A Confession...

I have a confession to make.  Today, I was a lister.  I counted the bird species I saw for the day, and even tried harder at the end of the day to make sure I would break 100 species.  I have never been a lister, and I honestly do not even have a life list written down anywhere.  I have always been a little bit of an anti-lister some of my friends would say, which is why I decided that I needed to confess for today.  Although the day did not start out with the plan to keep a count, by the end it was obvious that we were getting a pretty good number of species.  As we headed home, Eamon counted out 93 species, and he looked at some of the more common species we had missed for the day.  The day started out with Nutmeg Mannikin while we looked for an Inca Dove that was in a neighborhood.

Nutmeg Mannikin male with female in the background

We never did find the dove, but it put us to the western side of southern Mississippi in an area called Bay St. Louis.  Here we found a group of Yellow-rumped Warblers that had a Northern Parula and a Wilson's Warbler with them.  It was in a great stretch of swampy mixed forest that also had some White-throated Sparrows and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers.  We also stopped in a stretch of marsh and caught a glimpse of a Seaside Sparrow and our first Swallow-tailed Kite of the season (and a life bird for me!).

Northern Parula (in terrible light!)

By the end of the day, we had missed out on Pileated and Hairy Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Bald Eagle, and Belted Kingfisher.  We decided to walk around the trail on the refuge when we got home to try to make it to 100 species for the day.  We found all three of our missing woodpeckers, and we got a very long awaited surprise of a Bachman's Sparrow!  It was dusk, but it was still a beautiful sparrow in the dim light.  The back of the sparrow was very streaked with a gray that looked slightly purple and edged with rufous, and blended very well into the dead orange pine needles laying on the ground.  This bird was particularly good at sneaking on the ground and through the needles, almost like a rodent!  It eluded our binoculars for a bit, but he eventually tried to make his way out of the small patch of saw palmetto that we had pinned it in.  This made 97 species, so we decided to continue on the trail.  We found House Wren and a male Common Yellowthroat bringing us to 99, and we knew we could walk through the fields to find a Sedge Wren and a Henslow's Sparrow.  We found both within 8 steps of the road, and decided to end the day at 101 species for the day.  I have to admit that I liked it.  I didn't want to stop, even though dark was approaching.  This was especially because I knew where we could get at least 12 new species within a short drive.  I ended up calling it a day at 101, but I will definitely be listing for a big day on the Gulf Coast next weekend with Matt and Eamon.

Loggerhead Shrike