About LCB
The Lowcountry Birder is a labor of love produced by a “Damn Yankee” (Translation: a Northerner from “Away” who decided to stay instead of heading back North when vacation was over!) who now lives with his wife and adult son with “special needs” just a couple of miles inland (“as the Osprey flies”) from Pinckney Island NWR and Hilton Head Island.
I’ve been involved in watching birds and nature for 45 years now – since my childhood growing up on a farm in western PA. I started out as a school kid with a pair of 3x binoculars and the “Golden Book of Birds” (or some title like that). At age 12, my grandfather gave me his pair of Binolux 7×50 binoculars and his old (1947 edition) of Roger Tory Peterson’s “Field Guide to the Birds” – and I was hooked!
Living here in the Lowcountry of SC is like living in a birder’s paradise – you never know what “exotic” bird may fly or swim past in the lagoon behind our house (see below). Being able to share it with all y’all makes it even more enjoyable.
It’s an incredible experience coming from the farms and woodlands of western Pennsylvania to this area full of sandy shores, spartina grass, swamps, and sunshine (especially the sunshine – the western PA weather can be pretty dreary sometimes!) Just looking out our back windows from my home office, I can view a variety of wildlife passing through our backyard which borders on a lagoon with a wooded nature preserve on the other side. You never know what you’re going to see:
- A family of River Otters swimming playfully down the lagoon
- Raccoons dredging up freshwater mussels for a breakfast on the banks of the lagoon
- A variety of herons, egrets, Wood Storks and White Ibises gliding past or wading in the shallows searching for lunch (there’s nothing quite like watching a Great Blue Heron try to swallow a foot-long large-mouth bass!)
- Ospreys, Black Vultures, Red-tailed Hawks, Red-Shouldered Hawks, Coopers Hawks … and yes, even the occasional Bald Eagle soaring overhead!
- Barred Owls hooting or Chuck-will’s-widow calling from the woods from evening dusk to morning light
- Various ducks, Pied-billed Grebes, Double-crested Cormorants, and Anhingas paddling by or diving for their dinner
- The ever-present Mockingbirds, Cardinals, Eastern Bluebirds, and Carolina Chickadees flitting about the yard
- The flocks of Yellow-Rumped Warblers (dozens) and Tree Swallows (hundreds!) that congregate during the winter months
- The various woodpeckers (Pileated, Red-bellied, Downy), Yellow-shafted Flickers and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers that can be heard hammering and calling from tree to tree.
- Let’s not forget the reptiles! A variety of snakes including water moccasins, black racers, and rat snakes may slither (or swim) by looking for a quick meal. And of course there’s occasionally an alligator – king of the swamps – trolling slowly down the lagoon looking for an easy meal.
All in all, it’s a magical place to live and observe the wildlife, especially the birds. I hope that our sharing it with you through this website brings joy and enthusiasm to your life while also giving you a greater appreciation of the wondrous creation that we share with our “wild” neighbors!