From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report
Normally warbler migration peaks in late April and trails off to almost nothing after the first week of May. In some years, though, the peak comes later, and this appears to be one of those years. Yesterday morning Mike Manetz, Barbara Shea, and I walked Bolen Bluff and came up with some impressive numbers: 32 American Redstarts, 20 Blackpoll Warblers, 20 Northern Parulas, 8 Black-throated Blue Warblers, 6 Common Yellowthroats, 5 Black-and-white Warblers, an Ovenbird, and a Northern Waterthrush. While we were at Bolen Bluff, Andy Kratter was finding lots of warblers in his SE Gainesville neighborhood, including 18 American Redstarts. Mike went back to Bolen Bluff this morning and found that numbers were a little lower but still high, and that two new species had dropped in: 26 American Redstarts, 10 Northern Parulas, 8 Black-throated Blue Warblers, 6 Blackpoll Warblers, 5 Common Yellowthroats, 1 Black-and-white Warbler, 1 Worm-eating Warbler, and 1 Magnolia Warbler, only the second that Mike has ever seen during spring migration in Alachua County.
Also, don’t forget that Sweetwater Wetlands Park is open on weekends, so you can go this afternoon or all day tomorrow. Our two AK’s (Andy Kratter and Adam Kent) and Jonathan Mays paid a visit this morning and tallied 54 species. Highlights included 14 Least Bitterns (including one juvenile), 2 Purple Gallinules, 2 Limpkins, a Prothonotary Warbler, an American Redstart, an Indigo Bunting, a Blue Grosbeak, 12 Bobolinks, and nine species of shorebirds, including 9 Black-necked Stilts, 4 Semipalmated Plovers, 18 Spotted Sandpipers, 4 Solitary Sandpipers, 10 Semipalmated Sandpipers, and 80 Least Sandpipers. The SWP website is here. If you have no idea where SWP is, the best map for finding it is at the bottom of this page: http://www.sweetwaterwetlands.org/#!contact/cudb
By the way, if you want to learn a little more about SWP, you might be interested in this: The Sweetwater Wetlands Park—Gainesville’s Newest Birding Hotspot. Presented by Debbie Segal. Monday, May 11th at the Thomas Center (new location). Social at 6:30 p.m. and program at 7 p.m. Learn how the Sweetwater Wetlands was designed to remove large quantities of nutrients and pollutants while simultaneously providing diverse wildlife habitat and passive public recreation. Water quality, vegetation planting, hydrologic features, and long-term management will be discussed. This presentation has been scheduled to occur just prior to the May 17th Alachua Audubon field trip to Sweetwater Wetlands Park.
Kathy Malone has had a leucistic Common Grackle hanging around her place in High Springs. It has three or four pure white primary coverts, and the four tail feathers on the left are white. Otherwise it looks perfectly normal. Kathy posted a nice picture on her Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kmalone98/16819442094/in/dateposted-public/
Speaking of photos, on April 21st Trina Anderson got these shots of a Great Blue Heron eating a rather large rodent along the La Chua Trail. I passed them along to Scott Flamand, who in turn passed them along to Fiona Reid, author of the Peterson Field Guide to Mammals of North America, who identified it as a Hispid Cotton Rat: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46902575@N06/sets/72157649847422004
Does anyone on this list use independent listing software, like Bird Brain, AviSys, Birder’s Diary, or BirdBase? If so, please let me know. I’m especially interested in anyone who’s using listing software on a Mac. Thanks.