July 2023 |
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Inside this issue:
- What's New
- Upcoming Events
- New & Noteworthy
- Audubon Newhall Preserve
- Feathers Through Our Lenses
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Members and Friends of Hilton Head Audubon,
Mid-summer is the “quiet time” for birding in the Lowcountry, the lull between spring and fall migration and when many bird species have already finished breeding and are less active. It occurs after the peak breeding season, when birds are focused on raising their young. It provides an opportunity to observe and appreciate the less conspicuous aspects of avian life, such as the intricate behaviors and interactions between birds. Some species like northern cardinals may engage in post-breeding activities like molting. During the quiet time, birds are less vocal, as many birds have already finished their territorial singing. Moreover, the quiet time is an excellent opportunity for birdwatchers to hone their observation skills and deepen their understanding of bird behavior. They can closely study foraging and feeding patterns, nesting habits, and other subtle nuances that may go unnoticed during busier times of the year.
Fall/Winter Member Events
So while birds are quieting down, your Board and volunteers are busy planning an exciting Fall/Winter schedule. A sneak preview into the future includes bringing back the popular Birding 101 course taught by Bob Speare, a photographing shorebirds field trip and education on ethical bird photography, a potential joint activity to Daufuskie Island with the Daufuskie Island Conservancy and Historical Foundation, and a fall member social. Our monthly meetings will resume in September and speakers will be announced soon.
HHA Awarded Palmetto Dunes Care Grant
Hilton Head Audubon was awarded its fourth grant of the year! Palmetto Dunes Cares is a charitable organization whose motto is: giving back while building community. Its mission is to support local youth and enhance the natural environment in the greater Hilton Head Island area through grants and scholarships. HHA will use the grant money to fund Maritime field trips. Stay tuned for more information!
Keep The Clean Broad Creek Festival
We have another opportunity to spread the word about HHA, conservation and birding on July 19th from 4pm to 8pm at Shelter Cove Community Park, as part of the Outside Foundations mini-festival. We’ll have an information booth similar to Juneteenth and a craft project, as the Outside Foundation is trying to make it as hands-on as possible. We need a few volunteers to help set up, and/or work a 2 hr shift from 4pm to 6pm and 6pm to 8pm. Please email Sarah Gustafson at sarchrisgus@hotmail.com if you are interested in volunteering.
Follow HHA on Instagram and Twitter
Carson Anne Patterson, our gifted social media intern, is building our new Instagram platform with engaging new content and photographs. We look forward to sharing your posts! Follow us on Instagram @hhaudubon. And follow us on Twitter @AudubonHHI.
As our President Kay Grinnell said “There’s so much we want to do, and we can only do it with your support. While we feel like we’re accomplishing many good things, we would love even more of your help! There are “little” bits and “big” bits of volunteering or giving you can do. Talk to any board member to find out more.”
The next issue of Ecobon will be out in early September. Have a safe and enjoyable summer!
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Joining HHIAS or renewing your membership is easy, click here to complete the online forms. Please consider a contribution beyond the basic annual membership level to support our mission. A reminder that Gift memberships are available for purchase, click here.
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DonationsHilton Head Audubon accepts donations online, using Venmo, or by mailing a check. Donations can also be made in honor or memory of someone by following the instruction on the form. Donate online. Donate by mail.Donate by Venmo. If you have Venmo, scan the Venmo QR code or go onto the Venmo app and find us by typing “HHI Audubon Society” or “@HHIAudubon”. We use our donations to support: advocacy regarding conservation/birding in our region, providing birding education programs to area schools, maintaining and interpreting through signage and tours of the Audubon Newhall Preserve, managing the annual Christmas Bird Count, actively participating in regional Citizen Science programs, and increasing awareness about local conservation projects or concerns.
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Events |
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Our monthly meetings will pause until September, and resume that month at 2:30 on the second Tuesday of each Month at The Coastal Discovery Museum's Sea Island Room. Newhall work days take place on the second Saturday of the month.
