Mr Grumpy

I had a brief conversation with Mrs L last night about last night's blog post. I recounted the broad theme of historical eBird lists with child participants, and also mentioned how I'd had to reread some of the very old posts from well over ten years ago in order to confirm that kiddo had indeed been present. I also threw in, off hand, that my life had been such fun then, full of happiness and joie de vivre. What had changed, I mused? I cannot remember Mrs L's exact response but it was along the following lines.

Yeah you're a grumpy git now and have been for ages.

There is nothing quite like the marital telling it like it is is there? Not that I expected anything different mind you. It is not as if I am unhappy now, but the point is that I was definitely really happy back then. Back when this blog was actually good I was in a pretty decent place, and this shone through in my writing. Or at least I think it did anyway. 

Mrs L did not offer any pearls as to how this state of mind might be recaptured other than to say that exercise and being outdoors a lot more than I am now would definitely help. She may have a point, but back then I could be outdoors the entire day because I didn't have a job. Now I do, and there's definitely an argument to say that this is a contributing factor to being Mr Grumpy. It's a state of mind I think. In my job I am required to be extremely serious, comport myself with gravitas and a high degree of professionalism, and generally be a no-nonsense semi-autocratic voice of reason. This does not translate well into any definition of fun that I am aware of. My point is you cannot simply shake this off on a Friday night and switch it back on on Monday morning, it just doesn't work like that. The person you are at work, the person you are required to be, inevitably becomes part of you whether you like it or not. I am me at work if that makes any sense, I do not pretend to be anyone else, but the lines between me and me have been irrevocably blurred by so many years of doing what I do. I don't think that was the case in my twenties and thirties, my incredible immaturity managed to seep through regardless, but now, in my forties (just...) and with different levels of responsibilities than earlier in my career it has been edged out and this is who I now am. A shame, but I am not sure there is a great deal I can do about it.

Mr Grumpy is probably here to stay.

I knew it would come in useful one day

Remarkably my son now has an eBird account. I genuinely did not think this would ever happen, I felt sure that all of the birding trips I took him on, starting from when he was about six years old, would put him off for life. Well not for life, but certainly for many years. I am not sure what  exactly changed, but it seems that one of new friends at University is getting into birding and dragging Henry along too. This guy is stunned that somehow Henry knows what he is looking at and what is more can identify some birds on call alone. Now this I did forsee, but not in this context. I thought that he would be walking along one day with some friends and unconsciously point out a Goldfinch or something, whereupon his mates would look at him aghast etc, and he would have to confess it wasn't his fault and so on.

I suppose that in some ways this is the scenario playing out, although without the "oh my God you freak" part. I knew about the little excursions he has been going on, but I did not know about eBird until this weekend when we went on a family trip to the Peak District. The weather was essentially disgusting throughout, but mid morning on Sunday a short respite allowed us to walk to the top of Mam Tor without getting totally soaked. Instead we got soaked walking down again, with lots of slipping over, mud, various minor injuries and a huge amount of water. Drying off in a local cafe I went through the inevitable eBird list I had made, and somehow this led to the monumental news that Henry had an eBird account that he uses for he and his mate to work out where to go locally.

And so to the title of this blog post. Throughout the childrens' childhoods I maintained a list of the notable birds that they had seen, but not really ever expecting that these would see the light of day. B-o-ring!! Until now. Back home today, I dug them out and sent his to him. There are some absolute gems on there I have to say, and I am sure that he will remember at least some of them. Trumpeter Finch in Norfolk, ooof. Even though this covers 2009 through to about 2014 I have eBird lists for all of them, retrospectively entered during a particularly bloody-minded period I went through a few years ago that coincided with a pandemic that predented me from leaving the house.... Would he like me to share these with him I enquired? Go on then came the reply. I was flabbergasted and delighted in equal measure, and have spent a bit of time working out which eg Hoopoe it was that he saw. This blog has been supremely helpful in this respect as back in the day I used to publish up to the minute views of what I had been up to (rather than half-arsed trip reports nine months in arrears) and in many cases I can line up the eBird list with a post that confirms that he came along. Sorry, what I meant was that I dragged him along against his will, but that now fifteen years later he is pleased that he came. Or at least that he didn't resist. It is also quite interesting to have a read of some of old 'parenting' posts - what a fun time that was. These days fun is in distinctly short supply it seems but back then I was having a whale of a time. I wonder what the difference could be?

