S. Carolina

At approximately 7:00am on 10/06/11 van awesome left on the best road trip ever to South Carolina. Along the way we made several stops for food, but none more notable than a Virginia Hooters. Several hours later we arrived at our camping site in S. Carolina and prepared ourselves for the awesomeness that was about to ensue. We started out our first day at Francis Marion National Forest. It was a crew day with almost no wind but we were still not able to see the Red Cockaided Woodpecker. But we did get to see how they nest and use tree sap as a predation deterrent. While we were at Waterhorn we also saw Norther Flickers, Red-Bellied Woodpeckers, and even an American Kestral which was breathtaking. The rest of this trip was spent seeing various vultures, and other not as impressive birds. At this point we moved to South Tibwin and the birding was much more enjoyable. On the trail we saw Tree Swallows, Great Egrets, and Woodstorks. But the best birth of all was the Barred Owl which we saw in clear daylight. He was just perched on a tree and was watching us watch him. It was a very cool sighting. As we moved to the lookout area we were able to see a lot of action. Miles brought out his viewing scope and we could clearly see three pie-billed grebes. We saw some herring gulls, a preening great egret, and even a kingfisher that was hovering and diving for fish. Watching him catch one was very cool. We even saw one kingfisher chase away another. Later in the day we moved to the Garris Landing and saw a new diversity of aves. The very first bird I saw was a brown headed Cowbird, after getting over being angry at it I went out on the pier and saw several types of gulls, a yellow crowned night heron, and a few Double Crested Cormorants. My favorite birds at Garris landing were probably the flocks of tree swallows and Foresters Terns. The nest day we started out at Huntington Beach State Park. Even though the day was overcast we saw a lot. Including White Ivis, American Avecets, DCCO, Tricolored Herons, GBHE, Night Herons and even an osprey diving for fish. We also saw Plovers ploving and Sandpipers piping for food. That was very cool. I think Erin and I watched them for a while and counted successful ploves. Later in the day we moved to the beach which was probably the coolest part of the trip. As we walked along the atlantic coast we saw several little sanderlings scurry about the shore. The coolest part was the giant flock of Brown Pelicans, Black Skimmers, Caspian, Forester, Royal, and Common Terns. The Flock was huge and there had to be over 200 birds in it. At one point they all took off but none of them could go anywhere because of all the wind. After this we went back to the camp site had a fire and went to bed. The ride home was not as eventful as the ride down, but it was still nice going home knowing I had seen so many different birds. It was easily one of the best vacations of my life.