2023 Webb Wildlife Center - Spring Birding

Prothonotary Warbler on March 28 near Bluff Lake,
and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher below.

The Fripp Island Audubon Club made a field trip to the SCDNR Webb Wildlife Center in hopes of seeing neotropical migratory songbirds and red-cocked woodpeckers. Technician Cathryn Bland met the birders on the Oak Avenue entrance and we proceeded to a Red-cockaded woodpecker nest cavity tree, where she deployed a peeper-pole with video camera for us to look inside the nest. No nesting activity yet for these RCW's but they did make a brief appearance, including some vocalizing, which allowed everyone to get a look at these small and mostly-black woodpeckers. We were standing in longleaf pine habitat, and the SCDNR use of prescribed fire was evident, with blackened ground cover and smoldering stumps over a patchwork of acreage.

Ibis feeding in swamp near Bluff Lake

After stopping at the Office to carpool in three SCDNR trucks to the back of the property, closer to the Savannah River, we soon arrived at the oxbow named Bluff Lake. We took a walking trail into the hardwood bottomland habitat and saw a flock of Ibis feeding in the water, with some great egrets mixed in. Then birders glimpsed the yellow flash of the prothonotary warbler and everyone looked through branches and leaves to identify at least two of them. (Beidler Forest reported the first arriving prothonotary warblers on March 26.) Other songbirds were all around, but since they like to stay in the tops of the tall trees, getting ID's on all of them can be tough. Other trip highlights included wood stork at the Upper Lake, and wild turkeys in strut and gobbling for all to hear.

Group at Lewis Rogers observation deck

To view past Field Trips from 2023 click on Whooping Crane Pond -  Jarvis Creek Park- Bio Blitz at Caw Caw -  Yawkey Wildlife Center - Botany Bay WMA - Pinckney Island NWR - ACE Basin NWR Combahee Unit

Wood Stork taking flight near Upper Lake 

To view Field Trips from 2022 click on  Palmetto Buff Christmas Bird Count - Walterboro Wildlife Sanctuary - Bailey Mill Plantation - Niederhoff Seed Orchard - Hunting Island State Park - Botany Bay WMA - Nemours Wildlife Foundation - Cumberland Island - Harbor Island - Silver Bluff/Audubon - Phinizy Swamp - Oldfield Plantation - Dolphin Head Beach - Bear Island WMA - Widgeon Point Preserve - Port Royal Sound Foundation - Parris Island  

Wild Turkeys on Turkey Road