Ticking and zooming

It is all rather non-stop at the moment, I am living my best life. My diary between now and Christmas is quite absurd but I think I am up to the challenge. I've not been at home much, work and travel, and also work travel (a rare event) have seen me all over the place. November continues to look rather full and as for December, well good grief, but there are some fun things in there. And lots of social events as well which is nice, too many perhaps, and mostly wine related. I will be exhausted by the time the holidays actually arrive. And there is scope for another emergency trip to the US in there as well although currently this is far from certain.

Despite being all over the place I've suprised myself with a pretty decent Wanstead patch list for 2024. This now stands at 117, the latest being a Red-crested Pochard on Heronry. Classic timing arriving in a cold snap, and also classic timing arriving just as I departed for Germany. But it was a short trip and was still there when I got back so I nipped to see it before heading off to the Peak District. 117 is my fourth highest total ever recorded, and just one more will equal the third highest, so it is all still to play for with just over a month remaining. 

The biggest impediment is simply not being here very much between now and the end of the year. As ever I have slightly over-extended myself, and what seemed like good ideas at the time are now things all else being equal I'd rather not do. But do them I will, I signed up and need to go through with it as originally envisaged. And just like twitching, whilst it seems like a massive drag at the time a couple of days later the stress and hassle is all forgotten and you are glad you've done it. And this will no doubt be the case here as well.

Fife, looking east down the Forth.

Slovenia - May 2024 - A weekend birding break

I spent a weekend in Slovenia in mid-May this year, mainly because I'd never been and so it was a country tick, but also to go birding in southern Europe which I hadn't done for a while. It was a painfully early departure from Heathrow on a Saturday morning but the tube runs all night so it wasn't a problem getting there, it just meant very little sleep. To try and rectify this I slept the whole flight and by 10am I was on the ground and birding, with a Buzzard at Ljubljana airport. The approximate route I drove is below.

I picked up my car and made for the nearest pin, Hrase ponds which is just south of the airport, to stretch my legs and get in the right frame of mind. I didn't go far, just up and down a track on one side of the water. Here there were singing Icterine Warblers, a Red-backed Shrike, Marsh Tit and a Spotted Flycatcher. A positive start.

My next stop was the western part of Ljubljana Marsh, south of the city. Things became distinctly more European here with Golden Orioles and Cuckoos singing, a Hoopoe and three Red-backed Shrikes. Then on the eastern side of this patchwork of fields and ditches I came across both Hobby and Red-footed Falcon, Nightingale, Serin, yet more Icterine Warblers and an excellent dung heap with all three Wagtails and a handful of Tree Sparrow.

Lake Cerknica

My desination for the evening was Lake Cerknica, about an hour south of Ljubljana. I'd booked a room in the nearby village of Dolenje Jezero and planned to explore both on foot and in the car from there. It is a vast area of reedbeds and shallow water with fantastic birding on offer. I initially walked down the track as it said no cars, but then I noticed that everyone else was driving straight through, so after a while I went back to the village and picked it up and was thus able to go a lot further along the southern side of the lake. The full list is above, but the highlights were a pair of Garganey in flight, a White Stork, a Squacco Heron, nearly 30 Great White Egret and a Marsh Harrier. A scope is essential here as the lake is enormous, and as the sides are mostly reeds the actual water is some distance away. A small squall dropped some hirundines in late on, and about half way along this edge there is a tower hide that affords great views of the lake. The water finally peters out at the village of Gorenje Jezero, and there is more good birding just before here, especially along a causeway that leads to the village. There was a singing Corncrake here, more White Stork, Whinchat, Fieldfare, Reed Bunting and lots of Sedge Warblers.

I was up early the next morning for a repeat, again walking on foot from the village to the start of the lake. The same birds all over again, but no people at all, and this seemed to amplify the Golden Orioles and Cuckoos. The plan today was to head down to the coast via some good birding spots. The first stop was at Krajinkski Park where a well wooded valley held Black Woodpecker and Short-toed Treecreeper amongst other birds, and then I continued to Dolenja Vas a bit further southwest. This was excellent, a grassland valley with steep sides and filled with birds. A Quail sang, and Woodlarks song-flighted over the slopes, meanwhile each bush seemed to have a Red-backed Shrike in it, and both Corn Bunting and Yellowhammer were belting it out.

