From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report
On the 9th Emerson Graveley photographed an adult male Rufous Hummingbird at his place near Newberry. It’s probably the same bird that visited his place last winter, but it’s certainly the county’s earliest ever: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/20424736462/in/dateposted-public/
Also on the 9th, George Hecht of SW Gainesville noticed a male Painted Bunting at his feeder. This could be a migrating bird, but most migrant Painted Buntings pass through during October. Is it only a coincidence that a Painted Bunting was reported singing at Sweetwater Wetlands Park a month ago? Mr. Hecht lives only a mile away. Here’s a photo of the bunting: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/19842576963/in/dateposted-public/
On the 8th Debbie Segal and her husband Bob Knight “boated around Newnans Lake and found a small flock of 5 Black Terns feeding over the south end of the lake. We also found three Forster’s Terns feeding over the lake. We launched from the Rochelle boat ramp on the east side of the lake. As we were launching, I heard loud chipping from the floodplain on the north side of the park and easily found two Northern Waterthrushes. After boating I went back into the floodplain and found a nice assortment of woodland birds – Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Acadian Flycatcher, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Great Crested Flycatcher, Yellow Warbler, Prothonotary Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Northern Parula, Summer Tanager, woodpeckers (Downy, Pileated, Red-bellied), vireos (White-eyed, Yellow-throated, Red-eyed), and a few other common woodland species. These were seen around 12:30 p.m., not the best time of the day for birding. Morning birding in the floodplain may be even better.” Mike Manetz and I went out to Palm Point on the evening of the 9th in hopes of seeing the Black Terns. We saw 5-6 Laughing Gulls but no terns of any description.
You may have seen David Johnston’s obituary in Sunday’s paper. Johnston was one of the most important figures in the history of Alachua County birding. He taught zoology at the University beginning in 1963 and spent a lot of time exploring Alachua County with binoculars and shotgun. As far as I’m aware, he was the first person in 20 or 30 years to put a lot of time into studying the birds of this county. In May 1964 he discovered that Blue Grosbeaks were nesting here, having expanded their range from the north (like Indigo Buntings less than ten years earlier), he saw the first Red-breasted Nuthatch ever recorded in the county (November 30, 1968), and in Gilchrist County on January 11, 1969, he found and collected the first Sage Thrasher ever recorded east of the Mississippi River. He collected a lot of birds for the museum, and Andy Kratter commented just last week that his specimens were particularly well-prepared. He moved to Virginia in about 1979, but kept a winter home in Cedar Key, and in 2009 he self-published Cedar Key: Birding in Paradise: Finding Birds Then and Now, which contains a little history, a little advice on finding birds, and a complete list of species that have occurred there over the years, with brief notes about their status. He was sort of a cranky guy, and when Mike Manetz and I included Cedar Key in our 2006 edition of the Birdwatcher’s Guide he had plenty of criticisms, some of them bizarre – he maintained that there was no such tree as a Sand Pine and no such bird as a Long-billed Murrelet – but he backed off when I showed him the pertinent references, and later solicited my assistance with his Cedar Key book. I didn’t know him well, but I recognized him when he pulled up in his truck this spring as we were birding the road that parallels the Cedar Key airfield. He had a couple of little dogs on the seat beside him. He told me what he’d seen that morning and asked what we’d found – the typical birder’s conversation – and after a minute’s small talk he said goodbye and drove away.