Camping in the mountains for a few days

Our camping adventures found us in the North Georgia mountains this month for a few days of camping.  Black Rock Mountains State Park.

The tent was comfortable.  The days were pleasant, but the nights were chilly.

We hiked every day, birding.  There were a lot of trails around.  We couldn't do them all. The birding was fun.

Debbie thinks all these walking keep us young.  She is right.

The area was beautiful.  Very green.  Lots of butterflies, birds, deer, amphibians.

After years of camping, we know how to keep things simple, organized, and efficient.

The State Parks have bathrooms with hot shower.  When you go during the week (versus weekend) and after school starts, you have very few people at the campgrounds. We enjoyed the facilities with hardly anyone else.

Sometimes, we are ready to go home after three nights/four days of camping.  Sometimes, we want to stay longer and have in the past.  We wish we could stay longer on this camping trip.  But it was time to go home.   We enjoyed it.  The simple life!

Chasing a bird

Limpkin

"Chasing a bird" is a saying in the birding circles when a birder goes out of his way to see a bird.
Why would anyone do that? Birders will chase a bird they've never seen before or a bird that has been sighted out of his usual territory and considered "rare".

Georgia Veterans State Park

Debbie and I chased the Limpkin this month.  It took us three separate trips to the area to finally see the bird.  We usually see these rare birds on our first try.  The only place you could find this bird in the U.S. is typically in Florida.  Otherwise you'll have to go to the Caribbean Islands or further south.
Two Limpkins came to the Georgia Veterans State Park giving Georgia birders a unique opportunity to see it.  We saw both.

We enjoyed the pretty area while we were there

  Several birders from Georgia went to see this one bird! Many drove farther than we have.  For us, it was a little over one hour drive from Macon.  It's also nice to run into other birders.  I believe everyone who saw the bird felt it was worth it.  We did.

Limpkin by Jerry Amerson

This is a better picture of the Limpkin taken by my friend Jerry Amerson.  You can tell he has a better camera than I do! Debbie and I had a good close view of the bird but he flew farther before I could take a good picture.

Now we have Limpkin in our list of birds.  Oh yes! that's the whole purpose, right? Beside enjoying the birds, we keep a list of birds we've identified in a "year-list" and a "life-list".  And if a rare bird comes close to where you live, you go check it out.

Visiting with Connie and Duane in Decatur

We stopped by Connie and Duane on our way to the Tennessee Cumberland Plateau last week.

They got a new home in Decatur and we wanted to see it.

The home was beautiful.  We also wanted to spend some time with family...and play games, grill outside, chat, be together.  We did all that.  It was pleasant.

They must like to spend time with us too, because they came to join us on the second week-end of our vacation in Tennessee and that was awesome.

Connie and Duane

Debbie and Duane

 Family is important.  Come see us sometimes!

Camping and Birding near the Georgia Coast

Camping is great.  Birding is great. Camping and Birding ...super great!
We spent 3 nights and 4 days camping and birding last month (March).  We were at the Gordonia Alatamaha State Park which is a full facility campgrounds State Park.

 By "full facility" I meant a campground with water and electricity at the site and bathrooms with hot shower.  The above picture shows our bathroom.  Debbie's bathroom is on the left and mine is on right.  Funny I'm writing this but since we were the only campers with tents, everyone else having RVs or motorhomes, we had the bathrooms all to ourselves.

Debbie holding a Cherokee Rose. 

This State Park was close enough to the coast so we were able to visit and bird many coastal birding spots.  In the above picture, Debbie is by a Cherokee Rose bush at the Skidaway SP near Savannah.  No, she didn't pick the beautiful rose.  It's always better to leave beauties in nature alone for all to enjoy.

The above pictures are taken on Tybee Island, North Beach, where flocks of Black Skimmers, Gull species, and Terns were resting.  The North Beach at Tybee remains the unspoiled part of the island.

Harris Neck

Harris Neck Wildlife Refuge became one of the top birding spots for us in Georgia along with the Altamaha Wildlife Management Area.  If you love nature, this place got it!

Baby alligators at Harris Neck

Baby gators at Harris Neck

Altamaha WMA

Harris Neck NWR

These little alligators should be afraid of us, right? Didn't seem like they were at all.  Pictures were taken with a camera phone so that tells you how close these gators were.  They were literally on the banks of the trail.

