The Golden Bird and St. Simon's

Our next stop after Jekyll was a causeway in the Brunswick, GA area.  It was not the prettiest spot, and we had to bird watch from a gravel road that was a good distance from the water. For those reasons, all of my pictures from this spot are grey and fuzzy, so I won't share many. 

 

However, I have to share one because...

 

Here is our golden bird!
The American Avocet!
The boys have been wanting
 to spot one of these
since 2009.
Hooray!
(my apologies for the pic quality)

 

Then we made our way to St. Simon's Island.  It was a very blustery day!  In fact, the boys wondered if a hurricane was coming.  No hurricanes, fortunately, but the winds were so strong that we had difficulty keeping our binoculars and the camera steady.

Despite the weather, there were many birds to see!

 

 

Such a beautiful place!

 

 

More egrets :)

 

 

We took a little time to visit Bloody Marsh,
(homeschoolers are always up for a history lesson)
where the Scotish Highlanders defeated the Spanish,
forcing them from the Georgia colony.

 

We also birded the causeway to St. Simon's
where we spotted many birds.
This was a new one for our lifelist:
Ruddy Turnstone.

 

 



Next time we'll travel a little farther up the coast to one of my favorite places in the state of Georgia: Harris Neck Wildlife Refuge.

Happy birding!
Dawn

Favorite Pictures from Jekyll

 

Last month, we visited the Georgia coast.  Which part you ask?  Well, all of it!

We started south and birded the best spots (as listed in Giff Beaton's Birding Georgia) between Jekyll Island and Savannah.  We returned home with lots of sand in our shoes, major sunburns, hundreds of amazing memories, a feeling of refreshment, and well over 600 pictures.

I do not think anyone will stick around for a 600 picture slide show, so I won't share all of them.  I had planned just to share my favorites in one post until I started the process of loading all those photos.

Ahem, I have quite a few favorites! ;)

I decided it would be best to break this into a few posts by locations we visited.  It will be like a mini-version of our vacation.  We will start the tour at Jekyll Island, one of the most beautiful places on the planet!

Enjoy!  I sure did.  :)

Walking to the beach as the sun was rising

 

 

The boys and I search for birds.

Great Blue Heron

Snowy Egrets

We visited the Jekyll Island Banding Station. 
One of the volunteers had met us 2 or 3 years ealier when she was birding on our side of the state. 
She recognized us and took us on a net run.  Here, she has just released a Grey Catbird from the nets
and is taking it to be banded and released.

A new life-lister for us: Sanderlings!

 

 

Great Egret

 

We're not just about the birds!
We saw lots of wildlife, including several types of dragonflies.

 

The bridge leading on to Jekyll is gorgeous!

 

Getting Creative

 

Return soon for pictures from a causeway in the Brunswick area, where we added a much-sought-after bird to our list.  We will also visit St. Simons Island.

 

Happy birding!

Dawn