Marsh Tit

I was at the coast before 10am, birding Skocjanski Marsh. This is a proper nature reserve with trails around the outer edge and various screens and hides. It's pretty popular with non-birders as well, but I didn't mind that and did a complete circuit whilst dodging joggers and pushchairs. I added a ton of new birds for the trip here, Black-winged Stilt, LRP, Redshank, Greenshank, Little Tern, Whiskered Tern and Common Tern. Great Reed Warblers, absent at Cerknica, were all over the place with their outsized grunts and wheezes. 

I went up to the Crnotice Plateau to try for Bobwhite - a naturalised population here - but failed to find any. Sardinian Warbler and a flock of Swift were new for the trip though. I then drove as far east as I could, right to the border with Croatia at Rakitovec, hoping I could sneak another country in. The track was a bit dicey but I made it all the way to the end and then carried on on foot, however the border wasn't accessible so I had to make do with making an eBird list of birds that were clearly over the other side, which included Short-toed Eagle and Griffon Vulture which did the decent thing and sailed over me and into Slovenia. Borders don't apply to birds. There was also a Rock Bunting singing here. Retracing my steps to the plateau I found a vantage point from which to look down at the large quarry at Crni Kal, adding House Martin, Alpine Swift, Linnet, another Rock Bunting, Black Redstart and a Blue Rock Thrush. 

I then went to the Saltpans at Secovlje. Access was a lot harder than I anticipated without actually going in so I contented myself with scoping parts of it, adding Avocet, Shelduck, Spoonbill and Zitting Cisticola. By now approaching 6pm it was time to head back towards the airport. I figured I just had time to take in Lake Bled and Vintgar Gorge to the northwest of Ljubljana, about two hours away. I cannot now remember why I was going there, but there was something good in the gorge that I didn't see as it turned out to be closed by the time I arrived at about 8pm. Lake Bled itself was heaving with people having an evening stroll, and it wasn't remotely possible to even stop the car anywhere to take the same photographs that everyone else takes. Shame.

I ended the weekend on 113 species having had a thoroughly good time. The country is tiny, easily doable in just a weekend, and seems mostly to be used as a corridor by German tourists seeking to skirt around the Alps and access the coast near Trieste or down into Croatia. There is a good variety of habitats and birding stops are not all that far from each other, and I'd definitely recommend it for a spring break.

Ticking over

So that was the USA from April, and now I am only seven months behind. It was made easier and quicker because I barely took any photographs, it was all about birding. I should be able to bash out my May trip to Slovenia pretty quickly as well as that was only a weekend, and looking in my folders I can see I saved just 18 photographs of four species. Way to go!

I am not yet ready to write about the US Presidential election. It is too traumatic to even think about. And crazy, crazy to think that even after the chaotic first term, even after the "Stop the Steal!", the Capitol riots, even after court cases, one of which concluded with a guilty verdict, that this could happen. That Americans could be so short-sighted. He's a lying criminal, a misogynist pig, surrounded by vacuous acolytes made in his own image - the family give me the creeps. And he has four more years in which to dismantle America's great institutions, and this time I think he'll do it, no holding back. That people who are genuinely struggling could vote for him thinking that he will change their fortunes is incredible. But then what did the Democrats do for those people? Herein lies the problem. But anyway, this is for another post whilst I compose myself. I note that even a slight reference to it in my recent trip report drew the immediate ire of a reader, how dare I mention politics on my own blog etc etc, so this promises to be a lot of fun once I can summon the energy.

So what's been happening then? Not a great deal, it has been a busy period at work and I've burned the candle at both ends to the extent that I am now ill, some lurgy picked up on public transport no doubt. Tis the season. I've not been out with the new lens again, the weather has been particularly grey and miserable, but I've watched endless YouTube videos about how the camera functions and I have high hopes that the next time the sun makes an appearance and I am not dying or working I may be able to see if I have learned anything. 