Skidaway SP

Debbie at Tybee Island

As tired as Debbie was that day, she still looks happy.

Turned out to be a great camping and birding trip with over 120 birds species encountered in four days.  We had the benefit of a very wide variety of birds' habitats. 

Birding the Georgia Coast

Jekyll Island

When you are a birder, you figure out one thing sooner or later.  You see more birds going to coastal areas than just staying inland.  So, we've decided to bird the Georgia coast more often this year.  These pictures are from our first two trips this year.

Harris Neck, NWR

The above picture simply doesn't do justice to this beautiful place, Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge.  We just kept going wow, wow, wow during that birding stop.  Ducks were a few feet from us.  We saw a rookery of Snowy Egrets, picked up a life bird later that day (life birds are birds that you see for the first time in your birding life), and we had a hard time leaving the place.  We've experienced a high birds activity on that stop,something we didn't have at some other places.

Tybee Island North Beach

Another time I ran into such a good variety of bird species this year was when I was with Trey McCuen and James Fleullan on my first trip to the coast this year.   It was a non-stop birding day with some of the best birders in the State.  We saw close to 120 bird species by the end of the day.  I started having a headache by the end as I was keeping checklists and birding at the same time with reading glasses on and off...but it was thoroughly fun and rewarding.

During that trip, we hit Hutchinson Island, Fort Pulaski, Tybee North Beach, back to Hutchinson Island to see the Western Kingbirds we missed the first time, checked out the causeways for the Snowy Owl someone reported (that we didn't see) then to the Savannah NWR on the South Carolina side.

Virginia Rail

 We had some very rewarding moments during that trip, like the Virginia Rail that came to our feet when called, and the two life birds on the trip.

Back to the trip with Debbie.  We went from the Savannah area all the way down to Jekyll Island.  Beside Harris Neck Refuge, we birded that Altamaha WMA, Andrew's Island causeways, Tybee North Beach, Fort Pulaski, and the Savannah NWR in South Carolina.  The areas where we birded were beautiful.  It was cold and windy at times but nothing to be compared with the snow that folks were having back home.

Boat-tailed Grackle

This Boat-tailed Grackle either wanted food or wanted to get in the vehicle with us where it was warmer.  He has a lot of charm and a very expressive and inquisitive look.  This was on Jekyll Island.

We would love to come back here in a warmer season.

Red Knot probing for food

Before we returned, we picked up a second life bird, a Nelson's Sparrow.

Tybee Island North Beach

We then picked up another life bird, the Lesser Black-back Gull, at Tybee North Beach.

Savannah NWR

We were surprised at the number of duck species at the Savannah NWR.  We saw a couple hundreds of Northern Shovelers, 400 or so American Coots, hundreds of Ring-necked Ducks...then several rail species including King Rails and Soras right there in front of us.  We saw a Sedge Wren! that I wished we saw in Georgia as I have not seen one in GA this year.

Andre sorting out bird species.

 This second bird trip to the coast had an unexpected surprise.  We were bumped to second position in the eBird ranking for the top 100 birders in the State.  That only lasted a few days before we dropped again in ranking.  You usually don't stop and think about it, but birding can be a little fun competitive hobby at times!
We had our fun and we are already planning another trip to the coast latter on this month.  This time, camping and birding if the weather cooperates.  Can't wait!

Finally, we get our share of snow!

Well, we didn't get that much snow.  About 3 inches.  It still was all pretty and white.  I wish we got it for Christmas...

It was just a few degrees below freezing and the power didn't go off.  That was nice.  We were prepared for a power outage in any case.

Macon is a small city.  People were able to get back home quickly before the sleet, then the snow, set in. Our friends in Atlanta were not so lucky.  We kept saying "we're glad we're not living there anymore!".  Yes, we hated the traffic in Atlanta and, really, that's what messed up folks in Atlanta.  Stuck in traffic and the snow for so many hours...  People were getting out of their cars and just walking home on foot.  Or they were sleeping somewhere, anywhere safe... cars, restaurants, schools, retail stores, churches.  You just feel sorry for these people! Don't tell them about Macon.  We like it small here.

  It's nice to live in the South where you don't have long snowy winters that could be bleak, shoveling snow out your driveway just to get to work.  So when you get snow once in a while, you can enjoy it because you may not get another one for two years or so.

This one was pretty! Everything was covered in a white blanket.  And we enjoyed it!