Swallow-tailed Kites are here, a little earlier than normal. Deena Mickelson saw the region’s first over I-75 in Ocala on the 26th. Alachua County’s first of the spring were three that Phil Sandlin saw over his place at Archer on the 28th and two that Linda Hensley saw over her NW Gainesville home on the 3rd.
Swallows are here too: the first Barn of the spring was seen by Ben Ewing at Sweetwater Wetlands Park on the 2nd. By the 3rd, according to Lloyd Davis, there were 15. On the same day he tallied seven Northern Rough-winged Swallows at Sweetwater, and on the 4th he spotted a Cliff Swallow, by ten days an early-arrival record for the county. On the 5th Mike Manetz missed the Cliff, but saw a Bank Swallow, possibly the same one that Sidney Wade first noticed there on the 23rd.
Speaking of swallows, on the 4th I checked the I-75 / Williston Road overpass and found two Barn Swallows working on nests. There are lots of old nests there, on the undersides of both the northbound and southbound lanes, but all are either north or south of the Williston Road traffic lanes; there are none directly above the road itself. Barn Swallows seem to nest under all, or nearly all, of Alachua County’s I-75 overpasses now. Little-known fact: They didn’t nest in Florida until the middle of the 20th century. The first nest was discovered in Pensacola in 1946, and Jack McLeod found the first in the peninsula inside a Paynes Prairie culvert in June 1971.
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds usually show up during the first few days of March, just like Barn and Rough-winged Swallows, but as of the 5th the only eBird records I see for Alachua County are individuals that spent the winter.
Scott Robinson has had a Pine Siskin visiting his feeder in SW Gainesville since February 23rd.
Bob Palmer notified me that he had a Rose-breasted Grosbeak in his NW Gainesville yard from the 16th to the 23rd. Andy Kratter’s wasn’t seen after the 25th. So, to review the winter season: there was a one-day wonder in early December that was probably a tardy migrant; there was one that showed up in NW Gainesville on December 26th and remained for over two months, a legitimately wintering bird; and then there were two or three during the period from February 16th to February 25th, which makes no sense to me.
Speaking of wintering birds, the Black-throated Blue Warbler visiting Bubba Scales’s SE Gainesville yard since December 2nd was still there on March 1st.
The Whooping Crane that’s been present at Paynes Prairie since April moved over to Sweetwater Wetlands Park last week, sighted by a German birder on the 28th and photographed by Frank Goodwin on the 2nd while it was showing off: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/33206291626/in/datetaken/ Well I say it’s been here since April, but I’ve got photos of a Whooping Crane showing the same band combination (blue over silver on the left leg) from March 2014 and March 2013.
I saw a pair of thrashers carrying nest material into my backyard yaupon hedge on February 24th. The existing early egg date for Brown Thrasher in Alachua County was established by Oliver Austin, the former curator of birds at the FLMNH, who found a nest with three eggs in his SE Gainesville yard on March 14, 1970.
I hadn’t seen many Cedar Waxwings during December or January, but their numbers seem to have picked up during the last two or three weeks. Does that jibe with your own observations, o dear readers?
Extinction and “endlings,” from The New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/what-do-you-call-the-last-of-a-species
The Acadia Birding Festival in Bar Harbor, Maine, is accepting registrations. They’ve made an enticing video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxNl4QFvrlM&feature=youtu.be
The Audubon Society of Vermont has a good idea: pay farmers to accommodate the nesting season of Bobolinks by modifying their mowing schedules. If you like Bobolinks you may want to donate: “As Bobolinks begin their northward migration to Vermont, the April 1 deadline for donations for the 2017 Bobolink Project is fast approaching, with only 6 weeks left: http://www.bobolinkproject.com/. The number of farms accepted into the program depends entirely on how many donations we receive by April 1, when we start creating the contracts.”