I spotted my first American Redstart of the season as I was clearing my yard of debris from Idalia. It reminded me that fall migration has started. Fall migration means we loose our summer residents, Painted Buntings, Great Crested Flycatchers, and Green Herons to name a few. Among those arriving will be Palm Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers and Northern Flickers. It is also a time when birds are flying through from their summer residences up north to as far south as South America. Many of the warblers are in this category. On a recent walk around Palmetto Lake, our group saw a Prothonotary Warbler, three Prairie Warbler and of course American Redstarts (which remind me of falling leaves with their vivid colors while fluttering for bugs).
The good news is all this coming and going means great birding opportunities. (Look at SIB’s Activity page for scheduled activities to CawCaw, West Ashley Greenway, October Big Day and others). Since it’s hard for amateurs like me to know when birds are coming through, I like to reference two web sites.
Close to home, Aaron Given publishes a daily blog of the birds they capture at the Kiawah Island Banding Stations. I know when these Kiawah banding stations are seeing a species, it’s a good chance they are on Seabrook Island as well. Since I don’t visit the site daily, it has a nice feature that allows me to page back to previous posts to see what has been captured on prior recent days. To learn more about the Kiawah Island Banding Station, visit the blog Aaron wrote for us in 2020.
Another helpful site can be used anywhere in the country. BirdCast is powered by Cornell Lab, Colorado State University and UMassAmhert. The site provides bird migration forecast maps that show predicted nocturnal migration 3 hours after local sunset and are updated every 6 hours. It also has a local migration alert tool to determine whether birds are passing overhead near your city tonight! This site doesn’t tell you which species are migrating but will give you an indication if there has been a recent influx of migrating birds.
Watch the Seabrook Island Birders blogs, activity page and calendar to see when the group will have organized activities during bird migration. You can also subscribe to the SIB Google Group. This group is then available for you to send an “impromptu” email asking others to join you in a search or other members would notify you when they are going out.