Category: Knowledge

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird:
Family – Trochilidae
Species – Archilochus colubris
Length: 3 – 3.75”; Wingspan: 4.25 – 4.5”; Weight: 0.1 oz

(Submitted by Ron Schlidge)

The Ruby-throated Hummingbird is the only hummer known by most Easterners and has a range that covers most of eastern North America.  Both sexes have glittering green crown and upperparts, and the underparts are grayish to white.  Males have black faces and a deep red to orange-red throat or gorget.  The humming of its wings is clearly discernible from a distance.  Their wings beat up to 75 per second. 

They feed primarily on nectar but take some insects and spiders, also sap from sapsucker drill wells.  In courtship flight, males make a huge 180-degree arcs back and forth, emitting a buzzing sound at its lowest point.  Males often arrive on breeding grounds well ahead of females.  These birds are strongly attracted to the color red as are many other hummers. 

The nest of the hummingbird is very small and made from soft plant down, fireweed, milkweed thistles and leaves.  They are a solitary breeder and generally lay two white eggs the size of a pea with incubation 11 to 16 days by the female. Altricial young stay in nest 20 – 22 days and are fed by the female. They have 1-3 broods per year.

Ruby-throated Hummers feed on red columbine in spring; salvia, trumpet or coral honeysuckle, and bee balm later in the year. They also fed on jewelweed, phlox, petunias, lilies, trumpet creeper, Siberian peatree, nasturtium, cone-shaped red flowers and sugar water.

You can mix your own sugar water by using a  4:1 ratio of water to sugar (ex:  2 cups of water and 1/2 cup of sugar).  Red food dyes added to sugar water may harm birds.  Always replace the sugar water in your feeders at least once a week and maybe more in the hot days of summer.

A group of Hummingbirds has many collective nouns, including a “bought”, “glittering”, “hover”, “shimmer” and a “tune” of hummingbirds.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are common on Seabrook in the summer. They can be seen over the beach, amid the dunes, and in the myrtles along the boardwalks.  They are also around the estuaries and edges wherever they may find nectar-producing plants and small insects.  If you have a home you might try a feeder – they will come.  A very few might spend the winter.  A feeder in winter might also attract other vagrant species such as the Rufous Hummingbird or Black-chinned Hummingbird.

(See the range map following the photographs below.)

If you would like to learn more about this bird visit:

• The Cornell Lab of Ornithology – All About Birders: Ruby-throated Hummingbird
• Birds of Seabrook Island: Ruby-throated Hummingbird

This blog post is part of a series SIB will publish on a regular basis to feature birds seen in the area, both migratory and permanent residents.  When possible we will use photographs taken by our members.    Please let us know if you have any special requests of birds you would like to learn more about.

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird Taking Flight – Charles J Moore

Male Ruby-throated Hummingbird – Bob Hider

Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird – Bob Hider

Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird – Bob Hider

Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird – Charley Moore

Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird – Charley Moore

Range Map of Ruby-throated Hummingbird – Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Painted Bunting – Passerina ciris
Length:  5.5″; Wingspan: 8.75″; Weight: 0.54 oz.
Submitted by:  Charley Moore

Without a doubt, this bird is one of the most beautiful and colorful birds on Seabrook Island or anywhere else.  Look for this small to medium sized multicolored finch at your bird feeder and around the edges of dense brush (such as wax myrtles) and thick woodlands.  It is here from the middle of April though September.  Some may stay throughout the winter, but most of our birds go south to Florida and to the northwest Caribbean Islands.

You will have no problem in identifying a mature male Painted bunting with its vivid blues, greens, yellows and reds that make it look like a small parrot.  The males head is iridescent blue, its throat and underside is bright red, its back is a brilliant green fading to lighter green on the wings.  Females and yearling males are a uniform greenish color with a slightly lighter eye ring.

Painted buntings naturally forage on the ground and in shrubs and are seed eaters.  They are frequent visitors to Seabrook Island bird feeders and seem to prefer white millet.  Although they are not typically insect eaters, they catch and feed insects to their young.  They spend most of their time in thick brush often along woodland edges.

They are fast flyers, darting here and there and are difficult to follow. Males are extremely aggressive and territorial toward other males and often fight over a spot at bird feeders.  Their voice is a very distinctive continuous series of short high-pitched notes lasting about 2 seconds.  Males may sing 9 to 10 songs a minute establishing their territory during spring.  Click here to listen to their song.

