With the conclusion of Week Five I found myself about to leave Florida behind and move towards Georgia. I was now into February, and January had been undoubtedly the best month of birding I’ve ever had in my life – and personally I find it hard to believe that it will be surpassed this year even with my continued travels. Arizona, Texas, and Florida had all met the high expectations I had for them, New Mexico had hit the century mark with ease despite a limited focus on intense birding, and Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama had all far exceeded even my most optimistic hopes despite a historic-level snowstorm hindering my birding for several days. Surely now, with the start of February, the leaving behind of three members of the indisputable top four states for birding, and the moving farther north away from the coast, the days of exceptional birding are sure to be behind me until spring migration is in full swing, right? Right?
Of course when Week Six kicked off I wasn’t done with Florida quite yet, however. I started Monday morning off with a stop at my Aunt Kristi’s Florida rental, and after a couple hours visiting with her from there I headed to the Jim King Park and Boat Ramp in time for high tide to search for Saltmarsh Sparrow – a bird typically most active and visible when the tides are high. Unfortunately high tide was around 11:30am, and therefore getting late enough in the day for the sparrows to start to be less active due to time of day despite the high tide, but I took solace in the great looks I got at Willet, Little Blue Heron, and Tricolored Heron.
After eventually accepting the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to nab my target I continued on to Huguenot Memorial City Park in search of several birds that had been hanging around there. Shortly after I arrived I spotted two of my targets, as a group of Purple Sandpiper were mixed in with a flock of Dunlin and a Glaucous Gull was floating in the water a short distance off the coast. Purple Sandpipers are among my favorite shorebird and are a bird I’d only ever previously seen two of, so it was an incredible treat to see fourteen of them together on the beach! While watching the birds I began talking to another birder present on the beach, Jessica Dyszel, a local birder who was on at least her third attempt for the Glaucous Gull and who was also hoping to spot a Black-legged Kittiwake that had been hanging around the area. We chatted for about an hour as we scanned through the gulls hoping to spot the Kittiwake, and Jessica provided me with intel on the location of some of the other shorebirds that hang out at Huguenot. Before I left to track those birds down Jessica spotted a Surf Scoter hanging out with a group of Black Scoter out in the water.
After parting ways with Jessica I continued along the beach a short ways until I came across the first of the two groups of shorebirds I was searching for when I spotted a group of sixty-six Semipalmated Plover, along with two Wilson’s Plover. There was also a massive nearby group of Black Skimmer along with loads of Laughing Gull with some Lesser Black-backed Gull and Great Black-backed Gull mixed in. Eventually I spotted the second group of shorebirds I was looking for, a group of Red Knot. There were also loads of Black-belled Plover, Willet, Ruddy Turnstone, and Sanderling present on the beach.
Eventually I decided to move on from Florida and begin the drive to Georgia, making one last stop at a nearby spot called Spoonbill Pond, where I spent a good deal of time watching a massive flock of 386 Short-billed Dowitcher. Also at Spoonbill was a variety of other shorebirds including a small group of Long-billed Dowitcher, three Marbled Godwit, a bunch of American Avocet, and a dozen Greater Yellowlegs. With this my birding in Florida was concluded and I prepared to head to Georgia, where surely I would finally hit the anticipated wall and birding would slow down tremendously, right? Right?
My time in Georgia was kicked off on the morning of the 4th with a visit to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. I started the morning birding along Suwannee Canal Road as I worked my way into the refuge, where the day kicked off with a calling Barred Owl and a couple Eastern Towhee. Eventually I reached the Wildlife Drive, a four mile out-and-back (eight round trip) through pine forest and cypress swamp. The entire drive was replete with warblers – primarily Yellow-rumped Warbler but also about two-dozen Pine Warbler, a pair of Palm Warbler, a Black-and-white Warbler, and a few Common Yellowthroat. Also present on the drive was my main reason for starting my time in Georgia there: a family group of Red-cockaded Woodpecker. On the way back from the turn around at the end of the drive I also picked up a few other woodpecker species, including Red-headed Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, and Pileated Woodpecker. Along Suwannee Canal Road on my way out I would add Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and Northern Flicker to my woodpecker list for the day, leaving Hairy as the only realistic woodpecker left for the sweep.
