Dear Island Neighbors,
OK, that city across the harbor has just been voted best place to visit for the umpteenth time in a row by Travel + Leisure magazine. Big deal, if you are only concerned with human, nonfeathered visitors.
Thousands of other visitors also frequent our island. If they don’t spend much at our restaurants and businesses, they also don’t clog the streets or subject us to horse carriages. And while they don’t post online reviews, they do vote with their wings – emphatically.
I refer, of course, to the thousands of birds who either make our island their home or visit it periodically for the same reason our downtown visitors do – for a nice place to overnight and get a good meal and maybe find a little romance.
At our July Council meeting, we had the privilege of receiving a presentation by islander Sarah Harper, who reported on the results of the recent seasons’ results from the Sullivan’s Island Bird Banding Station in the Maritime Forest, which Sarah created – with town permission but no funding – back in 2015 and turned into a very important ongoing source of data on our resident and visiting feathered friends.
The purpose of the Bird Banding Station is to sample the birds who are present in the area by gently and briefly capturing them in nets, assessing their weight, length and sex, placing a nonobstructive identifying band on them and then releasing them. If these birds are later recaptured by any bird-banding station in the recognized networks of stations, the identifying info is retrieved, and the status of the bird at that point is recorded and entered into the system. This permits state, national and international surveillance of the migratory patterns and status changes of individual species as well as a census, of sorts, of the birds who visit or reside in a particular locale.
You can view the video of her presentation at our Council meeting here: https://bit.ly/councilmeeting071823. Her part starts at 01:012. If you are pressed for time, you can download the pdf of her PowerPoint deck here: https://bit.ly/43XmEx5.
In any event, you should give yourself a chance to see the unique findings that Sarah’s team amassed through their willingness to consistently get up early in the morning and fight off uncomfortable cold, incessant mosquitos and gnats and muggy heat to sample the diversity of birds with whom we share out wonderful Maritime Forest and other protected lands.
I won’t presume to summarize their findings here but would note a couple of impressive items. In 2022, the station banded 1,120 new birds from 46 species. They also captured 86 birds that they had previously banded here.
In one remarkable instance of “site fidelity,” – coming back home every year – a male painted bunting – beautiful bird: Google it – was first banded on April 21, 2020, returned home to be recaptured for his paper anniversary on April 21, 2021, and then, demonstrating persistent loyalty with a bit of completely forgivable male vagueness about dates, returned home sometime in May 2022 and May 2023.
Thanks to Sarah Harper and colleagues for their tireless efforts to document the importance of our Maritime Forest in protecting and nurturing the thousands of birds who call our island home or home-away-from-home.
They have truly produced important data “out the oiseaux.”
The traffic cameras are up and running
After several months where various technological issues interfered, our traffic cameras on the Causeway/ SC703 are back in operation. A number of years ago, we first procured these cameras with initial support from County Council – ongoing connectivity and maintenance funded by the town and integration with the statewide SCDOT system of traffic cameras that we are used to seeing on TV. We have now transitioned to the SCDOT assuming responsibility for our cameras.
We have one camera on the island side of the Causeway, facing Mount Pleasant, and there are two other Mount Pleasant cameras a little past the Causeway facing both directions. There are also cameras on the Isle of Palms at the foot of the Connector, facing Mount Pleasant, and on the Mount Pleasant side of the Connector facing both directions.
If you don’t already have the SCDOT511 app on your phone, you should get it and develop the habit of checking it whenever you are planning to head off of or back to the island, if there is any doubt about traffic. Or use your browser on you phone, tablet or computer to go to 511SC.ORG.
Hurricane season reminders
As previously mentioned, we now have hang tags which are required for return to the island if access is ever restricted. Resident-only re-entry hanging tags may be obtained at Town Hall upon the presentation of your driver’s license with your Sullivan’s Island address on it or a deed of ownership for island property. These tags are for residents and property owners only, not visitors, guests, extended family, contractors or employees.
If you have not already done so, please get your hang tag now and make sure you keep it where you can use it when needed.
And visit for important emergency preparedness information: https://bit.ly/SIPrepared. Here’s hoping we won’t need it for a long time, but now’s the time to get ready.
See you around the island.
Pat O’Neil Mayor
843-670-9266
Twitter: @oneilpm1
