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Stephen Ingraham (who?)	the unofficial site for birders and digiscopers using Zeiss equipment.

Colonial Coast Birding Festival

This is the 4th meeting of the Colonial Coast Birding Festival, on Jekyll Island Georgia. ZEISS was there at the first one (it was my second festival with ZEISS) and it is a pleasure to see it grow and prosper.

Jekyll is one of the golden isles of the Georgia Coast, with a large portion of the island set aside as a nature preserve. The beaches, marshes, and island forest habitats provide a wide variety of birding opportunities, while surrounding islands and preserves provide field trips for those who want to wander.

This year's weather was near perfect. Just on the cool side for October, but plenty of sun.

I do two workshop presentations at Colonial Coast: a two session digiscoping experience (classroom and field) with Clay Taylor, and a beginning birders' workshop called the 7 Fold Path to Better Birding. Both were well attended but the turnout at the 7 Fold workshop was particularly encouraging. It is always good to see people, in numbers, eager to learn to be better birders and get more out of their time in the field.

The images below will give you a better feel for the place and the event. As always, clicking on a bird or bug will give you an enlarged version.


The booth: panoramic window overlook the ocean. Fly-bys are always worth looking for. Last year we had Perigrines. This year we had Cooper's.	A volunteer at the JI Banding Station with a Northern Perula.

The dunes along south beach.	South Beach Boardwalk.

Along the boardwalk.	A few of the digiscopers out on the field segment of the course.

Clay Taylor giving some basic instruction.	What we were capturing: waste no opportunity!

Gulf Fritilary: The DC4 allows for exact selective focus.	Mixed along the shore: note the different behaviors captured here.

All alone in the crowd: Young Royal Tern among the Black Skimmers	Young Tern begging.

Looking down his nose! Royal Tern	That eye is really hard to capture! Black Skimmer.

It doesn't get any better than this for a digiscoper! Good birds. Good light. Good day!	Waste no opportunity. These were half way between two flocks of skimmers and terns.