Painted buntings are polygynous raising 2 to 4 broods on Seabrook Island throughout the summer.  The nest is built in a bush or tree and is a deep cup of grass, weeds and leaves with a lining of finer grass or hair.  Females lay 3 to 5 eggs, incubate them for 11 to 12 days and the young leave the nest in another 12 to 14 days.  Males do little in raising the young and frequently are out looking for another mate.

Seabrook Island is fortunate to have one of Americas most beautiful birds.  Keep in mind that males only develop their brilliant multicolored plumage in their second year.  Most of the Painted Buntings you will see will be the rather non-descript uniform greenish females and young-of-the-year males. The best way of spotting Painted Buntings is to become familiar with their distinctive song and once identifying where they are, watch for a flash of red, blue, yellow and green.

A group of Painted Buntings are collectively known as a “mural” and a “palette” of buntings.

(See the range map following the photographs below.)

If you would like to learn more about this bird visit:

• The Cornell Lab of Ornithology – All About Birders:  Painted Bunting
• Birds of Seabrook Island: Painted Bunting

This blog post is part of a series SIB will publish on a regular basis to feature birds seen in the area, both migratory and permanent residents.  When possible we will use photographs taken by our members.    Please let us know if you have any special requests of birds you would like to learn more about.

Male Painted Bunting – C Moore

Female Painted bunting protecting her spot at the feeder – C Moore

Male Painted Bunting – C Moore

Male Painted Bunting – C Moore

Range Map of Painted Bunting – Cornell Lab of Ornithology

In case you missed the emails from SIB, Tidelines or SIPOA, and are having trouble using the links (or even finding the links), use the links below to sign-up for our two next bird walks.  Spaces are filling up so register today!

This is an exciting time of year at Seabrook Island as we see many “Big White Birds” starting their courtships and nesting throughout the island.  But are you still trying to figure out the difference between a Great Egret, a Snowy Egret and a White Ibis?  Have you ever seen a Snowy Egret to only be later told it was a Cattle Egret or an immature Little Blue Heron?

We have found a great article for you to read!  It is an excerpt from Better Birding: Tips, Tools & Concepts for the Field, by George Armistead and Brian Sullivan (Princeton University Press).  The new book is not a field guide—it’s an exploration of the fine points of identification that anyone can learn with some patient study of similar species. The full volume contains 24 chapters, each focusing on a different group, from sparrows to swans and hawks to cormorants.

Take a few minutes to read the article and review the pictures here!

Another resource to review is our own SIPOA Wildlife Portal page focused on this same subject.  Click here for a quick comparison.

We really think these two sites will help you feel more comfortable next time you see those “Big White Birds.”

This blog post is part of a series SIB will publish on a regular basis to feature birds seen in the area, both migratory and permanent residents.  When possible we will use photographs taken by our members.    Please let us know if you have any special requests of birds you would like to learn more about.

Update Gallery with pictures and range map

A Great Egret takes flight – Charley Moore

Great Egret Jenkins Point Seabrook Island Ed Konrad

Cattle Egret Creek Plantation, SC Ed Konrad

Little Blue Heron – Charley Moore

Snowy Egret Beachwalker Park, Kiawah Island, SC – Ed Konrad

Northern Parula – Setophaga americana
Length:  4.5″; Wingspan: 7″; Weight: 0.3 oz.

Northern Parulas are tiny, dainty birds and one of North America’s smallest wood-warblers.  These birds are very active and beautiful warblers that are sometimes hard to see because they love to forage in the dense foliage of mid to upper tree canopies.  Most birders hear their familiar rising buzzy trill with a final sharp note long before they get a glimpse of this warbler.  Click here to listen to their song.

On Seabrook Island we are fortunate to have these birds from late March through summer months while they are breeding.  Once you are familiar with their sound you will be amazed as you drive/walk around our island how many Northern Parulas make Seabrook their home.  In fact, we’ve been hearing them often as we golf both Crooked Oaks and Ocean Winds.

These small birds are only 4.5” in length and weigh only 0.3 ounces. Male Parulas are mainly blue-gray above with two conspicuous white wing-bars and a partial white eye-ring.  They have a light greenish-yellow triangular patch on back; throat and yellow breast and white belly.  Adult males have chestnut and black bands across breast.  Female colors are similar to males but duller and generally lack breast bands. First-year (<1 yr old) birds are similar to females but more greenish on upper parts.

Northern Parulas are mainly insectivorous.  They feed mainly on spiders, damselflies, grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, flies, wasps, and ants.  Regardless of season, caterpillars and spiders are consumed most often.  During the winter, the Northern Parula consumes more beetles and occasionally forages on berries, seeds, and nectar.

