Date: 7/16/25 1:23 pm From: Nate Dias (via carolinabirds Mailing List) <carolinabirds...> Subject: Shorebirds and wading birds at Huntington Beach State Park
My friend Ed Boyd was down from Maryland visiting Myrtle Beach, so I showed him around a muggy Huntington Beach State Park today. We spent a good bit of time working Mullet Pond and saw a steady trickle of small flocks of shorebirds flying over low and some circled around and fed and rested along the shallow/muddy margins of the impoundment.
The overwhelming majority of shorebirds were Short-billed Dowitchers and we also had a couple of small flocks of Whimbrel, a total of 3 Stilt Sandpipers, a couple of Pectoral Sandpipers, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, a lone Killdeer, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Least Sandpipers, and Semipalmated Plovers. There were also a few Roseate Spoonbills feeding on the tidal marsh side of the causeway, numbers of Wood Storks, dozens of Tricolored Herons, 20+ Little Blue Herons, 30+ Great Egrets, and smaller numbers of Green Herons, Snowy Egrets and White Ibis.
Least Terns were feeding in Mullet Pond and out in the ocean as well. Nice to see so many around.
Out at the beach we had a couple of small flocks of Sanderling, as well as a handful of Willet. We did not walk to the jetty or overwash area - too hot and lots of humans.
Passerine activity was slow in the woods, as expected but Painted Buntings were usually within earshot or sight and we had a family of Red-headed Woodpeckers at the nature center.
"These days I prefer to hunt with a camera. A good photograph demands more skill from the hunter, better nerves and more patience than the rifle shot." -- Bror Blixen