To view all upcoming events in a calendar format, click here.
Keep The Clean Broad Creek Festival Wednesday, July 19th from 4pm to 8pm at Shelter Cove Community Park To learn more, click here.
Newhall Work Day Saturday July 9 and August 12 To learn more, click here. |
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Field Trips and Walks |
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Field trips will resume in the Fall.
Newhall Preserve Guided Walks Free guided tours every Tuesday led by Master Birders. Please gather in the parking lot by 8:30 AM. |
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News from the Conservation Desk: Calling All Citizen Conservationists! by Laura Voight, HHA Conservation Chair and Board Member Last year, Kay Grinnell, HHA President, wrote to us in our Ecobon Newsletter about The 2022 State of the Birds, the startling report on the drastic, 70% decline of bird populations from 30 years ago. So, how can you help us turn the tide?
Become citizen conservationists!* Citizen conservation is just a step beyond what many of us are already: birders as citizen scientists – like when we participate in the Christmas Bird Count (the longest running citizen science project in the world) or record our bird sightings in eBird. These are necessary ways to be involved, but they are also painless, ending with the easy part of doing what we love: birding.
Citizen conservationists act on conservation measures that help the future of our birds. Now more than ever, we need to do what we can off the field to reverse the decline and save our local birds in the field.
Our HHA Conservation Committee is rolling out two major citizen conservation issues to help our island’s birds. Our first initiative strives to give our shorebirds a break from dogs. By working to pass a Town Ordinance for dogs at the Fish Haul Beach area to be leashed at all times as well as educating people why this is so important, we can make a significant impact. Our second initiative also relies on responsible pet ownership by educating people to keep cats – the biggest killer of birds, by far, after climate change and habitat destruction – inside.
You can learn more about these issues on our website’s Conservation page, Click on the “Safe Birds Safe Cats” and “Help Save our Shorebirds” boxes and get involved at whatever level you can!
To help directly, join our growing Conservation Committee. Or, if committees aren’t your cup of tea, help us get the message out with access to your gated or residential community and social clubs. To gain public support for these issues, we need to reach people throughout the greater island area – by publishing short articles in your newsletters and giving talks to your communities and clubs. Please email me at lvoight00@gmail.comto help. If you’d rather (or also!) support our initiatives financially, just designate your donation for ‘conservation’ to help us pay for venues, educational materials, and brochures.
Thank you in advance for helping us protect our birds through citizen conservation. And remember: Great birding will continue in the future only if we have birds, safe in their habitats, to keep watching. Advocate with us today!
* In 2010, George Fenwick, the former President of The American Bird Conservancy, called for a new era of citizen conservation that involves us in meaningful ways that help the future of birds. Now more than ever, we need to heed his call to help reverse the decline and save our birds!
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Juneteenth! by Shannon Wilkinson Hilton Head Audubon (HHA) introduced the first edition of its new report, “Gullah Geechee of Mitchelville: Cultural Ties to Birds and Nature,” at the Juneteenth Celebration at Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park, Saturday, June 17th, 2023.
HHA received a grant from National Audubon to research the importance of birds and nature in the Gullah Geechee community at the time of the founding of Mitchelville. Helping Hilton Head Audubon to prepare their Gullah-related research was a collaboration with USC-Beaufort through their Student Connected program.
HHA had a significant presence at the Celebration, including an information booth in the non-profit section where members distributed copies of our report, and provided materials about HHA, birding, and conservation. We hosted a craft area, where we engaged children and spirited adults by creating pine-cone feeders, owl eyesight vision paper towel binoculars, and origami swans. We also led bird walks from the craft center through the woods and down to the beach.
