Easy walking through fields and along roadsides looking for a selection of open country species. Sun protection is highly recommended, as well as good walking footwear!

Located in Anderson County, in the northwestern South Carolina Piedmont, Townville and its surrounding countryside chocked full of farmland provides excellent opportunities for finding an array of typical open country birds. While the area is known primarily as a winter birding hotspot, a spring visit can be every bit as enticing with Eastern Meadowlark, Blue Grosbeak, Grasshopper Sparrow, Eastern Kingbird, and Bobolink all  being part of the regular cast of characters. Of particular interest are the numerous Dickcissels that have nested here over the years, and we’ll pay special attention to getting good looks and photographs of them. We will scan barbed-wire fences for Loggerhead Shrike, the ‘Butcher Bird,’ and we should find Horned Lark as well singing from the open fields. To add to the excitement, the area has also hosted small numbers of Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, a rare but fairly regular nester in the agricultural areas of the Carolina Piedmont in recent years. We will follow up on any recent reports and will do our best to find them!

While most of our tour will be spent birding the farmland, we will certainly have time to explore some other habitats in the area as well. The wetlands and woodland of Beaverdam Creek WMA are great for everything from Summer Tanager & Yellow-billed Cuckoo to Brown-headed Nuthatch, Wood Duck, and Red-headed Woodpecker. The ponds in the area are excellent throughout the month of May for finding any number of migratory shorebirds, with everything from White-rumped Sandpiper to Red-necked Phalarope having shown up previously. Lake Hartwell is always worth a stop and could have nesting Bald Eagles, Osprey, gulls and terns, or perhaps even a late duck or loon.

Join Aaron for a pleasant spring day of birding in the farm country of the South Carolina Piedmont.