From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report
On the 30th Chip Deutsch wrote, “I sighted a male Cinnamon Teal today at Sweetwater Wetlands Park – knew it was nice sighting, but did not realize how rare it was until I read your last posting. Lovely bird with a striking coloration, even at a distance. It was located alone in the outer water body SW of cell 2, sighted from SE corner of cell 1.” Several birders went looking for it at Sweetwater this morning, but didn’t relocate it. Maybe it went back to La Chua. We’ll keep our eyes open for it during the next Wednesday Wetlands Walk, meeting at 8:30 a.m. on the 3rd.
Speaking of SWP, the folks from http://www.moonbeampublishing.com/ were out there on the 26th and got this fantastic photo of a Virginia Rail: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/24440772610/in/dateposted-public/
We’ve got lots of wintering warblers around: Pat Bazany and a friend drove up to Gainesville on the 30th to visit the Hague Dairy, where they found a feeding flock of warblers that included an American Redstart and a Nashville Warbler. This may be the same redstart that wintered there last year. That’s four wintering redstarts in Alachua County right now. We never had even one redstart spend the entire winter here until 1997-98, when an immature male passed the entire season in Mike Manetz’s back yard. We’ve had a few since then, but never this many in a single season. The Nashville is presumably the same bird that Keith Collingwood found there on December 4th and photographed: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/24363276629/in/dateposted-public/ That makes three Nashvilles wintering in Alachua County, which is also a record. And Adam Zions has had two Black-throated Green Warblers hanging around his SW Gainesville neighborhood since January 9th (here’s a photo of one). Add to these the Black-throated Blue Warbler seen by Harry Jones at SWP on the 26th and the Worm-eating Warbler that was on the UF campus from December 12-18, not to mention all the Northern Parulas. That’s a lot of migrant warblers north of their usual winter territory.
I’ve included a map of the dairy in this email (see below). As I understand it, Pat saw the Nashville at point G, and for those of you interested in the sparrows mentioned in the previous birding report (Le Conte’s, Henslow’s, and Grasshopper), they’re in the field at J. The map, which is the characteristically splendid work of Jonathan Vaughan, a high school friend from Jacksonville, is from A Birdwatcher’s Guide to Alachua County, Florida, which is expected to win the Oscar in the category of It’s Not A Movie, But We Don’t Care, Because Isn’t It Just The Best Thing Ever?
Phil Laipis saw a Nashville Warbler at the east end of Chapmans Pond on the 31st, “in the ditch west of the police monument.” He adds, “As an aside, as I was searching the LARGE Live Oak in the middle of the clearing for the Nashville, I twice saw a small (brownish?) bird ‘creeping’ around the trunk, but keeping it between me and it. Nothing responded to Brown Creeper call/song, but I’m thinking Brown Creeper. There was a Black-and-white in the Live Oak, but this really did look brown, in my two 10-msec looks.” The creeper at Tuscawilla Prairie was last reported on the 18th by Matt O’Sullivan.
The Common Loon that Peter Polshek first noticed in the duck pond on the east side of North Florida Regional on the 10th is still there as of the 28th. I contacted Florida Wildlife Care to see if it was stuck and should be rescued – they need a large body of water to take off – but they decided either that it was doing fine or they had no way of capturing it.
I mentioned in my January 17th birding report that I hadn’t heard a Northern Cardinal singing yet. Barbara Shea heard one on the 24th and Ron Robinson heard another on the 25th and now I’m hearing them just about every day.
Speaking of the delayed season, where are the robins? We usually see tons of them by late January, but I’ve only seen a few here and there. I asked around, and Adam Kent and Sam Ewing are noticing this too. It’s not everywhere, though. Mike Manetz, who lives in NW Gainesville, wrote, “Had hordes of robins and common grackles in the yard on the 26th and 27th. They’ll probably make it over to your place a a day or two.” I’m seeing normal numbers of Cedar Waxwings, just not robins.
Donny Griffin forwarded this video of two nestling hummingbirds being fed by wildlife rehabbers: https://www.facebook.com/RaptorEducationGroupInc/videos/10200251956683718/