We are now continuing work on “Gullah Geechee of Mitchelville: Cultural Ties to Birds and Nature.” |
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Daufuskie Island Visit by Patty Kappmeyer Last May, HHA Board members Shannon Wilkinson and Patty Kappmeyer, along with social media intern Carson Patterson visited Daufuskie Island as guests of the Daufuskie Historical Foundation and Island Conservancy. Vanessa Bramlett (Historical Foundation) and Kelly Easterling (Island Conservancy) treated us to a whirlwind day of birdwatching on Daufuskie while learning of their efforts to conserve and protect the Island. The day started auspiciously at the Haig Point embarkation dock on Hilton Head where we watched a great blue heron spike a small stingray while a manatee fed close to shore.
Upon landing at Haig Point, we were met by Kathi DeLeo who maintains the bluebird box trail consisting of 19 active nesting boxes along the golf course. We witnessed nestlings and fledglings and bluebird parents feeding and caring for their young. Along the trail we saw many black and fox squirrels, black-bellied whistling ducks, herons, egrets and roseate spoonbills. Next, Kelly Easterling graciously invited us to lunch at her home in the Melrose section of the Island. Her backyard backs up to a lagoon where yellow-crowned night herons perched. She also pointed out a green heron nest that she discovered while pruning brushes. From Kelly’s house we walked a short distance to the packed house, noisy, and thriving Melrose rookery. Hundreds of nesting wood storks, egrets, herons and roseate spoonbills gather here to nest and raise their young.
We took a drive through the historic neighborhoods and swung by the schoolhouse made famous by Pat Conroy where Shannon discovered a piece of her past. In 1982, while worked here as a freelance writer, she obtained a grant from the S.C. Arts Commission and spent two weeks living on Daufusukie Island working with the schoolchildren, subsequently producing “The Daufuskie Kids Magazine,” a collection of their artwork and writing. It was featured on the NBC Today show and subsequently sold out three editions.
As a result of our visit, HHA is working on joint programming with these two organizations. Click here to learn more about the Daufuskie Island Historical Foundation and the Daufuskie Island Conservancy.
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Blue Wall Birding Festival 2023 by Lynn Hodgson Thursday, April 27, six Audubon birders headed upstate toward Pickens to attend the Blue Wall Birding Festival at Table Rock State Park. This was the second year that ranger Scott Stegenga and his crew hosted the Blue Wall, but it was my first trip. We drove a long five hours before settling into our cozy cabins built in the 1930s.
That night, we met birders from all over the state, listened to Dr. Rocky Nation discuss the contribution of Birding to wellness, and played a birding version of jeopardy = Jeo-Birdy. Most of us missed the question about the large predator rarely sighted over SC - the golden eagle. I wrongly answered the raven! But I rightly identified the black-throated green warblers’ song. It is one of my favorite birds, and one of the first calls I learned at summer camp when I was 12. In bed at 8:30, anticipating an early start.
We met our first guide, Joe Dunkleman, early Friday morning. Joe was a friendly guy with super keen hearing who often cupped his hands around his ears, like a satellite dish receiving bird calls. We stood underneath the power lines at Nine Times Forest and heard yellow-breasted chats, indigo buntings, blue grosbeaks, and the fluted song of a wood thrush. Joe introduced us to the song of the Kentucky warblers, aka “porky pig birds” for their “Buh-Deep-Buh-Deep-Buh-Deep” (accent on the Deep) song, given ad infinitum.
Image of Yellow-breasted Chat by Sophia Schade
The walks along remote roads displayed great views of summer and scarlet tanagers. We listened to the field sparrows’ ping-pong dribble-like song and the ascending trills of prairie warblers. Lunchtime found us at a fire station where we were joined by a flock of American goldfinches. The trip’s high point (literally) was the short jaunt up Sassafras Mountain, the highest peak in SC at 3,554 ft. Some of us Lowcountry birders were really puffing near the top! While gray clouds limited our view, we could see distant lakes and nearby cliffs of the mountainsides, and we heard a Swainson’s warbler. Our total species count for the day was, like the temperature, a high of 65.
