Please come Join us in 2025
On December 16, 2024 our monthly Learning Together on Seabrook Island Golf Courses ended with a day filled with surprises. Before I share with you some of the highlights, I want to encourage you to consider joining us in 2025. SIB calls this Learning Together as it is a fantastic opportunity to learn about birding and about the diverse birds that live or migrate through our island. So, if you are striving to improve your birding skills or just want to experience a great 2 plus hours communing with nature this is the place to be. OK now for the highlights.
Our year end Learning Together on the Ocean Winds golf course started off with a heavy overcast and chilly morning. Normally there are birds perched at the club house but there were no birds to be spotted nor heard. I was starting to think this was going to be an outing with limited bird sightings.
On our very first stop there was a group of 5 Double-crested Cormorants, all in a line, with their wings expanded drying off. Some of us stopped to take photos and the Double-crested Cormorants acted as though they enjoyed the photo session.
As we started to move on to the next stop, Shelley exclaimed as an American Bald Eagle flew right over us and took a perch in a tree nearby. So, the photo session started once more.
While we were watching the Bald Eagle, a couple of Belted Kingfishers started their territorial defense flights over a nearby lagoon. They have such distinctive sounds, and they are very territorial. We know that the Sanders family has named one of them “Kevin” the Kingfisher . He patrols a lagoon near their home. We have also heard, through the grapevine, that he might have a girlfriend. I will keep you posted on any new reports.
Our next stops were at bird feeders that golf course residents have kept full of seeds and nectar, caring for our winter feathered residents. We sighted several hummingbirds on feeders at one house. Then we saw male and female Painted Buntings sharing a feeder, with Tufted Titmice, a Red-bellied Woodpecker and a male and female Northern Cardinal. A special thanks goes to those folks that keep feeders with a supply of food during winter months for the birds that stay on SBI. What better place to winter than Seabrook Island in December!
By the end of the outing, we recorded 37 unique bird species in eBird (https://ebird.org/home). For a day that started off chilly with a heavy overcast, it turned out to be one of our better birding days.
But wait there was one more great highlight of the outing. Judy Morr, who always has a keen eye for birds, spied a bird hiding out near the water line on one of the golf course lagoons. After all of us spying at it from different angles and taking pictures with our big zoom lenses it was confirmed, by Judy, that it was a Wilson Snipe. A bird that was a “life” bird for me and most of the others. As you can reason out a life bird is representative of the first time you have seen that species.
Of course, the sun came out about the time we finished. We never know what we are going to see on the golf course. We just need to get out there with a pair of binoculars and join in the fun. Our January and February outings will be on Crooked Oaks. Please join us on January 20th Martin Luther King Day.
Happy New Year…..and Happy Birding!
Shar Fink