Garrick Road

I arrived at the Garrick Road tract early to listen for nightjars and owls. A nearby yellow-breasted chat did its best to drown out every other bird, but I was pleased to hear a whip-poor-will and night herons. Starting at dawn, I walked the inside perimeter of the tract to listen for longleaf woodland bird species (I'm hopeful Bachman's Sparrows will return some day). After a 4-year hiatus, the park had burned the tract this past fall. While large areas of dead sweetgums could be found, in other areas the sweetgums seemed more entrenched than ever.

I found a good selection of wildflowers, and found myself wishing I had scheduled a Friends of Congaree Swamp botany hike here for the spring. In addition to the species in the photos, the most plentiful wildflower was a lobelia--Nuttall's lobelia (Lobelia nuttallii) if I had to guess.

I had a nice selection of bird species that can be hard to find elsewhere in the park. No butterfly list this time--it was too early in the day.

Bird list

• Wild Turkey 1
• Yellow-crowned Night-Heron 2
• Turkey Vulture 1
• Mourning Dove 5
• Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1
• Whip-poor-will 1
• Red-headed Woodpecker 10
• Red-bellied Woodpecker 3
• Downy Woodpecker 1
• Northern Flicker 1
• Pileated Woodpecker 2
• Eastern Wood-Pewee 6
• Acadian Flycatcher 1
• Great Crested Flycatcher 6
• Eastern Kingbird 2
• White-eyed Vireo 5
• Blue Jay 1
• Fish Crow 2
• Carolina Chickadee 2
• White-breasted Nuthatch 4
• Brown-headed Nuthatch 10
• Carolina Wren 6
• Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 13
• Pine Warbler 8
• Kentucky Warbler 1
• Common Yellowthroat 3
• Yellow-breasted Chat 2
• Summer Tanager 5
• Eastern Towhee 10
• Northern Cardinal 3
• Indigo Bunting 18