Last Monday I travelled down to Macon to give a talk about birding in England and France to the local Audubon chapter. It was well-timed, as a Black-headed Gull showed up in Savannah soon after! After enjoying the hospitality of Jim and Sandy Gilreath, I spent Valentine’s Day morning in the Piedmont NWR. While Bachman’s Sparrow was tricky (only one brief view the whole morning), I heard Red-cockaded Woodpeckers at almost every stop.

This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count, so I did the rounds in Clarke County. Highlights included an out-in-the-open Wilson’s Snipe and American Pipits at Charlie Bolton Road, 11 Rusty Blackbirds at Sandy Creek Park, and the continuing ‘mega-flock’ of Gadwalls at the Oxbow Lake.

The highlight of my backyard count was the continuing Pine Siskin.

Some other photographic highlights.

Signs of spring included my first singing Song Sparrow and Brown-headed Cowbird. This Red-shouldered Hawk was displaying with its mate, and I suspect it will nest close by.

At the South Milledge fields, this Killdeer was already on a nest.

Since getting back to Athens last week, the weather has been incredibly variable. Last weekend temperatures soared into the 70s, prompting the emergence of several butterfly species, a mass northbound movement of Sandhill Cranes over Atlanta, and causing a red buckeye in my backyard to begin leafing out. Today an icy wind has already frozen over my birdbaths, and temperatures are set to plummet into the teens!

The most notable change in yard bird activity since my departure in mid-January is the mass arrival of American Goldfinches. It’s hard to estimate how many birds are involved, but my early morning counts number up to 40 birds at any one time.

Among them is a single Pine Siskin, a species that has been very difficult to come by in the state this year.

I was lucky to catch this one-time visit by a female Purple Finch. Although photographically uncooperative, I did learn that even on this view they can be distinguished from female House Finches by a lack of streaking on the undertail coverts.

Red-bellied Woodpecker is a daily visitor…

… and White-breasted Nuthatch, once a rare visitor to my feeders, seems to be coming more frequently.

I have seen no sign of the large Rusty Blackbird flock present late last year, but instead, a dozen Red-winged Blackbirds can often be heard singing in the neighourhood.

Other irregular species recorded in the yard this week include Pileated Woodpecker, Brown-headed Nuthatch, and a singing male Pine Warbler. Of course, the elevated bird activity in the yard hasn’t escaped the attention of our neighbourhood Cooper’s Hawk.

On my last day in Essex, long-time birding friend Neil carved out a meticulous and ambitious plan to try to see over 100 species of birds in the Southend area in a day. Of course, the Great British weather did not co-operate and the first five hours of our birding day were shrouded in fog, followed by an hour of drizzle and overcast skies and ending up with icy gusts of wind!

We slipped and slid around Hockley Woods in the dark using our mobile phones as flashlights, and eventually heard our target bird, a Tawny Owl. After a drive-by Little Owl in Canewdon, our next stop was South Fambridge, where a thick blanket of fog prevented us from picking up some much-needed waterfowl and ducks. We spent the next hour wandering in Hockley Woods for common woodland species such as Green Woodpecker.

I was surprised to miss Nuthatch, and even more surprised to hear that the site now only has one known breeding pair -could this once-common species be on the way out from the Southend area? After dipping Bullfinch and battling A13 traffic, we succeeded in picking up Yellowhammer and Corn Bunting at Bower’s Marsh, and added some more decent species such as Cetti’s Warbler, Black-tailed Godwit and Spotted Redshank at Wat Tyler.

On Canvey Wick we had a less-than stellar showing of flyover Lesser Redpoll and not much else. At this point we decided to ditch the big day plan to enjoy some quality birds and try our luck on Southend Pier. This tame Water Rail in Southchurch Park showed much better than these photos taken in the rain might suggest.

Shoebury East Beach finally yielded Snow Buntings, and we had really great views of four of them.

We made a mad dash for the 230 train up Southend Pier. On arrival the sea was eerily calm, but gradually the wind picked up to bone-chilling level. We had some really great observations though, including my first Essex Puffin and Razorbill, Common Scoter, Red-throated Diver, and hordes of Kittiwakes including several smart first-winters.

We beat a hasty retreat to the pier train at 4:15pm, picking up the Purple Sandpiper among the roosting Turnstones on the way out. Back at the car we saw our first Sanderling of the day, but decided that we wanted our last species of the day to be a little more inspiring, so we finished up with the Southend Peregrine.

It’s always worth a trip to the end of Southend Pier at high tide, if only to enjoy the tame Ruddy Turnstones running around like pigeons and hoping you’ll drop a chip.

Looking back towards the slipway, this roosting group of gulls was more interesting than you might think.

I counted 25 Mediterranean Gulls and 11 Black-legged Kittiwakes, with not a Black-headed Gull to be seen!

A Purple Sandpiper was roosting alone by the lifeboat station, but soon flew over to become unlikely bedfellows with a Kittiwake.

Earlier in the day I had tried unsuccessfully to find Snow Buntings at Shoebury East Beach, but the incoming tide brought hundreds of Oystercatchers, a handful of Red Knot and this Curlew close inshore.

The day before a stroll along the seafront to Rossi’s ice cream parlour got me close to a small party of Dark-bellied Brent Geese.

This individual was threat-posturing to another bird just off-camera.

The assembled throng of Black-headed Gulls contained a bird coming into breeding plumage…

… and a lone Med Gull.

