The Great Backyard Bird Count

Friday, February 15th, began Cornell University Lab of Ornithology and Audubon's Great Backyard Bird Count. Wanting to do our part, we "worked" the area on Saturday, the 16th. An American Coot was found merrily working away on his plant he'd dived for on the little lake near my parents' home, a Tufted Titmouse proclaimed his territory in our front yard, and Front Beach in Ocean Springs added laughing gulls, ring-billed gulls and a few pelicans to the tally. By far, though, the Inner Harbor was tops on the list. We think the Brown Pelicans knew it was the weekend of the count, and they all came in to be counted! There were at least 64 of them throughout the harbor area. Hardly a post didn't have a pelican on top. A few laughing gulls managed a spot here and there on remaining posts. Two gorgeous Common Loons, two Horned Grebes and 3 Double-breasted Cormorants swam the waters of the harbor watching the action.

We can't leave out our winged friends at Gulf Islands National Seashore in the Davis Bayou section. Mr. and Mrs. Osprey courted in their tree, a couple of Horned Grebes, two Tri-colored Herons (I prefer the old name - Louisiana Heron - myself), 3 Great Egrets, 2 Snowy Egrets and a Mockingbird and Eastern Bluebird rounded out the count.

Oops, I almost forgot the huge number of birds just offshore on a sandbar at East Beach in Ocean Springs. There were easily in excess of 50 Brown Pelicans and 2 White Pelicans in that group.
Brown Pelicans have just come of the Endangered List. It's a real joy to see them thriving once again.

What fun it was to see who we could spot and enter them online into the count. If you miss this years' count, there's always next year. You can read all about it at, checking to see which birds were spotted in your area at: http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc .