with Rick Wright and Mark Garland
Note: This was a Victor Emmanuel Nature Tour (VENT) trip to Alabama’s Gulf Coast. To learn more about VENT Tours, please visit their website. A 2023 scouting trip with Conservancy Travel’s John Key and Alabama Birding Trails’ Joe Watts was precursor to this trip, as we took Rick to locations all along the coast, with great excitement.
Two Double-crested Cormorants. Or perhaps one Quadruple-crested Cormorant.
Photo Linda McNulty
Everywhere I go, I hear the same bit of local wisdom: If you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute. On this, our inaugural exploration of Albama’s gorgeous Gulf Coast, we waited a week.
The weather never changed. The temperatures remained springtime mild, the southeast breezes refreshing, the skies free of all but the merest hint of rain. It was perfect for us, and it was perfect for northbound birds, which never faced the adverse, even tragic conditions that might have forced them to “fall out.” Instead, our experience of this spring’s migration was steady and regular, with birds everywhere, every day. Whatever it lacked in heartstopping drama, though, was more than made up for in variety. We birded beaches and woodlands, tidal flats and city parks, tallying seabirds, shorebirds, songbirds, and everything in between.
Our base for the entire week was charming Mobile, where we took full advantage of a startlingly diverse and creative restaurant scene. Our first and last meals together, at Dauphins and the aptly named Hummingbird Way, rivaled those on offer in even much larger cities, and nearly all of the more unprepossessing establishments we dined at excelled, too, in the quality and presentation of fresh local specialties, especially seafood direct from Mobile Bay and the Gulf.
Fine as the food was, it was the birding that made this trip so enjoyable. We started on Dauphin Island itself, walking the long pier to the public beach before checking the ruins of Fort Gaines and the famed migrant trap of Shell Mound. As expected, one of the first birds we heard below the pier was a loudly clapping Clapper Rail; not expected at all was that same noisy rail’s decision to leave the dense marsh vegetation to bathe and preen in the open. Our stop at the fort, at the bottom of Mobile Bay, offered a foretaste of passerine migration when a flock of Blue Grosbeaks appeared on the lawn, freshly arrived and exhausted from their trans-Gulf journey. Shell Mound, in contrast, was fairly quiet, but we took the chance to admire the local Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and nest-building Green Herons while a very dashing Peregrine circled overhead.
Now that we had our bearings, we were ready the next day for a longer excursion. We met Lucy and Bob Duncan, Florida birders extraordinaire, in Milton, then followed them to Blackwater State Forest in the extreme western panhandle of that state. It seemed like no time at all before we were getting outstanding views of one our major objectives, the Red-cockaded Woodpecker. Careful management, including controlled burns in the longleaf pine forests this rare bird requires, has had encouraging results, and some sources claim that the population has doubled since the species was first formally listed as endangered. We had splendid views of woodpeckers at nest cavities and feeding in the surrounding pines.
But not even that was enough. The other great desideratum of this habitat was ominously silent when we arrived at Blackwater, but Lucy’s cautious playback bore fruit—and how. I had never before had such a view of a Bachman’s Sparrow, an often furtive species and always hard to approach. This time, though, a bird suddenly appeared at such close range that it was a challenge at first to give directions; the sparrow sang and fed right in front of us for several minutes, an experience as unlike the usual distant scope views as could be.
The Duncans led us to many more treasures, ornithological and botanical. The pine forest at Blackwater is famous for its bogs, and we could hardly have chosen a better season to admire the pitcher plants blooming in colorful profusion just off the roadside. To those of us who grew up without these dramatic carnivorous plants in the neighborhood—and to the rest of us, too— this was a nearly unreal sight, as if we had wandered into some enchanted garden within the forest.
We would stay closer to “home” the next day, venturing to the eastern side of Mobile Bay to meet another expert, Larry Gardella. We were greeted in the parking lot of Bayfront Park by a very insistent Pine Warbler, and our leisurely walk along the swampy forest’s boardwalk concluded with an equally loud Swainson’s Warbler, singing unceasingly from an unfortunately invisible perch. That bird’s stubbornness was easily outweighed by our experiences with Prothonotary Warblers, glowing in the dim light of the swamps. The afternoon was spent on board a comfortable pontoon boat in the upper reaches of the bay, with a nice selection of herons, swallows, and other water-loving birds, all of them no doubt the descendants of birds William Bartram watched on his own visit here almost three centuries ago.
Gray Catbirds, Fort Morgan. Photo Michael McNulty
(Bird banding done by Alabama Audubon)
We’d visited Fort Gaines on our first full day together, and now it was time to check out its counterpart across Mobile Bay, Fort Morgan. If any day could be singled out as the best of our time together, this would be it. We started at Alabama Audubon’s banding station, where we saw a variety of migrant and resident birds in the hand and learned something about the studies being conducted at Fort Morgan. It was our great good fortune to be visiting on a day when Scot Duncan, Alabama Audubon’s executive director and the author of two books on our list of recommended reading (and Bob and Lucy’s son), was there. After we had enjoyed close- up views of Worm-eating Warblers, Gray Catbirds, Northern Cardinals, and others, Scot and Andrew Lydeard took the time to help us find the Shiny Cowbird they had discovered a few days earlier; it was another slightly surreal moment when we found ourselves watching this rarity in the same binocular field as a Yellow-headed Blackbird, a westerly species only slightly less scarce in the area.