Bird-wise the vizmig season seems to be drawing to an end, there is not nearly as much movement. Highlights locally include yet another Great White Egret over the Flats, my eighth since the first in 2018, as well as a lone Lapwing courtesy of Tony and a Short-eared Owl sent my way by Marco. This puts me on 116 for the year with not much, if anything, left to come. A Yellow-legged Gull perhaps? It's either that or an arctic blast. 

So, to Slovenia then.

Southeastern USA - Trip List

Well that was a lot of fun. My only trip to the USA in 2024, normally I go a lot more often but time is as ever on the short side and I had had other things that I had wanted to do. The full eBird trip list is here, with all checklists and locations. Since Bradders had joined me we had seen 177 species, of which five were ABA ticks. As usual I've also prepared the below summary, but rather than day by day I've done it State by State which has been one of the major reasons for the trip in the first place. We visited ten if you count Texas at the beginning and New York at the end. Top honours went to Arkansas with 88 species, followed by Louisiana with 77 and Alabama with 75. Of the core eight States I'd been birding in Illinois before, and visited Kentucky on a non-birding trip, but the other six were completely new to me and thus I've managed to fill in another big block of the eBird map which I am so keen on. I've now birded in 36 States, and visited 40, so it's going reasonably well. If you look at the map below, with the exception of Alaska the grey ones are in blocks and look doable in exactly this kind of trip. I do worry about Iowa though!

 

Southeastern USA - April 2024 - Day 5 - Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and home

We were in a big hurry today, our last day of birding, and in reality only a morning as the flight from Nashville to New York left early afternoon. Today more than ever we would need immense discipline to stay on track. We planned an early morning session in Illinois, a bit of time just over the river in Kentucky, and then to get across to Tennessee and bird there for as long as had left after the two and a half hour drive to Nashville.

We started birding at 5.56am in Fort Massac State Park on the banks of the Ohio River. Our progress here was stymied by floods, the road we had planned to walk unpassable. But in this flooded landscape we found our one and only Hooded Merganser of the trip, and the only Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Woodpeckers were very good here, with four Pileated Woodpecker, two Downy Woodpecker, and one each of Red-headed and Red-bellied Woodpeckers. As we took a smaller path inland we picked up something we did not think we had heard yet, and Merlin told us we were looking for (appropriately enough, given where we were) a Kentucky Warbler, which we soon found in small tree. Also here were yet more Prothonotary Warblers, Parulas, a Pine Warbler and a Yellow-throated Warbler. An hour and a quarter zipped by and it was time to leave.

Northern Parula

Just over the river we stopped at Stuart Nelson Park to start our Kentucky list. We were not sure quite how far we should go given our extremely tight schedule, so leaving our car near some baseball pitches we walked along a wooded path and then over a small creek before following a vegetated ditch alongside the trees. A small pond just after the bridge had some Canada Geese in it, as well as two Solitary Sandpiper. The ditch itself was really good birding, with all sorts of things hiding in it including a Northern Waterthrush, a Common Yellowthroat, an Eastern Towhee and a Chipping Sparrow. Eastern Bluebirds dashed through the trees, Cardinals were everywhere, and we also found only our second Cedar Waxwing. On a hill behind the ditch a couple of Eastern Meadowlark sang. We managed 33 species here in about an hour and then got on the road.

We continued birding as we drove southeast towards Tennessee which we reached in about an hour having closed our Kentucky account on 39. But of course the fun part about this trip was that we also had a Tennessee list that had been temporarilty halted on 35 a couple of days previously, and when we crossed the State Line we were able to pick it up again. Our final destination was Shelby Bottoms on the north side of the Cumberland River and only a short hop from the airport. We arrived at almost exactly 11am and felt that we could safely bird for an hour before having to pack up and go. We walked a loop of about a mile, first of all through some low woodland, and then back along the river edge. Yellow-rumped Warbler were very common here, but whilst we managed to get Tennessee up to 56 in our short visit we didn't get anything new at this point. Back at the car we packed up pretty quickly, dismantling all the gear and stowing it away, and then made the short hop to Nashville Airport. Unfortunately there was no time to stop at the Grand Ole Opry which would have been rather a pligrimage for me. We had also driven right past the boyhood home of Johnny Cash in Arkansas which had been just north of Wapanocca. In fact we had done nothing cultural at all, just birded from dawn until dusk! Next time!