I’m back in the homeland for a couple of weeks to catch up with friends and family, and birding whenever the time (and weather!) allows. In spite of fairly grim weather I decided to check out the London Wetlands Centre during my stay in Putney, and enjoyed some close encounters with waterfowl that I rarely get in the US.

I have yet to see a Great Cormorant across the Pond!

Shorebirds were represented by dozens of Lapwings and a Common Snipe that thought it was a phalarope.

Among the handful of passerines I saw were a pair of Stonechats and several Lesser Redpolls.

Walking back along the Thames path allowed close views of this Lesser Black-backed Gull.

On a much sunnier day I strolled around Milton Country Park in Cambridge with an enthusiastic boxer puppy. While not conducive to stalking passerines, I still got fine views of drake Pochard and a winter-plumaged Great Crested Grebe on Dickerson’s pit.

Krista and I headed down to the coast way too early on Thursday morning to participate in the shorebird count on St Simon’s Island. Before starting the count we stopped by to see the Black-chinned Hummingbird.

The highlight of the shorebird count was getting 2 Wilson’s and 6 Piping Plovers among the more numerous roosting species.

Following the cancellation of Saturday’s pelagic, I signed up for the trip to the Savannah Spoil site. In addition to the incredible looks at a Le Conte’s Sparrow, highlights included 2 Wilson’s Phalaropes, huge numbers of Pintail and two Great Horned Owls. We also spotted this shy “Krider’s-ish” Hawk. The bird looked appropriately ghostly white from the front…

… but the extent of red in the tail means that the bird is surely an intergrade with eastern Red-tailed.

Multiple Common Ground-Doves were seen throughout the day.

Most of the dowitchers we saw on the freshwater ponds were presumably Long-billed. I felt good about these ones because we could hear them!

Birding was pretty good from the hotel itself. The bar and restaurant proved a great place for sea-watching on a cold day, with numerous seaduck and Red-throated Loons noted. Katherine earned her birding stripes by spotting this glorious adult Bald Eagle soaring over the hotel parking lot.

Finally, I couldn’t resist posting a few more shots of the weekend’s star bird, the north beach Snow Bunting.

Just hangin’ with his peeps.

If you’ve never been to a GOS winter meeting, I strongly encourage you to attend. The birding is great, and it’s always fun to put faces to the names we see on GABO.

The GOS pelagic trip almost didn’t happen. Strong wind and rough seas cancelled Saturday’s outing, and unpromising weather on Sunday morning meant we could only get out to 10-15 miles offshore. The ride out was cold, wet and bumpy, but spirits remained high. There was a spectacular flyout of thousands of scaup at sunrise. A small flock of Black Scoter flew by close enough to ID.

For the first hour we amused ourselves watching the antics of the Northern Gannets sailing across our wake.

Away from shore we mostly saw Common Loons, including one large raft.

Eventually we spotted a large mixed feeding flock of gulls and gannets, and suddenly all hell broke loose. I called out 3 Manx Shearwaters flying away from the boat, at the same time that Malcolm spotted Razorbills from the other side. Fortunately both species showed up multiple times on the rest of the trip, allowing all on board great looks. We ended up with a count of 89 Manx Shearwaters, including one huge raft of 70+ birds. The state record count in the annotated checklist is 20!

Razorbill numbers weren’t too shabby either, with 43 noted.

Another highlight was seeing (and hearing) several feeding flocks of Red Phalaropes close to the boat.

Most of these birds were found sitting among large feeding flocks of Bonaparte’s Gulls. The brown sheen in the water underneath was actually a school of baitfish being pushed to the surface.

On the ride back in we cruised by the rock jetty, getting great views of American Oystercatcher and Bufflehead.

A Lesser Black-backed Gull was among the loafing flock on Tybee north beach.

Our GOS field trip to the Savannah spoil site was fortunate enough to locate a Le Conte’s Sparrow. Following expert direction from our leader Steve, the whole group was treated to phenomenal views of this, surely the most handsome of sparrows. At first the bird remained frozen, and all I could see of it was its beady eye staring back at me from the grass.

Eventually the bird moved out further into the open, allowing us to admire the intricate details of its feathers. In spite of stiff competition, this was probably my favourite species of the weekend.

Having had such great luck with this bird, Krista and I decided to try our luck with Henslow’s Sparrow at Paulk’s Pasture on the way home on Monday. We were treated to this gem scuttling around under an inkberry bush.

It certainly felt cold enough for snow this morning when Patty McLean and I braved biting winds on Tybee’s north beach in search of the Snow Bunting. However, we soon forgot about the cold when this gorgeous creature put on a show for us for the best part of an hour.

The bird spent much of its time in the company of the roosting shorebirds, even foraging with Sanderlings at the tideline at one point.

What do you call a Purple Sandpiper with a Snow Bunting on its head?

Did I mention it was windy?

After T-shirt weather at the Outer Banks, it was something of a shock to come back to temperatures in the low 20s in Athens in the first cold snap of the winter. Much of the Oxbow Lake had frozen over, concentrating the ducks into one spot. We counted 11 Black Ducks and 2 Gadwall.

Nearby at Lake Chapman, the cold weather had grounded a Herring Gull, the first recent Clarke County record.

The wet flush on campus continues to hold at least 3 Fox Sparrows.

4 Rusty Blackbirds were foraging at the water’s edge in the same spot.

Small numbers of Rusties are still showing up in my yard sporadically, though only Red-winged Blackbird and Common Grackle have come to the birdbath.

A Northern Flicker came down to feed on the back lawn with a flock of 50 Robins.

I was happy to catch up with my second Clarke Co. Rufous Hummingbird, visiting the feeder of some good friends.