When Matt got home from work, we went to a bar with his friends Amber and Mack. We hit up both Clyde's and Benigno's. We didn't get to bed until almost 4am.
Then next morning (afternoon), Matt and I got out to Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge, which was really nice. This was my first time in this style of longleaf pine forest since this summer, which helped me towards my year birds. I picked up one new year species pretty much right away, the BROWN-HEADED NUTHATCH.
We spent several miles of hiking and looking for a RED-COCKADED WOODPECKER, which is a species of special concern, without luck. We finally noticed one when we got back the parking lot that we started from, and two individuals gave us a great show. In fact, Matt caught this great picture of one getting aggressive with a RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER.
Thursday evening, Matt and I went to a little coffee shop in old town called Mockingbird, which sold the local Lazy Magnolia draft and had music at night. It was pretty fun, and it was pretty weird how many people Matt knew here for being a fairly newby to town. After a pancake breakfast, I left Bay St. Louis Friday morning. I drove about 5 hours to get to Tallahassee, arriving just in time for happy hour at Steel City with some of my old colleagues. It was a good night of conversations with a bunch of my favorite people, who I haven't seen in almost one and a half years.
This morning I went out to Tall Timbers north of town to look for a BACHMAN'S SPARROW in a spot that the biologist there had showed Kim, Eva, Matt and I a couple years back. I had similar results of not seeing the bird.
After some tea and lunch with friends, I am relaxing, while fostering the beginnings of a cold, preparing for tonight's festivities.
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