There were 26 of us in the Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve parking corral at 6:15. As we waited politely for everyone to finish signing their names to the release form, we could hear a Bachman’s Sparrow, one of our two target birds for this location, singing out beyond the informational sign. I thought, “Ha! So much for this being the unlucky *13th* June Challenge!” But of course by the time we walked through the gate the bird had fallen silent and would not respond to a taped song. It was the only one we heard while we were there, possibly because the property had been burned in mid-February and the vegetation is not yet profuse enough to offer good shelter for nesting. Or maybe because it was the 13th June Challenge. Our other target species for Longleaf was Common Nighthawk, and it was likewise elusive. Two or three were spotted by a couple of sharp-eyed birders, but all were distant and hard to locate in the light fog. We did manage to lure in three or four Brown-headed Nuthatches, which partly made up for our difficulty with the sparrow and the nighthawk.
From Longleaf we drove to the Windsor boat ramp to scope Newnans Lake. Again we missed one of our targets, Bald Eagle, but we found the other, Laughing Gull. We also saw a Least Bittern and a pair of Wood Ducks fly by. Our best birds of the morning, however, went unidentified: a flight of eight terns too far off to ID. They were probably Forster’s, but no details were visible apart from the all-white body and characteristic hunting style of splashing into the water.
We’d spent too much time at Longleaf, so we drove past Powers Park and went straight to Palm Point. We could have driven past that, too, because the only bird we added to our list was Yellow-throated Warbler. We did get better looks at the Laughing Gulls, however.
Our next stop – and the last stop for the sane ones among us – was the La Chua Trail. We missed Blue Grosbeak, Orchard Oriole, and Yellow-breasted Chat. A pair of Tree Swallows and two drake Blue-winged Teal had been lingering in the vicinity, but we didn’t see them. A Roseate Spoonbill had also been seen, but only a few of us noticed it as it flew west from Alachua Lake. We learned that Frank Goodwin had photographed a female Hooded Merganser (photo) at Gator Point (the last bend in the trail before the observation platform), but the glare was pretty bad by then and we were unable to relocate it. However when we got to the observation platform we did see some late shorebirds: a Lesser Yellowlegs and half a dozen peeps. It was late enough in the day that heat distortion made the peeps difficult to identify. I felt confident that one of them was a Semipalmated Sandpiper, but I couldn’t say anything beyond that. Peter Polshek thought that some of the peeps were larger than the others, but we were unable to come to an agreement on their ID. We had one remarkable sighting out there: a Black-crowned Night-Heron snatched a downy young Common Gallinule and gulped it down. I had no idea they did that.
The sane people went home at this point, but four insane people went on to Sweetwater Wetlands Park in hope that the Snail Kite was still around. The sightings board in the restroom area didn’t mention any Snail Kite being seen, but it did mention a Bobolink. (Does anyone know who saw that? It’s the second-latest ever seen in the county.) We spent an hour and a half looking for the Bobolink and the kite, but left with nothing added to our June Challenge lists but Limpkin.
This morning I was at Sweetwater Wetlands Park a little after it opened at seven. I walked the boardwalk in hope of seeing yesterday’s Bobolink, but no luck. I scanned Cell 2 in hope of seeing the Snail Kite. No luck again. So I headed to La Chua and was on the trail by eight. I scoped Alachua Lake from Gator Point in hope of seeing yesterday’s Hooded Merganser. My luck did not change. But things got a little better when I reached the observation platform. The Lesser Yellowlegs and three of the peeps were still there, and with the morning light and the absence of heat distortion I was able to see that Peter had been right, that two of the birds were Semipalmated Sandpipers but one of them was a Least. The two Blue-winged Teal were visible, unlike yesterday. I scanned for the Whooping Crane without success, but I did see 19 bison! Jonathan Mays came along and told me that he’d seen the Roseate Spoonbill the previous evening not very far from the platform, and a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron near Gator Point. We walked back together, seeing a late Tree Swallow flying with a Barn Swallow as we neared the barn, and then walking down Sparrow Alley to the powerline cut, along which we heard two Yellow-breasted Chats singing (and saw one). The chats were on the left, perched in a 15-foot cherry tree at the point where the large oak trees stop and the growth is mainly blackberry.
I’m heading back out to La Chua this evening with Mike Manetz in hope of seeing the Roseate Spoonbill and Yellow-crowned Night-Heron.