Prothonotary Warbler

Southeastern USA - April 2024 - Day 4 - Arkansas to Illinois via Missouri

At the end of day 4 we had reached the landmark 150 species, not bad going given the coast had actually not been as productive as it could have been. We were now far inland, in Arkansas northeast of Little Rock and west of Memphis. America is such a vast country that we were probably only a third of the way to the Great Lakes - it's a 15 hour non-stop drive from New Orleans to Chicago. 

Today we were starting at Bald Knob NWR, seemingly the pre-eminent birding spot in these parts. As we approached from the north along Coal Chute Road it began to live up to expectations, with Scissor-tailed Flycatcher and several Swamp Sparrows. Indigo Bunting, Blue Grosbeak and Common Yellowthroat were in the margins here, and we found Blue-winged Warbler and Barn Swallow close to the Admin compound. Gradually the landscape opened up and we left the woods behind to emerge into a huge patchwork of flooded fields. To our right one of the largest tractors I had ever seen was attempting to plough one of these, creating huge eddies and literally waves as it displaced the water. As it did so countless small Waders lifted up to resettle elsewhere, many of them Pectoral Sandpiper. This was going to be some morning.

Barn Swallow

We stayed here until exactly midday, slowly driving around the lanes and tracks, stopping wherever it seemed good, which was basically everywhere, but once again only really covered a relatively small part of the area. Some of the fields were wetter than others, and some were shallow lakes. One of these held good sized flocks of Green-winged Teal, and on another, amongst the Blue-winged Teal and Shoveler were a handful of Pintail, two Mallard and two Ruddy Duck. On yet another we counted over 100 American Coot. A few more waders made themselves known as we slowly worked our way past each pool or field - a dozen Black-necked Stilt, a single Spotted Sandpiper, four Greater Yellowlegs and and handful of Long-billed Dowitcher. Raptors were very much in evidence as they patrolled this rich habitat, with Bald Eagle and Northern Harrier, and also Red-shouldered Hawk. 

Bald Eagle

Lesser Yellowlegs

And this was just the open areas. Along the well vegetated ditches we found White-eyed, Warbling and Red-eyed Vireo, Baltimore Oriole, Eastern Meadowlark, White-throated Sparrow, more Swamp Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, and a Yellow-breasted Chat played very hard to get and I am not sure we ever laid eyes on it. On the Warbler front Northern Waterthrush with their sharp zik calls were quite numerous, as well as another Blue-winged Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Parula and Yellow-rumped Warbler. 

Blue Grosbeak

Right in the middle of the reserve is a farm with large grain silos, and we had seen that a flock of Yellow-headed Blackbird had been visiting the spilled grain - unusual for this area. A bit of a stakeout got us these as they came down to feed, along with Brown-headed Cowbird and White-crowned Sparrow. What I am trying to say is that Bald Knob NWR is fantastic, and our during our four hour visit we tallied 76 species, easily the largest list from any single site.

Yellow-headed Blackbird

White-crowned Sparrow

We spent the middle part of the day driving northeast, arriving at Otter Slough in Missouri at around 3pm. This was another spot identified via eBird as being promising. It's another big area with multiple places to go birding, and we tried a number of paths that led into the forest away from the main lake. There were what must be dodgy Snow Geese here, as well as Wood Duck and more Ruddy Duck, and some shallow reedy areas held a Stilt Sandpiper, both Yellowlegs, Dunlin, Pectoral Sandpiper, Wilson's Snipe and more Long-billed Dowitcher. There was a good selection of smaller birds here, including yet more Prothonotary Warblers which seemed to be pretty common in this part of the country, and our first Grey-cheeked Thrush. We spent nearly two hours here, finishing on 47 species. The end of the trip was on the horizon now and we were properly in the zone and trying to add as much as we could.

Grey-cheeked Thrush

Final stop of the day was a nice boardwalk at Mingo NWR a further thirty minutes or so north. We walked the loop which took us alongside the canal where we finally got views of Yellow-breasted Chat, and Great Crested Flycatcher flicked through along with two each of Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker and Hairy Woodpecker. Somewhere a Barred Owl called, and another Bald Eagle flew over. We then drove two hours east to the town of Metropolis which is just into Illinois over the Ohio River. We had managed to see 88 species in Arkansas and 61 in Missouri in just over a day.

