On the 15th, while searching unsuccessfully for the Sandwich Tern and Common Tern that Lloyd Davis had found the day before, Mike Manetz, Debbie Segal, and I came across a color-flagged Semipalmated Sandpiper at Newnans Lake. Mike got a photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/34368934180/in/dateposted-public/ There’s a “Florida Banded Bird Resightings” Facebook page, and Mike posted the photo there. After some confusion about the flag color – it looked yellow to us, but she insisted that it was “dirty white” – Louise Laurin of the Canadian Wildlife Service informed Mike that it had been banded on July 28, 2016, on the southwest coast of James Bay, Ontario. There’s a lot of shorebird research going on there, and you can see the landscape and some of the birds and researchers at this web site: http://www.jeaniron.ca/2016/JB16/p1.htm Though the bird has carried the flag for ten months, it obviously found it irritating. In this video – and I apologize for the quality, it was a handheld point-and-shoot on high zoom – you can see it repeatedly stretching and flicking its left leg: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/34295357700/in/dateposted-public/
Though surprising, it was not quite as exciting as the flagged Semipalmated Sandpiper that Rob Norton found at Orange Lake in 2011. Greg Stephens photographed it on 29 July – https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/6015517732/in/album-72157622617268857/ – and after making some inquiries Rob received a photo of the same bird taken immediately after the flag had been applied on the north shore of Alaska on 25 June, only 34 days previously – https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/6032618881/in/album-72157622617268857/
There are still a good number of sandpipers along the eastern shore of Newnans Lake, most of them north of Prairie Creek. Though I’d advise rubber boots, the walking is fairly easy (see a photo from the 15th here). The indefatigable, irrepressible, irreplaceable Lloyd Davis made the walk on the 19th and tallied 4 Black-necked Stilts, 2 Semipalmated Plovers, 2 Killdeer, 7 White-rumped Sandpipers, and 53 Semipalmated Sandpipers, not to mention 2 Roseate Spoonbills.
Inspired by the song of the Wood Thrush, Gainesville’s own Zach Neece has written a really lovely composition for clarinet and piano called “Eternal Morning.” The title is from Thoreau, who noted that the Wood Thrush “is the only bird whose note affects me like music. It lifts and exhilarates me. It is inspiring. It changes all hours to an eternal morning.” And Zach notes that performance of the piece “starts with the house lights dimmed to simulate a dawn chorus”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV-i3lIqYuc&feature=youtu.be
A reminder in case you don’t know about the County Rare Birds web site: It allows you to look up the recent sightings that eBird’s filters have interpreted as rare for any county in North America. In some cases these won’t really be rarities, just birds that trip the numerical filters, but in most cases they’re good birds. The best way to understand what the web site has to offer is to click on the link. Once you’re at the site, use the “Search Your Location” function in the left sidebar to find Alachua County. When the list of rarities comes up, you can click on the location to see a Google Map showing where each bird was seen (usually just a park location), and you can click on the eBird checklist (an 8-digit number preceded by S) for more details on the sighting, including photos if available. Here’s the link: http://countyrarebirds.com/
Summer is about a month away, on June 21st. Hmm, June, June. Is there anything else that happens in June? Seems like there might be….
This morning Kim Chaney sent me a very weird report from Sweetwater Wetlands Park. A Great Blue Heron apparently killed two other Great Blue Herons. A visitor alerted her to it. He’d seen one Great Blue “holding a second Great Blue under the water by the neck and standing on its body. He said that the second one was still alive because he could see it kicking. The visitor said the victor was all puffed up, then flew to the other side of the boardwalk. He had a photo of the one holding the other by the neck.” Bob Carroll, Becky Enneis, and I once saw a Great Blue trying to eat a Pied-billed Grebe at Lake Sampson in Bradford County. It carried the grebe around in its bill like a football for 45 minutes. And I know of two instances of a Great Blue eating a Least Bittern (one photographed here). But all those were for the sake of food. I can’t explain a Great Blue actually killing another Great Blue – and not once but twice! Bizarre.