Gullapalooza @ Pawleys Island - 05 Dec 2024

Part 3 of the birthday celebration took Jack, Janet and me to the north end of Pawleys Island to look for gulls. We found them...

We first took a quick jaunt down to the south end of the island to look at houses, then turned around and headed north. Along the way an adult Bald Eagle appeared overhead and dropped down onto the rail of one of the many piers lining the shoreline. We stopped for a few pics out of the car window.



The tide appeared to be out as the inlet was extremely shallow this late afternoon. Of interest was the wooden pier was half-buried along the beach and could be walked "over" along parts.


Across the inlet along the far shore we found a half-mile long gull roost! Among them were 744 Black Skimmers that I counted 1-by-1 through the scope. I then estimated the remaining gull flock that consisted of mainly Laughing Gulls and Ring-billed Gulls. There would also be a scattering of Brown Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, Forster's Terns, Sanderlings, Black-bellied Plovers, and Short-billed Dowitchers. 

In order to show the magnitude of the flock I took sweeping frames in order to create panoramas (8x5 frames/pano) that would be combined into a super-panorama. I would then spend the evening counting individual birds using the counting tool in Photoshop. 











I was about to take a panoramic video of the gull flock when they all lifted enmass. All I could do was take hundreds of images to show the mini-spectacle.







Before leaving the beach for the adjacent salt marsh I digiscoped several of the Short-billed Dowitchers.


We walked down to the canal where fisherman were doing their thing and scoped the opposite shore where we'd find four Willet and hear a pair of Clapper Rails calling from the shadows of the approaching sunset.

Walking back toward the car we came upon a pair of Palm Warblers that flew into the trees in front of one of the homes along the beach.



They then treated me to a birthday dinner at the Raw Bar where I had the best Grouper Tacos ever! Heading home we arrived under dark, star-filled skies. I took the opportunity to spend some time stargazing and even pulled out the scope to digiscope Jupiter and its 4 moons that were visible.


Thank you Janet and Jack for a great birthday!

Pawleys Island--North End, Georgetown, South Carolina, US
Dec 5, 2024 3:50 PM - 5:23 PM
Protocol: Traveling
6.273 mile(s)
Checklist Comments:     Clear, calm (gale winds from am have ceased!), 60F
20 species

Red-breasted Merganser (Mergus serrator)  12
Clapper Rail (Rallus crepitans)  2
Black-bellied Plover (Pluvialis squatarola)  4
Short-billed Dowitcher (Limnodromus griseus)  5
Sanderling (Calidris alba)  12
Dunlin (Calidris alpina)  80
Western Sandpiper (Calidris mauri)  1
Laughing Gull (Leucophaeus atricilla)  2272     Massive roost of mixed LAGU and RBGU among 744 Black Skimmers. Outnumbered skimmers 2:1 easily. Exact count using counting tool in PS of superpanorama.
Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis)  274     Exact count using counting tool on super-panorama in PS.
Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger)  744     By two’s
Forster's Tern (Sterna forsteri)  44
Double-crested Cormorant (Nannopterum auritum)  35
Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor)  1
Great Egret (Ardea alba)  1
Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis)  12
Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)  1
Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)  1
Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon)  1
Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum)  1
Palm Warbler (Setophaga palmarum)  1

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S204564320

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)