Date:         Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:44:57 -0800
Reply-To:     Wayne Schaffner <wayne.schaffner@yahoo.com>
Sender:       Georgia Birders Online <GABO-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Wayne Schaffner <wayne.schaffner@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      American Woodcock & Bachman's Sparrow -Old Thompson Road
              (Dougherty)
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I arrived at the intersection of Old Thompson Road and Gillionville Road at 5:32 PM this evening.  I paused briefly to listen for the Bachman's Sparrow that was there last evening but I did not see or hear a sign of him so I drove to the American Woodcock site located 1.0 mile south of the intersection.
 I arrived at the AMWO location at 5:40 PM.  Yesterday evening, I was thinking I got to the AMWO location late (6:26) so I wanted to be early this evening.  After I parked I stayed next to the truck for about ten minutes just listening and looking.  I heard Mourning Dove, Carolina Wren, Eastern Bluebird and White-throated Sparrow.  I then walked back north about 30 yards to a spot with a gap through the line of scrub and small trees along the back slope of the west roadside ditch in order to position myself better for a look across well managed sparsely treed pine savannah and to the hardwood bottom about 100-yards to the southwest.  The hardwood bottom, or very near it, was the place from which the peent calls originated yesterday evening.

As I was walking north, three (3) Hermit Thrush popped up in the scrub line each only 50-foot from the next and started chupping almost simultaneously (5:54 PM).  That was a first for me.  As I reached the gap in the tree/scrub row I heard many Bachman Sparrow single note tsees calls 10-feet to 15-feet out into the pine savannah but I could not tell how many were in there.  A minute or two later, two different BACS erupted into the agitation call tsisisisisi and one of these individuals was VERY loud.  I continued to hear one other individual single note tsees calling throughout the loud protesting going on. One bird almost sang but did not quite make it.  I also saw the two agitation callers in knee high to thigh high tufts of scrub scattered sparsely about the grass savannah.  I got one poor photograph at 6:01 PM of one of the two more active birds.  At 6:05 PM I left the BACS to themselves to sort things out and walked back south to the truck.

From 6:14 to 6:20 I heard Eastern Towhee, Song Sparrow and Northern Cardinal.  At 6:22 I walked back to the BACS spot and there was much single note teees calling still ongoing.  At 6:23 what I believe to be Chorus Frogs started up in hardwood bottom southeast of my location and east of the road.  At 6:26 a Barred Owl sounded off "who cooks for you" west of the hardwood bottom where the peent calls came from yesterday.  At 6:28 I heard the first peent call from the same location as yesterday.  Another Barred Owl "hoooaaw" from the hardwood bottom to the southeast at 6:30.  Definite AMWO twittering wings at 6:34 but I could not see a bird in the air against the backlit trees in the bottom and it was pretty dark by then.  Peent calls and twittering continued until 6:41.  At 6:43 several coyotes started yapping.  I listened until 7:00 but heard nothing more and then called it a day.

11 species

American Woodcock  2    simultaneous peent calls and twittering

Mourning Dove  3
Barred Owl  2
Carolina Wren  4
Eastern Bluebird  1
Hermit Thrush  3
Eastern Towhee  2

Bachman's Sparrow  3    <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/44510955@N05/6763399369/" title="Bachman's Sparrow OTR (Dougherty) 25Jan12  by Wayne Schaffner, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7141/6763399369_fba9d05293.jpg" alt="Bachman's Sparrow OTR (Dougherty) 25Jan12 "></a>

Song Sparrow  1
White-throated Sparrow  2
Northern Cardinal  3

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)
 
Wayne Schaffner
Albany, Dougherty County, Georgia

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