They are a monogamous species.  Their habitat during breeding is along swamps, ponds or lakes in humid woodlands where they can nest in Old Man’s Beard lichen or Spanish moss.  Pairs often return to same nesting site year after year.  Males sing during migration and throughout nesting season, even when feeding young.  Nestlings are fed mainly by females and the average rate of feeding: 1 trip/13.6 min. Over a 6-hour period, one female carried food 19 times.  When they are not breeding you might find Northern Parulas in pastures; dry or wet forests; and agricultural fields or plantations.

A group of warblers has many collective nouns, including a “bouquet”, “confusion”, “fall”, and “wrench” of warblers.

(See the range map following the photographs below.)

If you would like to learn more about this bird visit:

• The Cornell Lab of Ornithology – All About Birders: Northern Parula
• Birds of Seabrook Island: Northern Parula

This blog post is part of a series SIB will publish on a regular basis to feature birds seen in the area, both migratory and permanent residents.  When possible we will use photographs taken by our members.    Please let us know if you have any special requests of birds you would like to learn more about.

Update Gallery with pictures and range map

Range Map of Northern Parula – Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Northern Parula (Female) – USGS

Northern Parula Nest – Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Red Knot – Calidris canutus
Length:  10.5″; Wingspan: 23″; Weight: 4.7 oz.

Red Knots are the largest of the “peeps” in North America, roughly the same size as an American Robin.   It makes one of the longest yearly migrations of any bird, traveling 9,300 miles from its Arctic breeding grounds to Tierra del Fuego in southern South America.  Here on Seabrook Island, we are fortunate to see this bird on our beaches during the spring migration.

In winter, Red Knots are a pale gray with whitish flanks with dark barring and relatively short, dull yellow legs.  Their bill is relatively short and straight, tapering to a tip.  In the spring, individuals in the flock begin to attain their breeding plumage in which the head, neck and lower parts of the body become a pale salmon color.

Red Knots are a common yet exciting migrant through our area between  March and May.  Look for Red Knots feeding on invertebrates, especially bivalves, small snails, and crustaceans, at the edge of the surf and on mud flats in the inlet and river.  They are often found in large flocks during migration (hundreds of birds).  They feed actively, then move on to the next area as a group.  They may often be seen flying offshore in large groups >30 or so, fairly low to the water.  Knot flocks are tightly integrated and individuals wheel and turn with remarkable synchrony.

The Red Knot is a global species and they are in decline.  The populations wintering in South America dropped over 50% from the mid-1980s to 2003, and are listed as a federally threatened species in the U.S.  A 2012 study estimated the total number of all three North American subspecies at about 139,000 breeding birds.  The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN Red List) lists Red Knot as a Near Threatened species. The occurrence of large concentrations of knots at traditional staging areas during migration makes them vulnerable to pollution and loss of key resources.  For example, Delaware Bay is an important staging area during spring migration, where the knots feed on the eggs of spawning horseshoe crabs. It is estimated that nearly 90 percent of the entire population of the Red Knot can be present on the bay in a single day. The reduction in food available to the knots because of the heavy harvesting of horseshoe crabs may be responsible for a decline in Red Knot populations.

A group of Red Knots has many collective nouns, including a “cluster”, “fling” and “tangle” of knots.

Make a trip to North Beach and walk towards the spit.  The Red Knots arrived on Seabrook Island a few weeks ago and we may see them as late as early May before they finish their journey to high Arctic islands, northern Greenland, and the west coast of Alaska to breed. (See the range map following the photographs below.)

If you would like to learn more about this bird visit:

• The Cornell Lab of Ornithology – All About Birders: Red Knot
• Birds of Seabrook Island: Red Knot

This blog post is part of a series SIB will publish on a regular basis to feature birds seen in the area, both migratory and permanent residents.  When possible we will use photographs taken by our members.    Please let us know if you have any special requests of birds you would like to learn more about.

Red Knots – Ed Konrad

Red Knots – Ed Konrad

Red Knots – Ed Konrad

Range Map of Red Knot – Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Yellow-rumped Warbler – Setophaga coronata
Length:  5.5″; Wingspan: 9.25″; Weight: 0.43 oz.

Yellow-rumped Warblers are one of the most common warblers in North America and abundant on Seabrook Island from fall through spring.  The Yellow-rumped Warbler is sometimes referred to as “Butter Butt” due to its bright yellow rump.  It was formally called Myrtle Warbler in the East because it is the only Warbler able to digest the wax-coated berries of the Wax Myrtles.  On Seabrook, Butter Butts are our most obvious and widely distributed winter Warbler.  They arrive in November and depart in April.  You will see them in small flocks in open woodlands and brushy habitats.  This bird constantly “chirps” which is a contact call that keeps the flock together.

