I’ve been participating in the Greenville County Spring and Fall Migration Counts for a couple years now. On each count I’ve covered some excellent birding spots in northern Greenville County just across the line from NC. But this year I’ve been focusing on my Polk and Rutherford, NC County lists so I hated to pull myself away from those counties near the peak of migration time. But I needed to honor my commitment to the Greenville County Fall Migration Count, so I began to plan for the Count. Although the hope as always was to find a new SC statebird, there were now very few possible targets left in the upstate of SC, and all are quite rare. For flycatchers I need Olive-sided, Willow, and Alder. And for warblers I need Golden-winged, Mourning and Connecticut. Like I said, all are pretty rare. Though this year has been pretty good for Golden-winged in western NC, so perhaps that one had my greatest chances.
The most notable part of my Count territory is the watershed
area for the Greenville reservoir. This
spot has tremendous deciduous woodland habitat – some of the highest elevation
woodlands in SC. There are just 2 roads
that wind through this habitat. My
greatest bird numbers are along Saluda Road, principally because the road has
next to no traffic and lots of opportunity to pull over or even just stop while
on the road. The other road I bird in
the area is Old US Highway 25, which has a little more traffic and fewer places
to pull over, so my tally along this road is typically a bit lower.
I started this year’s Fall Migration Count shortly before
dawn right at the NC/SC stateline and quickly got a Screech Owl to respond to
tape, followed by a Great Horned. And
there were a number of pre-dawn call notes for Swainson’s Thrush so I was off
to a good start. But soon after I
started my daytime birding the woods became very quiet, and I saw next to no
birds moving. I completed the entire
4-mile length of Saluda Road and only had one small pocket of migrants, unfortunately
finishing my coverage of that road in record time.
I then turned onto Old US Highway 25 and started the climb
uphill. Soon thereafter I ran into a small
wave of migrants moving through the woods, though nothing special. Then just 50 yards farther up the road
another little wave. Things were starting
to pick up. On the next stop I spotted a
couple birds in the understory across the road.
First I picked up a Cape May and then a Tennessee. Then I got a quick glimpse of a bird with a black
throat patch and mask. Could it be a
Golden-winged? And then with a closer
look I saw the characteristic golden wing patches. I indeed had a Golden-winged Warbler! Quite unexpected, especially on a day with so
few migrants. But as I said earlier, it
has been a good fall for them in western NC.
Golden-winged Warbler was #290 for my SC state list. My short list of possible targets in the SC
Upstate just got one shorter.
My statebird map for this species is inserted below – states
where I’ve seen it in its regular range are in blue, cross-hatched states are
those where I still need it in its normal range, and I’ve seen it in NH (in
brown) as a rarity. Although
Golden-winged is possible as a migrant or breeder throughout much of the east, this
has been a pretty elusive species for me, especially more recently given its
decreasing numbers in a lot of areas.
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