Tweet and See, December and January

Visit Kingdom Arrows to join in the bird watching fun!

I am so excited that my friend, Heather of Kingdom Arrows, has started a meme all about the birds we identify.  I have been wanting to launch this new blog for several months.  I claimed the domain name about a year ago but haven't felt compelled to get things going until now.  Thanks, Heather, for the motivation!

Heather has asked those of us who participate to keep a list of the birds we see in one month and then, at the end of the month, post that list to our blogs and link back to her.  She has the linky available here and you can read more about how to participate here. 

This month, I am going to report for December and January.  In December, we traveled to Tennessee to visit family and saw several interesting birds which I must tell you about!  Our birds were all spotted in Central Georgia, North Georgia, Middle Tennessee or Northern Alabama.  They were seen in a variety of habitats, from lake-side forests to the median of I-24, just outside Nashville.

Here's the list (and a couple stories, too):

• Belted Kingfisher
• Killdeer
• Golden-crowned Kinglet (new to our life list)
• Tufted Titmouse
• Blue Jay
• Pine warbler
• American Crow
• Fish Crow
• Chipping Sparrow
• Great Blue Heron
• Mourning Dove
• Northern Mockingbird
• Snow Goose
• Mallard
• Muscovy Duck
• American Robin
• American Coot (saw dozens of these, maybe more than 100 in the Tennessee River)
• Ring-billed gull
• American Kestrel (We were sitting on I-24, stuck behind a wreck for about an hour.  This bird was flying back and forth over the median and then perched in a tree right beside our car!  Amazing view!)
• Red-tailed Hawk
• Black Vulture
• Turkey Vulture
• Eastern Meadowlark
• Rock Pigeon
• Starling
• Red-winged Blackbird
• Eastern Bluebird
• Eastern Towhee
• Yellow-rumped Warbler
• Three unspecified birds of prey
• Sharp-shinned Hawk  (This bird was perched on a wire directly in front of us while we were waiting at the drive-thru window at Wendy's.  After we got our food, I quickly pulled into a parking place and we walked to the front lawn of the restaurant where we got a long and close-up view of the bird.  It seemed odd to see an uncommon bird -for our area in winter- at Wendy's, but we saw details on this one and feel pretty confident.)

The Wendy's bird of prey looked exactly like this.
It was even in the same pose.
photo credit

So what did you see?  I can't wait to read!

Happy Tweetin'!
Dawn, for the Olive Plants