Yellow-breasted Chat

Southeastern USA - April 2024 - Day 3 - Mississippi to Arkansas

We started the day at 6.30am just north of Columbus, Mississippi, and boy what a good call that was! We had identified this spot only recently - Section Line Road - as a potential site for one of my most-wanted ABA ticks, Swainson's Warbler. It was one of the few places where this hard to see Warbler had been reported in more than single figures in recent days. Why not give it a go, especially as it was less than 15 minutes from our hotel in Columbus? 

What a great spot! We spent two hours working our way slowly down this perhaps two mile long gravel road, consuming Warblers at every point we stopped. We would walk a bit, then one of us would retrieve our crazy car and drive it past the other person and stop again, meeting in the middle. Rinse and repeat. Five Prothonotary Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, Hooded Warbler, American Redstart, four Northern Parula, Magnolia Warbler, three Pine Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, and finally at nearly the end of the road, a Swainson's Warbler in a dense tangle. I think Bradders also had a Chestnut-sided when I was fetching the car. The Swainson's was of course the most boring Warbler there by some distance, top prize probably went to the Magnolia which was a stunning male. There were also tons of Vireos - White-eyed, Yellow-throated, Blue-headed and Red-eyed. Incredible how one small patch of woodland could have such a density of migrants. At one point I imagined I heard a dog bark, but some sixth sense caused me to think of Barred Owl. I played it back just in case and the response was instant, an enormous Owl flew through the trees and on out of sight. It was perhaps the best birding session of the entire trip. 

Our main destination for the day was Noxubee NWR, about an hour away from Warblerville. We arrived just before 10 and started on the boardwalk at Bluff Lake. Of note here were large numbers of Egret on the far side, including an unexpected and out-of-range Tricoloured Heron. Acadian Flycatcher and Great Crested Flycatcher were in the trees above the path. Later on, on the Woodpecker Trail, we found White-breasted Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, Carolina Chickadee, Chipping Sparrow and our first Bald Eagle of the trip. At Morgan Hill four species of Swallow cruised over the lake with numerous Chimney Swift, and a flock of 50 White Ibis went over. 

We had to leave by mid-morning, our punishing schedule was taking no prisoners. Places to be, birds to see. We needed to get up to Memphis for mid-afternoon to get as much of a Tennessee list as we could before we crossed into Arkansas in the evening. The obvious spot was the Maxson Water Treatment Lagoons on the southwest side of Memphis. This then allowed a quick exit over the I55 crossing and into Arkansas.

The lagoons were Wader central and saw the list tick on nicely. Whilst we only found one  each of Wilson's Snipe, Wilson's Phalarope and Stilt Sandpiper there were hundreds of Lesser Yellowlegs and Long-billed Dowitcher, good numbers of Least, Solitary and Pectoral Sandpipers, and Black-necked Stilt. Also large numbers of Blue-winged Teal, a few Shoveler and Canada Geese, and three Sora. I am not sure of the access arrangements here, but it was a Sunday and the gates at front were open so we just drove in through a maintenance area and up onto the lagoons where we left the car on a large bund and proceeded on foot. As we left, there were a number of Wood Duck with young in the water alongside the road on the opposite side from the river, as well as Pied-billed Grebe and a Belted Kingfisher.

Lesser Yellowlegs

Red-winged Blackbird

Our last stop the day was in Arkansas, at Wapanocca NWR. This was gated but open, and it seemed we had until sunset so in we went. Doubtless we only scratched the surface as we drove along large ditches in a swampy woodland habitat, but what we saw we quite liked. Red-headed Woodpecker were everywhere, pairs chasing each other round, as well as Red-bellied Woodpecker and Downy Woodpecker. Wood Duck moved from one area to another, and there were Pied-billed Grebe too. We also saw more Yellow-rumped Warbler and Fish Crow than we had seen anywhere else, and a Swamp Sparrow was pinned down in a tangle near the water. All in all a really good site and one we would have like to have visited early morning. But that wasn't in our schedule and reluctantly we got on the road. I sometimes wonder about a birding trip that has no set agenda, no start and no finish, and where I could just bird wherever the trip took me and for as long as I wanted. How long would it take me to cross the United States I wonder? I might never arrive on the other side. Or if I had a year, a whole year, where would I go? And in what order? A straight line, a big loop, a zig-zag? It's a tempting thought for a future stage of my life. Although perhaps the US is best avoided until 2028 or so...

