I just returned from our traditional family vacation to Kiawah Island, SC. For
those of you who follow gold, you know of Kiawah as the site of recent PGA
Championship and Ryder Cup – all of the golf and lovely golf courses are lost
on me. But, Kiawah is a great place to bird. The island is just south east of
Charleston, SC, and contains a long stretch of ocean beach, lagoons, marshes,
very expensive houses, and a habitat very different from Lexington, VA. My
daughter, Lucy, and I birded everyday with the goals of getting 100+ species
and a photograph of every species. We ended up with 102 species. There were
some misses for example Common Loon and Downy Woodpecker. We did have a few
very good finds. A Reddish Egret has been on the island for several weeks and
we lucked into it one afternoon as the light was failing. We also located a
pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers – the first reported on the island in at least 5
years. There were 100s of Dunlin, many Semipalmated Plovers, Least Sandpipers,
a few Western Sandpipers, Red Knots, Ruddy Turnstones, Black-bellied Plovers,
and Marbled Godwits. The usual gulls and terns were there – Caspian, Royal,
Forster’s terns, Ring-billed, Herring, Laughing, and Bonaparte’s gulls. Most
of the herons and egrets were present as well as one very cooperative American
Bittern, Sedge Wren and several alligators.
I have begun posting photos onto my Flickr site, but it will take a few days to
edit all of them. If you are interested here are the first few:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vmibiology/
Also, I’ve noted some traffic about the Greater White-fronted Geese in
Rockbirdge County. The first was located on 16 Novermber 2014 and the 3
individuals were located on 6 December 2014. It looks like they will stick
around most of the winter unless the lake freezes. Photos of these birds can
been seen at the bottom of this album
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vmibiology/sets/72157629560267663/
Dick Rowe
VMI Biology