From Okefenokee I headed towards the coast, where I planned to spend a few hours at Jekyll Island, where at high tide along the Causeway I would again try for the “salty” sparrows, Seaside, Saltmarsh, and Nelson’s. I was still a bit early for high tide upon arrival, though, so I did a circuit of the island with stops at the Marina, South Beach, and Driftwood Beach. By the time I left the Driftwood Beach I had picked up quite a few new Georgia birds including an assortment of gulls and shorebirds, and it was now nearing high tide. As I made my way back to the causeway I spotted another suitable seaside saltmarsh to try for my aptly-named targets, and there I picked up Seaside Sparrow but again dipped on Saltmarsh. On the causeway itself I managed to add Nelson’s Sparrow in addition to picking up a few more Seaside Sparrows, and then I headed towards Saint Simons Island, where I again tried for Saltmarsh Sparrow along the causeway there, but while I got incredible looks at Nelson’s Sparrow and saw a couple more Seaside Sparrows I again dipped on my new budding nemesis.
Eventually I headed to the Gould’s Inlet portion of Saint Simons, where I spent about an hour picking through the boatloads of shorebirds present. There over 900 Semipalmated Plover along with at least one Piping Plover and four Wilson’s Plover, plus hundreds of other shorebirds including a Whimbrel and several Western Sandpiper. Despite the now-receding tide I made one last attempt to track down a Saltmarsh Sparrow before departing the island, but like my previous attempts this effort was in vain.
From Saint Simons I headed towards the Altamaha Wildlife Management Area, where at the Butler Island portion I heard calling Marsh Wren, Sora, and a King Rail. I then decided to head across the road from Butler Island to Champney Road, where after adding targets Cooper’s Hawk and Common Gallinule I prepared to head back to Butler to try for Barn Owl. As I was making the slow drive back, though, I heard a distinctive call that made me stop in my tracks and start searching for the bird. Eventually I spotted it, a Myiarchus flycatcher teed up in a tree: the Ash-throated Flycatcher that I had just heard! I’d had no idea that one had been discovered at the spot just a couple days prior! After the bird dropped out of sight I eventually moved on and headed back to the Butler Island observation tower, where while I would dip on American Barn Own I saw quite the spectacle of herons coming in for their evening roost. 56 Little Blue Heron, 88 Snowy Egret, 61 Great Egret, and 8 Great Blue Heron would have been a cool enough sight on their own, but the 347 Tricolored Heron stole the show. As I watched flock after flock of heron fly through to head to their evening roost I also spotted several Northern Harrier and heard calling Virginia Rail and Clapper Rail, but eventually decided to head out as the mosquitos grew ever-thicker as the sun set.
Much as I’d expected Louisiana to be a steep drop-off from Texas only to have on of my best days of the year in Cameron Parish, my expectation that Georgia would be the first state where 100 species would be a serious challenge was shattered when I ended my first day in the state having already crossed the century mark, calling it a night with 102 species for Georgia in just under 12 hours.
The morning of the 5th was kicked off much like the morning of the 4th as I started my day with a wildlife drive, this time at Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge. New birds for the state continued to roll in, with additions of Wood Stork, Hermit Thrush, Black-crowned Night Heron, Wild Turkey, and several others.
From there I continued north to Tybee Island, where on the North Beach there were a ton of ducks and shorebirds, including highlights of White-winged Scoter, Purple Sandpiper, Red Knot, and Piping Plover. Being from Michigan, the Piping Plover were especially of interest as all 19(!) of them were unbanded, a stark contrast to the norm back home where upwards of 95% of the Great Lakes population is banded! Also out on the water were both Common Loon and Red-throated Loon, as well as several Northern Gannet and over a thousand gulls and terns as well as a massive flock of 265 Black Skimmer.
Eventually the tide rose high enough for me to make yet another series of attempt searching for Saltmarsh Sparrow, stopping first at a small unnamed saltmarsh along Old US-80 and then at the Lazaretto Creek Fishing Access spot, where I yet again dipped on Saltmarsh Sparrow but picked up Seaside and Nelson’s. Finally I headed to Fort Pulaski National Monument, where along the causeway to the island my efforts finally paid off when I got brief-but-satisfactory glimpses of my Lifer Saltmarsh Sparrow.
Saltmarsh Sparrow in hand (or, well, sight) I headed inland towards Athens, where I would be spending the next three days birding with a handful of University of Georgia-affiliated birders. The first of those, Phillip Salzinger, I met early on the morning of the 6th at the State Botanical Gardens of Georgia. After a morning walk at the spectacular site, I hopped in Phillip’s car for a morning of driving around Athens in search of birds I hadn’t yet seen this year. At Lake Herrick we picked up Rusty Blackbird, then at Oxbow Lake we added American Black Duck. Before parting ways so Phillip could head to class we made one last stop at the Athens-Clarke County Landfill, a spot with a nice walking trail but, unlike every other landfill I have ever birded at, not a single gull.
