Calling Judy And Nancy, the Bird Ladies

Marti and I have seen many amazing things as we’ve been workamping around the J. Strom Thurmond COE Project.  It certainly keeps one from getting bored.

We’ve completed our inspections of the 25 campgrounds, boat ramps, beaches and day use areas around Thurmond Lake, it was a lot of work.  Now all that is left is to compile a work list of all the discrepancies we’ve found for the volunteers and contractors to tackle and try and complete before next season.  We want to ensure this great COE park project stays in tip top shape.

As we’ve been out and about in the wild areas surrounding the lake, we’ve been thrilled to see many birds, from Great Blue Herons, Canada Geese, Mallard Ducks, even the majestic Bald Eagles.  Yesterday, we came across a bird that really confused us.

It appeared to be dead and was hanging from a branch upside down by a short piece of rope.  We looked at it through our binoculars and couldn’t tell what species of bird it was and who would be so cruel as to hang the poor bird up like that.

               

I thought it might be some kind of woodpecker, but it was fairly large, about the size of a football.  I couldn’t get much of a better picture than this.  We scratched our heads and couldn’t figure it out, we’d never seen any birds like this.

We debated contacting the Department of Natural Resources to get an agent out to investigate what appeared to be animal cruelty.  Looking closer with the binoculars, I noticed the legs didn’t look right.

                  

This wasn’t a real bird after all!  We felt relieved that there wasn’t  any cruelty here after all.  But why was this fake bird hung up in the tree?  Then it dawned on us, the tree was over one of the fish cleaning stations near a fishing pier.  We figured it must have been placed up there to scare other birds away to prevent them from swooping in as fishermen were trying to clean their catches and keep them out of the trashcans.  The fake bird probably was tied on top of the branch, but must have slipped down at some point.

Just another funny tidbit that makes our workamping job here so interesting.  Now if Judy or Nancy can identify what kind of bird it is supposed to be, that will make it really interesting!  :c)

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