After a bayside lunch, complete with Sandwich Terns, we set out on the ferry for the 35-minute crossing to Dauphin Island, where we met our chauffeurs and their golf carts, a novel mode of birding transport for most of us. This time, the public beach was swarming with the public, and we quickly decided that another visit to Shell Mound was in order. Migrants were not abundant, but Blue and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Baltimore Orioles, and a few warblers made our stop worthwhile.
A few of us had seen (and beautifully photographed) Red-headed Woodpeckers at Blackwater, but not until our last full day of birding together were we all able to tick that charismatic species off our lists. We started the morning at Langan Park, a very large city facility with lakes, pine forests, an art museum, a theater, a botanical garden—and nesting Red-headed Woodpeckers. The detour was delightful, and it added almost no time at all to our drive to Dauphin Island, where we started by birding the area around the Goat Tree, so called, it seems, for the timorous livestock that used to climb it to avoid the local alligators. We had good views here of Baltimore Orioles, Scarlet Tanagers, several warbler species, and a fine Yellow-billed Cuckoo, harbingers all, we hoped, of a good day for migrants on the island. After a stop in Cadillac Square, we walked the sandy path through the Audubon Sanctuary on a warm afternoon; our reward here was a Gray Kingbird, an uncommon but regular West Indian visitor to Alabama shores on days of southeast winds.
After our long walk in the Audubon Sanctuary, we were ready for some relaxed birding, which we found in Shell Mound’s “amphitheater,” a tiny brushy clearing with benches and relatively clear sightlines. Here, at the end of the day and the end of the tour, we had an exciting session with Prothonotary and Tennessee Warblers and at least half a dozen Scarlet Tanagers, feeding and flitting through the newly leafed trees and bushes. The sight was every bit as beautiful as the table that evening at Hummingbird Way, where we celebrated an enjoyable tour marked by companionship, laughter, and birds. I hope you enjoyed our week as much as I did, and I look forward to seeing all of you again soon!
– Rick Wright
Daily schedule
April 15: assembly at hotel 5:00 pm. Dinner at Dauphins 5:30–7:30 pm. At hotel 7:35 pm. Clear, light breeze, 70° F.
Bellingrath Gardens. Photo Michael McNulty
April 16: breakfast at hotel 6:00 am; left hotel 6:35. 71° F, mostly clear, southeasterly breeze. Dauphin Island Public Beach, Fort Gaines, Shell Mound. Left Dauphin Island 10:40. Bellingrath Garden lunch, then walk to boardwalk. High 70s F, mostly cloudy, southeasterly breeze slightly stronger. Mobile Bay flats. At hotel 3:05 pm. Assembled for supper 5:00 pm; Wintzell’s Oyster House 5:15–6:40. Checklist 7:15–7:40.
April 17: pastries in hotel 6:00 am; left hotel 6:15 am. Low 70s F, cloudy, a bit of fog. McDonald’s in Milton for “second breakfast” and meet-up with Bob and Lucy Duncan. Low 70s, cloudy. To Blackwater State Forest; some lightening of the clouds. Lunch at El Paso Grill, Milton; birding retention pond behind restaurant. D’Olive Bay overlook 4:00–4:20 pm. At hotel 4:40 pm. Dinner at Felix’s Fish Camp 6:30–8:45 pm. Warm, calm, humid, faint hint of rain.
April 18: breakfast in hotel 6:00 am; left hotel 6:30 am. Bayfront Park 7:00–11:00 am. Lunch at Waterfront, Daphne. Five Rivers 12:45–1:45 pm, boat trip 2:00–3:50. At hotel 4:10. Checklist 4:45–5:15. Leave hotel 5:25 pm. Dinner at Bluegill. Back at hotel 8:40 pm.
April 19: breakfast in hotel 6:00 am; left hotel 6:30 am. Fort Morgan 8:00–11:20 am. Lunch at Takcy Jack, Fort Morgan. Ferry 1:15–1:55 pm. Public Beach and Shell Mound, 2:15–4:15 pm. Dinner at Trellis Room 6:00. Back at hotel 8:25 pm.
April 20: breakfast in hotel 6:00 am; left hotel 6:30 am. Langan Park 7:00–7:50. Goat Tree, Dauphin Island at 8:15. Brief stop at Cadillac Square. Audubon Sanctuary 10:00–11:15. Lunch at Captain Snapper. Shell Mound 12:35–3:00. At hotel 3:45. Checklist 4:30–4:50. Dinner at Hummingbird Way, 5:00–7:15. At hotel 7:25 pm.
April 21: airport transfers at 5:30, 8:30, and 10:30 am.