After parting ways with Phillip I made a loop south of Athens, stopping at various eBird hotspots including Braswell Church Rd. and Cattle Ponds, where there was an impressive flock of ducks consisting of Northern Shoveler, Gadwall, American Wigeon, Mallard, and Green-winged Teal. From there I made a few more stops at various hotspots as I worked my way back towards Athens, where just east of town I met Patrick Maurice in the evening at Double Bridges Road to try for American Woodcock, which began their peenting and flight displays as dusk set in. After about a half hour of listening to and watching the displays, Patrick and I headed back into town where Patrick treated me to dinner and we spent about an hour talking about the birding I’ve done so far this year and the birding yet to come.
The next morning I met back up with Patrick, and together we birded Ward Road, a spot that upon initial glance didn’t seem like it should be too productive but at which we tallied an astonishing 51 species, including birds like King Rail, Brown Thrasher, Vesper Sparrow, and American Pipit. Once we wrapped up at Ward Rd. we tried tracking down a few other birds at local spots, but unfortunately dipped on our targets of American Barn Owl and Horned Lark.
Patrick and I then parted ways, and I spent the rest of the day working on writing, including getting started on this blog post, writing an article for the Oakland Bird Alliance‘s Nuthatch Newsletter, and getting caught up on my Daily Notes (available over on Patreon. A few examples of them are linked here: 1/1, 1/10, 1/25, and 1/29). I wasn’t done with birding in Athens quite yet, however, as the next day I would be meeting up with several members of the University of Georgia birding club for their trip to an Atlanta-area wastewater treatment facility.
Early on the morning of the 8th I met Gale Athan, Cassie Sweetland, Jasper Cuomo, and Nicholas Pautler at a UGA Campus parking lot, from which we carpooled to the Clayton County Water Authority’s Natural Treatment Systems Site, a massive wastewater treatment facility just south of Atlanta that uses an incredible expanse of constructed marshes, ponds, and wetlands to treat the water in a far more natural way than the typical sewage pond. “Us UGA birders” (do I really get to claim honorary membership to multiple university birding clubs within the span of a week?) were joined there by the Georgia Tech birding club led by Ewan Pritchard as well as a handful of other birders, and together our group of 24 embarked on a three hour tour of the facility. The tour was incredible, and it was a great, fun experience birding with a large group of birders of varying experience levels ranging from having birded across the world to having only seen a few dozen species in their life. When the tour was over a group of about 15 of us stood in a circle in the parking lot of the facility’s Newman Nature Center, formally introducing ourselves after having spent a few hours birding together. As we were about a third of the way through the introductions Ewan called out “Purple Finch!”, and then proceeded to use some of the most creative explanation of the bird’s location I have ever heard as he got the rest of the group on the bird. I mean, I can’t personally say I’ve ever heard anyone say “The bird in the center of the parallelogram, right next to the equilateral triangle!” before, but it definitely did the trick and soon the entire group was on the bird.
On the way back from the facility the UGA birders and I talked favorite birds, favorite bird facts, et cetera for the hour-and-a-half drive back to Athens, and once we were back to the campus parking lot where we’d started the day my birding in Georgia was finally wrapped up. I hopped back in my car and began the drive back west towards Alabama, beginning a stretch of revisiting states I’ve already visited but focusing on the northern parts of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Arizona this time around, rather than the southern parts I stayed in during my previous visits. My time in Alabama would be kicked off on the 9th with a morning visit to Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge, where I managed a good haul of 48 species but it seems I was late to the party for Sandhill Crane, which I was only able to locate a pair of instead of the flocks of hundreds I was hoping to see. After leaving the refuge I spent the rest of the day as I had the afternoon and evening of the 7th, working on writing and planning for the future.
Next week is going to be a week of significantly less intense birding than the year has been so far until I enter Arkansas on the 15th, but as with everywhere there is certainly good birding to be had!
Happy Birding!
eBird Trip Summary:
First and foremost - thank you to anyone who chooses to support me in this insane adventure of mine. When I initially had this idea and began planning I didn't even consider the possibility that others would want to support me, but I am extremely grateful to those who have reached out to do so. For those who are interested in supporting me, I have set up a Patreon, which can be accessed by clicking the logo to the left (or you can send me a message via the contact page). Again, thank you for your incredibly generous support!
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Follow me on my journey to see 100 species in every Lower-48 State during 2025, experience some of the incredible places and events in American birding, and meet and bird with as many local birders as possible along the way.
Posts will be made every Wednesday (I will try to have them out by 5pm, but situationally they might be a bit later) and will cover the previous Monday through Sunday. Additional posts will be made periodically with no set schedule.
