By Jay Keck, Habitat Education Manager for Chapin Magazine

Bird. Say it out loud. It’s not the most exciting word in our dictionary, but it represents one of the most extraordinary classes of animals inhabiting our amazing planet. Birds are capable of filling our lives with an overwhelming amount of joy, wonder, and beauty. They quite literally shine as brightly as flames when reflecting the sun’s rays, and (figuratively) shine while singing their sweet melodies during our springs and early summers.

Did you know that birds are a direct descendant of a group of dinosaurs that includes the Tyrannosaurus Rex? The next time you see a Great Blue Heron methodically hunting reptiles, birds, fish, or mammals on Lake Murray, a pond, or one of our beautiful rivers, allow your mind to wander and consider its link to the dinosaurs and earth’s rich past. If that’s not exciting enough, you may one day find yourself witnessing the fastest animal on the planet, a Peregrine Falcon, right here in Chapin, racing at speeds in excess of 240mph towards a raft of coots on the lake. The excitement and beauty also comes in tiny avian packages. The Ruby Throated Hummingbird, whose wings beat at an incredible 53 times per second, and weighs only 5 grams (two pennies), will be energetically and noisily feeding at our sugar water containers in just a month, giving us the opportunity to watch this spectacular bird that travels to the U.S. from its distant wintering grounds in Central America.

Ruby-throated hummingbird, by Cameron Foster

Unfortunately, not everyone is aware of the dazzling and dizzying variety of birds we have in our state, or even in our small community. EBird, a website used by “birders” from around the world to record their sightings, reveals over 400 bird species recorded in SC, and 258 species in Lexington county alone.