Where do I even begin with this one? This trip was absolutely amazing. The opportunity provided by the Georgia Audubon Society, Bob Sargant and Julie Duncan is just unfathomable. The last day of May I left to fly from Twin Falls to Salt Lake City to Georgia, nearly 9 hours of travel time. Some incredible people housed me for the night and the next day we drove off to Macon where I met the group of 15 people I would be with for the next 6 days. We hopped on a bus and drove off to Saint Simons Island, where we stayed at an incredible place whose staff woke up half an hour early to serve us an early breakfast. Many thanks to them for amazing food for every meal! Since we visited so many places and I find it hard to remember where things are, especially with a group, I figured I'd go about this trip report with my best photos first, and then the best birds but maybe not so good photos, and then the photos of birds that meant something to me particularly. Especially since there are 163 photos here to go through, so you don't get bored looking at bleh photo after bleh photo. I won't label which ones were lifers for me since most of them are. Also, I will probably squish two or three photos together in a line so it may be hard to see the photos. If you'd like to see all of the photos in full, they are all in the gallery along with some I didn't include. Here goes! I'll start off with the amazing Roseate Spoonbills, by far one of the coolest birds we were able to see. These were taken at Little Saint Simons Island: At the same location, we saw some beautiful White Ibis: Boat-tailed Grackles were everywhere, but we got the best photos at this location: Mottled Ducks and a female Painted Bunting, same location: A little farther along on Little Saint Simons Island, we visited an amazing rookery full of Great and Snowy Egrets, Wood Stork, and Anhinga. Alligators at miscellaneous places around Georgia: That's a young one. This is a 9 ft adult: The largest one we saw, an 11 ft one: Broadhead Skinks (top and middle left) and a Six-lined Racerunner (middle right and bottom): Green Anoles: Eastern Fence Lizard and a Brown Anole: Interesting plant and insect life: This is a Pitcher Plant, a carnivorous plant much like the Venus Flytrap: Common Buckeye: Imperial Moth: Weird bug: Crazy looking Caterpillar: Assassin Bug: Blue Dasher: A largus beetle: A tiny scorpion: Black-necked Stilt: These are Least Terns. We saw tons of them and also got to see them nesting! Wilson's Plover. We also got to see adorable baby plovers, but the photos aren't very good so they're coming later. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher: Osprey on a nest: Yellow-throated Warbler: Cumberland Wild Horses: Sandwich Tern: Black Skimmer: If you're scared of spiders, avert your eyes! We saw tons. A massive Wolf Spider and Orb Weavers: A Water Snake: Slider: Can't forget the beautiful Northern Cardinal: At our last stop we were able to see a beautiful Prothonotary Warbler, and then a second showed up! Female Boat-tailed Grackle: Now we're moving into the not-so-good pictures of good species! Here are the incredible Red-cockaded Woodpeckers we were privileged to see: They were checking nests. Here's the camera they used, and the picture of the eggs inside: Here's the habitat we were in, with those really crazy Longleaf Pines: At the same location we got to hear lots of Bachman's Sparrows, but they're so hard to see in the open that this is the best photo I got of one: Gull-billed Tern: Tricolored and Green Heron: We heard lots of Clapper Rails, and at one point we actually got to see one! Beautiful male Painted Bunting... darn bird wouldn't turn his head! Another female Painted Bunting: Barred Owl: Beautiful Red-headed Woodpeckers: Incredible Swallow-tailed Kite, eating on the wing as well! Black-bellied Whistling Duck: Yellow-crowned Night-Heron flying over: These are definitely the world's best photos of a Least Bittern and American Oystercatcher: Wood Stork flying over: Another Laughing Gull: Marsh Rabbit: A really stunning Summer Tanager! Black-necked Stilt with an adorable baby: Black-necked Stilt and a Glossy Ibis: Common Gallinule: Wilson's Plover with chick: Common Ground-Dove: The rarest bird we saw was this Blackburnian Warbler. They are normally in higher altitudes with pines and other coniferous trees, but we found this one on Little Saint Simons Island, almost right on the ocean! You can see she's panting. Fiddler Crabs: Blue Crab and Hypanus-type Ray: A pair of Gray Kingbirds, known to nest in this parking lot: Tiger Beetle, very well camouflaged against the sand: Manitees and Bottlenose Dolphins: Ruddy Turnstone with a Willet: Blue Grosbeak: Armadillo! Finally, the not-so-good ones that I care about: Carolina Wren: We heard tons of Northern Parula but this is my best photo of one: White-eyed Vireo: Pileated Woodpecker, a species I've been looking for forever! Sandwich Tern and a Forester's Tern in the same photo: Black Skimmer with a fish: Brown Thrasher: A Fuzzybean flower: My first Ruby-throated Hummingbird and my only photo of an Orchard Oriole the whole trip: There were lots of butterflies(left column down, then right column down: Spicebush Swallowtail, Carolina Satyr, Phaon Crescent, Queen, Palamedes Swallowtail, Little Yellow, Eastern Black Swallowtail): The last thing I want to cover is the landscapes we encountered: Phew! If you made it to the end, congratulations! That was a lot to go through. The trip was incredible and everyone who worked on making it possible deserves a huge thank you. Thank you Camp TALON for being an amazing experience!
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Youtube:The first Kestrel chick fed!
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