From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report
Bob Carroll says the male Black Scoter was in view from Owens-Illinois Park (AKA the Windsor boat ramp) at 11:00 this morning. Yesterday afternoon there were nine, eight females and a male. Eight of the birds were at the far northern end of the lake, one a little closer. John Hintermister also saw a Red-breasted Merganser out there yesterday.
The Vaux’s Swifts are still being seen at Dauer Hall. Murray Gardler got a great photo of six swifts descending into one of the chimneys on the 2nd. And on the 1st Jonathan Mays got video of three going down the chimney like little gray Santa Clauses while eight more sped past in the background.
On the morning of the 2nd Mike Manetz and Matt O’Sullivan went in search of the Dickcissel and Yellow-headed Blackbird seen at the Hague Dairy on the 28th. They didn’t see either – no one has, since the 28th – but they did find an Ash-throated Flycatcher, which Matt photographed: https://www.flickr.com/photos/118053703@N02/23505222965/in/dateposted/ As you enter the dairy property from County Road 237, the first pond you come to, just past the concrete feeding troughs on the right, is so heavily vegetated around the edges that you can’t actually see the pond. That’s where they found the flycatcher.
The Purple/Gray-headed Swamphen was in its usual place on the 3rd. It’s the best kind of bird, one that always stays in the same place and stands right out in the open so that birders can see it. On the 30th Dotty Robbins and Emily Schwartz went to see the swamphen and found something even better: “Right before we got to the water control structure, a small dark bird flew from the near edge of vegetation across the open water into the thick veg and disappeared. It flew about 20 feet. It was around noon, and the light was glarey. The bird appeared dark, rail-shaped, like a Sora but smaller. What I noticed most was the very clearly defined white patches on the trailing edge of the secondaries. I immediately thought Yellow Rail. But the bird appeared almost black–maybe a result of the light. Does any other rail-like bird show that white patch on the secondaries? If not, this was a Yellow Rail. To be clear about the location, we started our walk by heading to the right, so we were approaching the water structure from the west.” This is only the ninth or tenth report of Yellow Rail in Alachua County.
Carol Foil writes to announce the first Putnam County Christmas Bird Count: “Joyce King and I have got together with the State Park people and decided that Putnam County needs a CBC! We are just aiming to do an unofficial test run this year. We have chosen Sunday, January 3 for our date. The center of the circle will be in Satsuma. The circle will encompass the new jewel soon-to-open Dunn’s Creek State Park, Ravine Gardens State Park including their riparian bottom lands, Welaka State Forest, lower Ocklawaha R, middle St John’s River from Little Lake George to East Palatka, Dunn’s Creek, top of Crescent Lake, Rodhever Boys Ranch, Caravel, Rodman Lock and Dam. We will have at least one boat party. Should be fun, but we need at least 7 teams to cover all this. We plan to partner birders with Park and Forest Rangers and local naturalists who know the trails. We wonder if you could post a ‘save the date’ to Alachua Audubon and tell anyone who is intrigued to email us at Cbcputnam@gmail.com .”
Other local Christmas Counts planned for this month include Melrose on the 17th, Gainesville on the 20th, Ichetucknee/Santa Fe/O’Leno on the 22nd, Cedar Key on the 30th, and Lake City on January 2nd.
Remember the Alachua Audubon Society’s 9th Annual Holiday Social and Silent Auction is tonight from 6:30 to 9:00 at the Mill Pond Clubhouse, 240 NW 48th Blvd.
Santa Fe Audubon in Melrose is starting its own tradition this year with a Conservation Celebration and Silent Auction on December 8th. It’s going to be quite a do, with a chili and cornbread dinner, live music, and a program called “John J. Audubon Speaks” with Michael Adams portraying the great American wildlife painter. It will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church’s parish hall between 6:00 and 9:00 p.m. Everyone is invited. For more information contact Joyce King at sjoyceking@comcast.net . Visit Santa Fe Audubon’s web site here: http://www.santafeaudubon.org/pages/activitiesAll.aspx