The Yellow-rumped is medium-sized warbler with a long narrow tail and stout dark bill.  In winter, the females, males and young are a paler streaked gray-brown, have bright yellow rumps and usually yellow side patches.  In the spring before they leave Seabrook Island, the male is dark blue-gray upper parts; white throat, breast and belly are white and heavily streaked with black.  Its rump, crown and small area at the sides of the breast are yellow.  There are two broad white wing bars. The female is brownish with the similar patterns.

In winter, Yellow-rumped warblers can be found in open pine and pine-oak forests and dunes where bayberries are common.  During this time they mainly eat berries and fruits, particularly wax-coated berries of bayberries and wax myrtles.  This bird has unique gastrointestinal traits that allow it to subsist on this unusual food source.  This makes them a very winter hardy bird allowing them to winter farther north than other warblers.

In the spring/summer these warblers are found in mature coniferous and mixed coniferous-deciduous woodlands feeding on insects including caterpillars, ants, leaf beetles, grasshoppers and spiders.  You might see them acting like Flycatchers as they leap off perches flying up to catch a passing insect.  They also eat wild seeds from beach grasses and goldenrod and may come to feeders to eat sunflower seeds, raisins, peanut butter and suet.

Yellow-rumped warblers are active and noisy birds.  They constantly chatter as they forage.  Their flight is agile and swift and the birds often call as they change direction.  Their yellow rump and white tail patches are very noticeable while flying.  Their song is a loose trill, but rising in pitch or dropping toward end and the call note is a loud “chek.”

A group of warblers has many collective nouns, including a “bouquet”, “confusion”, “fall”, and “wrench” of warblers.

If you would like to learn more about this bird visit The Cornell Lab of Ornithology – All About Birders: Yellow-rumped Warbler and Birds of Seabrook Island: Yellow-rumped Warbler

This blog post is part of a series SIB will publish on a regular basis to feature birds seen in the area, both migratory and permanent residents.  When possible we will use photographs taken by our members.    Please let us know if you have any special requests of birds you would like to learn more about.

(click on a photo to view as a slide show)

Yellow-rumped Warbler – Bob Hider

Yellow-rumped Warbler – Charley Moore

Passerine E – Charley Moore

Yellow-rumped Warbler – Carl Helms

Range Map of Yellow-rumped Warbler – Cornell Lab of Ornithology

This blog post is the first in a new series SIB will publish on a regular basis to feature birds seen in the area, both migratory and permanent residents.  When possible we will use photographs taken by our members.    Please let us know if you have any special requests of birds you would like to learn more about.

American Goldfinch – Spinus tristis
Length:  5″; Wingspan: 9″; Weight: 0.46 oz.

This small finch is commonly found in flocks on Seabrook Island during the winter months (November – March) on backyard feeders, along the golf courses or anywhere there are weed seeds.  It has a sharply pointed bill, a small head, long wings and a short, notched tail.

Those of you who are familiar with this bird during breeding season (when the male has a bright yellow body and black cap, wings and tail), may not recognize them in their winter plumage.  The winter male has olive-gray to olive-brown upper parts, paler underparts, yellow shoulder bar, white wing bar, dark conical bill and may show black on its forehead and yellow on its throat and face.  The winter female is duller with buff wing and shoulder bars and lacks yellow and black on the face and head.  This drastic change in plumage is a result of the American Goldfinch, the only member of its family, having two complete molts each year, one in the fall and one in the spring.

American Goldfinches are among the strictest vegetarians in the bird world only inadvertently swallowing an occasional insect.  It feeds primarily on seeds, including seeds from composite plants (sunflowers, thistle, asters, etc), grasses and trees.  At feeders they favor nyjer and sunflower seeds (hulled).  In both situations it prefers to hang onto seed heads or feeders rather than feeding on the ground.

American Goldfinches are often described as active and acrobatic.  They are also easily identified by their undulating flight pattern of several rapid wing beats and then a pause.  Listen for their flight song while they are flapping, which sounds like po-ta-to-chip.

A group of goldfinches has many collective nouns, including a “007”, “charm”, “rush”, “treasury” and “vein” of goldfinches.

Keep an eye out for the American Goldfinch, as they will be leaving soon to head north to breed and will return when the weather up north gets cold again next fall. (See the range map following the photographs below.)

If you would like to learn more about this bird visit The Cornell Lab of Ornithology – All About Birders: American Goldfinch and Birds of Seabrook Island: American Goldfinch