Mistaken Identify…by Brad Marks

Things are really heating up on our Haunted Trail event. You are already aware of this, so no need to go into further detail on that – of note though, my pillow recently filed a missing person’s report on me. These are the days I regret giving up caffeine so many years ago. Fortunately for me, Brad was able to stockpile some posts to keep you entertained while we try to deal with the nasty clown infestation in the woods. Today Brad is bringing you another adventure from one of their favorite locations – Hilton Head Island. Note, Brad and Jan are back on assignment and will have limited access to respond to comments, apologies in advance for that. Suspect the Intrigued HQ is in absolute chaos with both of us gone (I’m looking at YOU legal department!). Time for me to head back into the haunt lab.

Take it away Brad….

As many of our long-time readers know, Wildlife Intrigued photographers constantly travel these United States to bring you the latest on birding, and sometimes, human behaviors.  Jan and I have had a very busy photo assignment calendar these past couple of years.  To show the extent Wildlife Intrigued will go to bring you a story, a year ago while on assignments, we saw both oceans buffering the United States.

Jan and I spent a few chilly mornings on Hilton Head Island on the Atlantic Ocean last February.  I thought South Carolina is supposed to be warmer than Illinois in February.  The afternoons all ended up being quite lovely.  However, one morning, there was ice on the fence near the ocean at sunrise.  After a brief shiver and then a short ride in our warm rental car, Jan and I ended up at a favorite place from prior visits:  Fish Haul Beach at low tide.  Time for a small sidebar to share what I learned about the names of various tides.

Hit the jump to learn more about this upturn billed featured feathered friend!

Very high tides are called King Tides.  So, what’s a very low tide called?  It’s called a neap tide.  As a landlubber, I had to look that one up.  I’ve learned to plan for low (or high) tides depending on what type of wildlife Jan and I are looking for.  Fish Haul Beach has a dramatic wide tidal flat.  My unscientific guess is that at neap tide, the beach becomes well over 100 yards wide.  We arrived at the beach just before slack tide.  Slack tide is when the water seems to stand still, not moving in or out.  Within twenty minutes, we could see the water very slowly beginning to make its way back up the beach.

This bird was enjoying slack tide as it walked along the edge of the water.  It is barely getting its feet wet. 

Looking up birds that are supposed to be on Fish Haul Beach in February led me a bit astray and contributed to my mis-identification of this bird.  The bird I photographed had reddish breast feathers, at least they looked that way in the available light of mid-morning.  Photos I used as a reference seemed to make the Marbled Godwit, which might have a ruddy to reddish colored breast, look like a Hudsonian Godwit, which happens to have an almost red breast, though not quite American Robin red.  In some of my non-published photos, the breast feathers are nearly red.  This feature is usually enough to be a differentiator, hence my mis-identification. 

I was checking my Sibley’s and All About Birds for visual references as well as eBird to see what had been reported.  A Hudsonian had been reported several times that week on this same beach via eBird, by people with much more bird cred than I have.  Maps I consulted on eBird, All About Birds, and random birding sites, showed conflicting winter ranges.  This would have put the Hudsonian Godwit at the extreme edge of its range, but hey, the other birders must know what they are doing, right?  However, the good people at eBird eventually convinced me this was NOT a Hudsonian Godwit, but was in fact a Marbled Godwit that “just happened to be reddish” (nearly a direct quote).  Hybrid, maybe, but not a +1 for us.  We had already seen Marbled Godwits on the exact opposite coast the prior Fall.

I know I’m not going to be the one lucky enough to find rare species where they aren’t supposed to be.  But on this trip, we spotted a few “unusual for the time and place” species in total with two being later verified.  Ironically, my identification of a Red-breasted Nuthatch, common at home, was questioned, though I was smack-dab in the middle of part of its winter range according to eBird.  A submitted photo convinced the eBird folks I had correctly identified the Nuthatch.   Whew!

This Marbled seemed to still be working out the kinks of the morning by stretching on the beach.  It was a cold morning after all. 

There!  Can you see the slightly red feathers underneath?  It’s not just Little Brown Jobbers (LBJ’s), that are hard to identify.  CSSB’s (Crow-Sized Shore Birds) can be just as difficult when you are new to birds.  Don’t get me started on figuring out gulls.

After a couple of hours photographing on various parts of the beach, Jan and I began to notice the water coming towards us a bit quicker than it was only a few minutes before.  We could easily outpace the incoming tide by walking, but if we paused for a moment or two, our shoes would have gotten wet with the next wavelet.

Unfortunately, WP is having issues rendering Smugmug videos, so you will have to hit the following link to see our video of the tide coming in (link here).

Both of our shoes are waterproof, but only up to the top where the water spills over.  I really wanted to keep my shoes dry because we had more birding to do that afternoon.  Plus, my tummy was starting to rumble a bit.  It was time to find one of our favorite places to have lunch on Hilton Head Island.

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more Marbled Godwit photos (sorry no Hudsonian Godwits), please visit here.

Credits

Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing.  Thanks to Jan for some of the photos in this article.