Image of an Eastern Kingbird by Sophia Schade
On Saturday, we drove to Townville and met our guide, Brian Bacchus, at the Townville Café. We expected a cute country diner, but turned out the cafe had closed several years ago and was a boarded up shack! But Brian took us to farms, roadsides, streams, and a beaver dam where the birding was most productive. Brian knew all the local farmers so we had permission to go onto some private property. At Dobbins Farm, we were treated to best-ever views of grasshopper and savannah sparrows. We watched eastern meadowlarks, cowbirds, horned larks, and bobolinks. We even saw a black coyote skulk across the field, wisely avoiding the donkeys and cows nearby!
Image of a Grasshopper Sparrow by Sophia Schade
At Prater Farm, Brian climbed up inside an old barn and tossed out a handful of owl pellets, which one birder promptly put in her pack to take home to the kids. We all admired the string of gourds that dangled from an inverted satellite dish - homes for purple martins. But alas, we saw no owl and no purple martins. We watched a pair of nesting ospreys and an American kestrel, and rounded out the day with 62 species. That night at Table Rock, Sophia and Dennis served up a wonderful Italian supper, capping off another terrific day.
Sunday dawned quite rainy, so most people headed home rather than taking the optional field trip to Conestee Park in Greenville. We were a bit equivocal about bailing out on the leader, Jeff Click, whom we had gotten to know. However one of our crew, who shall remain nameless, finalized the decision after locking her wallet and daypack in the cabin. After a few frantic phone calls, we were rescued by a friendly park staffer, Wayne. Despite the drizzle and the delay, we arrived home by 1pm, only to realize I had locked myself out of my house! Luckily,I had left a side door open.
At least on this Sunday, we were a bumbling group, possibly due to exhaustion. But we had a wonderful time and plan to go again next year. Might even stay longer. Do consider joining us!
HHA members Lynn Hodson, Karen Seminary, Karen Penale, Rosemary Staples, Sophia & Dennis Schade
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PSA on Ticks A public service announcement from Bob Clemens about the presence of lone star ticks at the Newhall Preserve. An individual was bitten by one and exhibited flu-like symptions. So please always check yourself after visiting the forest and remove those little fellows before they drink too much!
To learn more about the lifecycle of the lone star tick and tick borne diseases, please click here. |
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Master Birder Class By Kathleen Shea Kettel Last fall, we came to Hilton Head to live full-time. My plan was to get more involved with the Audubon Society. I was thrilled when I saw the notice for the Georgia Audubon Master Birder class. I signed up as soon as I read the post. In our class, there was an Atlanta cohort and our Coastal Cohort which had people from Brunswick, Savannah Georgia and Hilton Head up to Sun City, South Carolina. For five weeks we had two classes and one field trip each week. It was very fast paced with a three-part final exam, consisting of visual and song identification and a multiple choice set of questions.
Key topics for me were Bird Songs, Behaviors and Ecology. Each of these became part of my foundation for identifying birds in my backyard and my travels. One thing I learned early on was to focus on the bird songs. Georgann Schmalz created recordings of many local birds. It is available for purchase and allowed me to listen on a computer or transfer them to my phone. I also learned about the Merlin application for my phone. I now take walks with my dog, listen to the birds along the path and use Merlin when I need to confirm a song. I’ve progressed well with the birds’ songs in my neighborhood. An added trick, learned in the class is to come up with some words that capture the bird’s song. When I hear a song and those particular words, it helps me remember the specific bird. I also write those words down since some birds have many different songs. I have over fifteen for the Carolina Wren.
Watching a bird’s behavior is another aid in a bird’s identification. For example, I see a bird in my backyard walking down a tree headfirst, I then look for the white breast of the nuthatch. When I’m walking on the beach and see sandpipers running quickly between their stops, I know they are sanderlings. That running separates them from the more upright posture of the semipalmated plovers as they probe the sand nearby.
