Here’s a question for the knowledgeable folks on the mailing list. Let’s say a Summer Tanager is spending the winter in Gainesville. How far is it likely to roam? Phil Laipis saw one in his neighborhood near University and 34th on December 11th. Eleven days later, Andy Kratter saw one at Lake Alice, approximately 0.8 mile away. Both Phil and Andy described the bird as a female with reddish undertail coverts. Sam Ewing then had three sightings of a female Summer Tanager at his place between January 6th and January 11th. Sam lives about 0.7 miles from Phil and 1.2 mile from Lake Alice. Then, on February 17th, Sam photographed a female Summer Tanager with reddish undertail coverts at the intersection of NW 34th Street and 16th Avenue, 0.7 miles from his house, 1.0 mile from Phil’s house, and 1.8 miles from Lake Alice. What would you think? All the same bird?
Since December 1st, birders have reported Summer Tanagers in 21 different locations. Were there 21 different individuals, or as few as 8 or 9? It’s impossible to be certain, but if we knew how far a Summer Tanager would wander we might be able to group the sightings geographically and come up with a realistic estimate. All winter Adam and Gina Kent have made repeated sightings of up to three individual tanagers at their place near the intersection of University and Waldo. Could one of these be the bird that Bubba Scales and Geoff Parks heard at Citizens Field, just one mile away, on January 2nd? In other words, are we talking about three individuals in this case, one of which flew to Citizens Field, or was the Citizens Field bird a fourth individual?
I’ve started thinking more about this since I spotted a color-banded Carolina Chickadee at my backyard feeder on the 13th and 14th. I reported it to the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, which has been color-banding backyard birds around Gainesville, and I was informed that it had been banded “at a backyard site a little over 1.5 miles away from your address.” (He wouldn’t tell me where or when, though. The bands were a silver USFWS band over bright yellow on the right, light purple on the left. I’d be interested in knowing where and when it was banded.) If a little short-winged homebody like a Carolina Chickadee will roam a mile and a half, how far will a long-winged intercontinental migrant like a Summer Tanager wander?
Spring is here, by which I mean the Northern Parulas are arriving. Adam Zions has had one in his SW Gainesville yard all winter, but on the 20th he saw one that he recognized as different, “an assumed migrant,” and three days later Mike Manetz heard six of them singing at San Felasco’s Moonshine Creek Trail.
John Hintermister, who lives several miles north of Gainesville, and Linda Hensley, who lives in NW Gainesville, both had Nashville Warblers visit their yards on the 22nd. Linda’s cousin got a photo of the bird perched in a wild azalea: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/25211455006/in/dateposted-public/ These are Alachua County’s fourth and fifth Nashville Warblers of the winter season.
A couple of days ago I had twenty or thirty American Goldfinches at my feeder. Today I don’t have a single one. Ron Robinson reported something similar. This happens every winter. It probably has something to do with the availability of wild food sources; elm trees are suddenly covered by edible samaras, for instance. Once these wild food sources are eaten, or fallen, the goldfinches will return to the feeders. Meanwhile enjoy your cardinals, House Finches, and Chipping Sparrows. (Why don’t the House Finches abandon the feeders for wild foods too? They’re in the subfamily Carduelinae just like the goldfinches.)
If you’ve got an answer for the question posed in the first three paragraphs, I’d like to hear it.