary warblers and heard a variety of other birds.

We heard almost every species of woodpecker specific to the swamp.

We followed a boardwalk through the swamp

which made the walk easy and pleasant.

Just before leaving, we saw this barred owl perched 

about ten feet from the boardwalk.