Currently the most difficult aspect of birding is finding the bird with my binoculars. Someone might be describing the location, or I hear the bird singing. That’s why I started learning the songs, so at least I knew what I was looking for. But now I’m using other tips provided from the class. In the past it was very difficult to transition from looking at the bird with my eyes to using binoculars. I tended to change my focus instead of keeping my eyes on the bird as I brought the binoculars up. Now I use my eyes to focus very specifically on where the bird is. I look for those larger cues: branches, leaves etc., and I really try not to move my eyes. Now when I switch to the binoculars, I can find those cues and the bird easier. I’m experiencing more success.
So, I certainly wasn’t a Master Birder at the end of the class, but I’ve gained enough information to start progressing towards that goal. Again, I thank the Georgia and Hilton Head Audubons for that opportunity. |
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Birding Resources for All By Patty Kappmeyer Fellow birders, I want to share two new resources that are informative and easy to digest for birders of all levels.
Birdlife: A Naturalist's Guide to Birds of the Southeast During my visit to Daufuskie Island on behalf of HHA, Kelly Easterling, a board member of the Daufuskie Island Conservancy, highly recommended Todd Ballantine’s recent book Birdlife: A Naturalist's Guide to Birds of the Southeast. Todd is an internationally recognized environmental scientist, writer, and artist originally from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. His latest book Birdlife presents the habits and habitats, colorings, migratory paths, and songs of nearly one hundred birds of the Southeast that he knows so well. According to one review: “He wings us across diverse landscapes, along the coasts of states from Virginia to Texas, and in elds and forests in between, providing keen insights and tips for recognizing birds on the branch, on the beach, or in the air. Along the coast and estuaries, you will meet the double-crested cormorant and the herring gull; near marshes and wetlands, the American coot and the great blue heron; in elds and open areas, the killdeer and the savannah sparrow. In the brush and at the wood's edge, you will encounter the dark-eyed junco and the white-eyed vireo, and in the forest-if you are lucky-you might hear the evocative call of the nocturnal Chuckwill's-widow. Birdlife delights with Ballantine's own artistic and precise illustrations, hand-lettered text, easy-to-follow presentations, and memorable descriptions. His black-and-white bird renderings provide easy identification of shape and form.” It is an easy to read flip-through book and a delightful addition to any birding enthusiast’s guide collection. Available at Amazon
REI Coop Guide to Birding-Watching for Beginners My friend and free-lance journalist Alexandra Marvar asked me to contribute content to a bird-watching guide she created for REI. The Bird-Watching Guide for Beginners (linked here) covers the who, what, when, how and why of birding with tips and gear recommendations. The Guide is organized by the topics listed below. You can read my thoughts on steps you can take to be an ethical birder in the Responsible Bird-Watching section.
- What Is Birding?
- Who Can Bird-Watch?
- A Brief History of Birding
- The Benefits of Birding
- Where to Go Birding
- When to Watch for Birds
- Bird-Watching Gear
- Using Binoculars for Bird-Watching
- Responsible Bird-Watching
- How to Improve Your Birding Skills
June/July Sightings Please enjoy these collages of bird activity photographed during the past month by our Facebook group members.
There are several ways to report bird sightings : use eBird, join the HHIAS Facebook group or Birding-Friends@google.com. If you would like to join the Birding-Friends google group please send an email requesting access to ecobon@hiltonheadaudubon.org |
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International Shorebird Survey Volunteer Highlight: The Hilton Head Crew by Patty Kappmeyer Kudos to the crew of Hilton Head voluntereers who are featured in the International Shorebird Survey's April 2023 newsletter! Since 2013 the Hilton Head contingent has submitted over 100 ISS surveys contributing the important work tracking habitat use and population trends among shorebirds. Click here to read the article in the April 2023 Newsletter.
In 1974, Manomet organized the volunteer-based International Shorebird Survey (ISS) to gather information on shorebirds and the wetlands they depend on. Through the work of dedicated volunteers conducting field surveys during spring and fall migrations, this monitoring network provides hemispheric data on shorebirds. To learn more about ISS and the work they do, click here.
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