Southeastern USA - April 2024 - Day 2 - Dauphin Island AL into Mississippi

It was dawn at an unprepossessing motel south of Mobile Alamaba and an exciting day loomed. Another day on the coast, would we get more migrants than we had the previous day. And of course there was our Alabama list to think about, currently sitting on a nice round nought. It was impossible to this time ignore the car park, and before we set off south to Dauphin Island a quick search found a few birds, the best of which by far was a Loggerhead Shrike perched on a dustbin. Great birding.

With the list off to a great start we drove the half hour out and across the causeway. The whole of the coast is characterised by these types of barrier islands, from beyond the southern Texas border all the way around the Gulf to Tallahassee with only few major breaks. We started at the Pier, walking out through the vegetated dunes where we hoped to find Sedge Wren, inexplicably another ABA target. This was achieved reasonably quickly, certainly before our car could be ticketed, but it was a highly skulky bird that needed quite a lot of time to actually pin down and get confirmatory views of even though we could hear it constantly. Job done we carried on down to the beach and scoped up various waders - Grey Plover, Semipalmated Plover, Sanderling and Least Sandpiper.

Great Blue Heron

The main hotspot we concentrated on was Shell Mound Park just a short drive away. This is a fully fledged birding site, with drips, pools, benches and so forth, and lots of birders doing circuits of the small lot. This was an excellent site, far more birdy than either of the Grand Isle tracts, and we spent nearly two hours here. It is also with much joy that I can report that there were Warblers! The best of these were undoubtedly two Prothonotary Warblers and a Worm-eating Wabler, but also Black-and-White, Tennessee and Northern Parula. There was a lingering rarity in the form of a Bell's Vireo, as well a Great Crested Flycatcher, Brown Thrasher, Baltimore Oriole, Summer Tanager and two Scarlet Tanagers.

We took a break at around 10.30am and went off to the airport where something interesting  had been reported. We didn't see it, but we did find a Great Northern Diver offshore which felt a little odd, and then some more expected Black Skimmers. We also had more excellent views of a Clapper Rail here.

Clapper Rail

The Audubon Bird Sanctuary on Dauphin Island

There are loads of birding hotspots on Dauphin Island and we were running out of time. We charged around the Audubon Bird Sanctuary for about an hour, but this is a pretty large site and we must have missed a fair amount of it. At the pond we had Merlin, Eastern Kingbird, another Grey Kingbird and a Fish Crow, and then in the pines we found Brown-headed Nuthatch as well as an adult and juvenile Great Horned Owl. Shell Mound Park had been so good that we returned there early afternoon - we could afford about an hour before we had to get going - our final destination in Mississippi was over four hours drive away. I am glad we went, as shortly after arriveal a Swallow-tailed Kite sailed over, and we added Ruby-throated Hummingbird and Chimney Swift to the list as well. 

Great Horned Owl

Brown-headed Nutchatch

We had one final birding stop in Alabama, Splinter Hill Bog. This is a well documented site for the rare Bachman's Sparrow which requires a very particular habitat of pine woods with a low understory. I really liked this site, and only because we did eventually find the Sparrow.  In fact we found two, the song leading us to good views of one whereupon we realised we coul hear another bird responding. Also at this site were a vocal Eastern Towhee, I think our first Eastern Wood Pewee, and a Wild Turkey. The understory here contains thousands upon thousands of carniverous plants, and had we had more time and the heavens hadn't opened we might have spent a bit of time botanising. As it was we had to run for the car and just escaped being soaked to the skin by some monumental rain, the sort of rain that the windscreen-wipers just couldn't deal with. We waited for it to ease a little before continuing north and into Mississippi. At some point that evening a Pileated Woodpecker flew over the car. The trip was going pretty well at this point, in fact bang on versus the plan. We were now up to 114 species (Bradders was on more having had two days in Texas) and I'd had three new ABA ticks.

