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| A Brit abroad |
Phinizy Swamp birding and herpingAfter spending Saturday in the mountains, I got a taste of the coastal plain at Phinizy Swamp, near Augusta, on Sunday. Shortly after arrival a Merlin flew through, my first in GA. Three Pileated Woodpeckers were working the many tree stumps.  Swamp Sparrows were alarm-calling everywhere around us, though the vast majority remained hidden.  We walked a weedy 'sparrow field' in the hope of running into a Le Conte's - no luck, but we flushed a Wilson's Snipe and heard a King Rail. Best of all we saw several Sedge Wrens, often too close to focus the bins (and camera) on.  From this point on our morning become unpleasantly noisy, as airboats moved in to mow down the cattails (apparently to discourage roosting blackbird flocks from getting mangled by planes taking off from the adjacent airport). This Marsh Wren was using one of the flattened cattail mounds as a perch.  The first of the winter waterfowl had returned, the majority of which were Blue-winged Teal.  This flock of American Coots was in a flap...  ... because this beast was stalking them in the left of the picture!  We wandered around a few more of the cells, accumulating more waterbirds including White Ibis, Snowy Egret and Little Blue Heron. On returning to the boardwalks we ran into a flurry of passerine activity, which included a bright yellow Palm Warbler and this Painted Bunting.  The woodland trails yielded a Black-and-White Warbler and our FOTS Brown Creeper. A Winter Wren was our 5th wren species for the day. This lone Anhinga was the only bird on the lake nearest the parking lot.  After hearing about close encounters with various snakes on previous trips, I was disappointed that the only two we had seen here were both dead. However, on route to the Merry Bros brickyards, Ed pulled over so we could get a closer look at a snake he had spotted. It turned out to be my first Cottonmouth!  We approached it to within about 15 feet, close enough to cause it to adopt its threat-posture.   Bird-wise, there was little of note (certainly not the hoped-for Cave Swallow), but 20+ Anhingas and at least ten times that number of Double-crested Cormorants. Here's a group of them watching a Great Egret tussle.  While we saw some really neat coastal plain birds, the Cottonmouth encounter stole the show for me. It's great to be able to get into the land of cypress swamps, Painted Buntings and dangerous reptiles within 2 hours' drive of Athens! 
1:02 PM - Tuesday, October 27, 2009 - post comment
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