Monthly Archives: April 2017

Columbia Riverfront Park (South Carolina)

I work for a company in Columbia, South Carolina and visit every six weeks of so. At the end of a hard day (part of it spent in an airplane), I love to unwind with a little birding along the Columbia Riverfront Park. The park is a walkway that separated the Columbia Canal and Columbia […]

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Fieldfare in Newcastle, Maine

Rare Birds in Our Own Backyard With its wide variety of habitat – coastal plain, mixed hardwood and coniferous forest, inland lakes and waterways – Maine attracts a wide variety of birds. Sometimes it lures rarities. This week it snagged two, both firsts for the state (Portland Press Herald). Early in the week an osprey […]

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Texas Spring Migration (Thunderstorms and Turnstones)

Today’s plan was a trip to Galveston on the ferry that connects the Bolivar Peninsula to the western mainland. But as luck would have it, the elusive thunderstorms predicted each day for the last three gathered themselves up into one long-lasting band that began in the middle of the night and lasted through much of […]

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Texas Spring Migration (Birding Potpourri)

Today seemed like the day to revisit some of our previous birding sites and check out others recommended by other birders we had met on the trail. Like the population in general, not all birders are friendly. In fact, there are some who make it very clear they are not to be disturbed. But others […]

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Texas Spring Migration (Anahuac Wildlife Refuge)

Good Things Come in Threes….and Trees! In the first three and a half month at home in Maine, we totaled 92 different bird species. In three days on the Gulf Coast of Texas we spotted 94, recording 20 new birds today alone! This is a must-hit destination for birders looking for a wide variety of […]

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High Island, Texas

High Island, Texas is the Fenway Park or Wrigley Field of Birding . . . a place of tremendous bird diversity, but also a place where the community openly embraces the  hordes of birders that descend on the small town each spring. [ngg src=”galleries” ids=”221″ display=”pro_mosaic”] Warblers continue to be slow in arriving this year, or […]

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Texas Spring Migration (Bolivar Flats)

As part of our “training” for a Big Year, and more to the point – because winter in Maine has lasted far too long and we are desperate to see some (even one would do!) new birds – we hopped on a plane in Boston and took a trip to the Gulf Coast of Texas. […]

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Eastern Phoebe

One of our favorite birds that returns each spring is the Eastern Phoebe. The Phoebe arrives early (often with snow still on the ground) and stay around well into the fall. Its lovable and ubiquitous tail flip, raspy repetitive call “phoebe phoebe phoebe phoebe phoebe phoebe” and sudden acrobatic flights to grab an insect makes the […]

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Snow Bunting

Sometimes when it comes to finding unusual birds, instead of going to birding hot spots . . . one should just drive around doing normal things. Today was a perfect example. Le Garage, a local water front restaurant is closing at the end of the month after 40 years in business and Ingrid and I […]

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Fox Sparrow Visits

Migrating sparrows are starting to move through Mid-Coast Maine. Our resident Song Sparrow (named Belle) has returned to her stump by the river; I think I briefly caught sight of a White-Throated Sparrow yesterday (not long enough to count it); and we expect to see the first Chipping Sparrow any day. This morning we had […]

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Return of the Mid-Coast Maine Ospreys

There are lots of signs of spring . . . Robins, Groundhogs, crocuses . . . but in Mid-Coast Maine, we look for these signs too, but Spring really arrives when the Ospreys return!!!! While there are numerous nests in the area . . . there are two that really stand out: Shaws: For as […]

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