My first Christmas Bird Count

December 19th saw me on my first ever Christmas Bird Count, and what an experience it was!! 
It was a very cold start, and we had to wipe down the wooden bench seats of the open air pick-up truck to remove the frost!!

Our little group was led by Kristina Wheeler and we were joined by experienced CMNA members/volunteers/birders, Tony & Joanne Panek, and for almost 5 hours we toured the privately owned Brosnan Forest  area in Dorchester County. Due to the size of the area to cover, a second team was also sent out to the forest, and CMNA member Nora Futtrell was part of that group.

Brosnan Forest is an approximately 14,000 acre area owned and managed by the Norfolk Southern Railroad as a recreation and conference center for its employees, and is not open to the public.  However, it is managed by biologists and conservationists that are working diligently on maintaining and restoring the Long Leaf Pine forest so I was very excited to find that it is home to 70 colonies of Red Cockaded Woodpeckers, and it didn't take long before we were able to add at least one to our species list for the morning! In fact it was at our very first stop!

Other notable sightings included a Blue-Headed Vireo, White Breasted Nuthatch, Hooded Mergansers, Wood Ducks, and 3 Bald Eagles!

For me, the sightings of the Red Cockaded Woodpecker and the Blue-Headed Vireo (below) were firsts....Lifers!

We also saw some Buffleheads...

In all, our morning added up to a total of 54 species recorded, with 502 individual birds counted, including this Pine Warbler!