Bachman's Sparrow

Southeastern USA - April 2024 - Day 1 - Grand Isle and the Louisiana coast

I arrived on time in New Orleans having come through Dallas. I had no need to go via Dallas, but some reason it was marginally cheaper and as I am a bit of a flying geek I got a much nicer seat. I also managed to scrape together a small Texas eBird list as I changed aircraft, with Eastern Kingbird on the terminal roof the highlight. They all count. Bradders was at the domestic exit to meet me, having driven across from Texas that afternoon. He had handed his rental car in and we were to pick up mine. Whereas his had been entirely sensible, mine was anything but, a Dodge Challenger with a 5.7L engine that even to a car agnostic like me sounded really quite extraordinary. I hadn't intended to hire this, I thought I was getting a VW Passat, but I didn't say no......Had we been more than two people I guess it would have been a bit of a issue as I don't remember much of a back seat, and looking at how it sat on the road anything unpaved might have caused problems, but actually it was fine. Not exactly a birding vehicle but it made the trip rather more fun as we had something like 1400 miles to cover without detours. 

We stopped overnight in a crappy motel at Lakeland which is about an hour north of Grand Isle. We had not wanted to go the whole way at that time, plus with the Grand Isle birding festival happening accomodation on the island had been at a premium. We were up early the following morning, raring to go, and it was all we could do to not immediately start birding the motel car park and actually head south to proper birding habitat. The road, known as the Gateway to the Gulf Expressway, is quite something. It leaves the land at Leeville and becomes a raised causeway via large bridge, rejoining the barrier island at Fourchon. Ths whole area was devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and again by Hurricane Ida in 2021. Nothing seemed especially permanent and many of the houses were built on stilts.

Our first stop was at Elmer's Island Marsh, a site we had identified as likely to have Nelson's Sparrow which I needed for my ABA list. Indeed it did, though seeing them was pretty hard and getting a photo even more so. We  eventually found three, along with Seaside Sparrow and Marsh Wren. A Clapper Rail ran around and we also had our first Terns - Gull-billed, Forster's and Royal, all before 8am. I love it when a plan comes together.

Seaside Sparrow

Nelson's Sparrow

Clapper Rail

Moving on to Grand Isle itself we birded the Grilletta Tract, part of the Lafitte Woods Preserve. There were plenty of birders here, but actually not very many birds. Having drooled over massive eBird lists we didn't even manage 20 in over an hour. Highlights here were Yellow- billed Cuckoo and the resident Purple Martins at the small car park. With migration not really happening that morning we moved on to Exxon Fields, the oil terminal at the eastern end of the island. This was far more productive from a listing perspective with lots of Waders and Egrets, and Bradders' first Mottled Ducks.

Purple Martin

Back in town at around midday we birded another one of the vacant lots - Landry-LeBlanc. This was better than our first attempt, with lots more passerine activity - three species of Vireo, Orchard Oriole, Summer Tanager and a dozen Scarlet Tanagers - clearly recent arrivals. Also present were good numbers of Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Blue Grosbeak, though Warblers were completely absent, we hadn't seen a single one all morning which was really bizarre. 

It was time to leave, we needed to get all the way across to Alabama by nightfall, a significant drive. Checking eBird before we left we discovered that a rare Grey Kingbird had been found  at Oak Ridge Community Park, about half way back to Raceland, so we stopped in there to see if we could find it. It took a little while, but we did find it along with both Eastern and Western Kingbird. 

Grey Kingbird

It wasn't until 4.30pm that we got through New Orleans,a nd we didn't help our cause by then stopping before we had even crossed Lake Pontchartrain, parking the car at Irish Bayou and walking down to the Bayou Sauvage levee. This was excellent birding, with the vast wetland yielding Black-bellied Whistling Duck, loads of Coot and Blue-winged Teal, Black-necked Stilt, and Anhingha, a White Ibis and seven other species of Egret, Eastern Meadowlark, Brown-headed Cowbird, and three species of Swallow. We spent about an hour here and now we really had to make some ground. I think Bradders drove whilst I birded out of the window, and we made a token stop at Henderson Point just after we crossed into Mississippi. This was another new State, and as we would be crossing into Alabama before the day was over we felt it was important to at least add something. Even though it was nearly dark we managed a few Gulls, lots of Nothern Mockingbirds, Carolina Wren and an Eastern Bluebird, before continuing east to Mobile. Our first day had been pretty monumental with 81 species, but still not a single Warbler. We very much hoped this would change!