Author: Rex Rowan

I’m thinking that the persistence of many fall-migrant warblers throughout last winter – a Worm-eating Warbler, 3 Nashville Warblers, 6 American Redstarts, a Black-throated Blue Warbler, 2 Black-throated Green Warblers, and a bunch of Northern Parulas – is connected with the early spring migration. We’ve had early-arrival records set this spring by Barn Swallow, Yellow-throated Vireo, Chimney Swift, Worm-eating Warbler, and Blackpoll Warbler, and on the 15th several birders reported Bobolinks at Sweetwater Wetlands Park, by one day another early record for the county. Dick Bartlett got a photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/26447991395/in/dateposted-public/

Though Phoebe Gordon reported four Mississippi Kites over Gainesville High School on April 1st, daily sightings didn’t commence until April 10th and 11th, when Trina Anderson saw one over last year’s nest tree in her SW Gainesville neighborhood. However sightings are still geographically scattered; I suspect that the majority of birds will arrive when they usually do, after April 20th.

We’ve got two Western Tanagers visiting feeders in Alachua County this spring. The first is at the Lynch home in High Springs, which it likes so well that it’s come for three years in a row now. The second is in SW Gainesville, where it’s visiting the home of Sarah Reynierson, who obtained a photo on the 11th: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/26197154730/in/dateposted-public/

We see lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers down here, but we don’t see many that look like this one, photographed by Glenn Price at Sweetwater Wetlands Park on the 15th: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/26452047215/in/dateposted-public/

Saturday’s field trip to Cedar Key wasn’t rained out, as had been forecast, but we had to contend with very strong winds. Birds were therefore fewer and harder to find than would otherwise have been the case. We saw a handful of Cape May, Blackpoll, and Prairie Warblers, but only one Rose-breasted Grosbeak (briefly) and only one Indigo Bunting. No tanagers, no orioles. Two or three Bronzed Cowbirds that have been visiting a feeder at a house behind the museum obliged us with an appearance, and we had quick flyovers by a Reddish Egret and a Merlin at the airfield, but we saw nothing else out of the ordinary.

As I explained a couple of months ago, I’m writing a book on the birds of Alachua County considered from a historical perspective. Occasionally I’ll use this birding report to ask questions about one species or another. Today it’s the European Starling. Although Oliver Austin, the former curator of birds at the museum, claimed that starlings arrived here in the 1930s, that appears to have been a guess. The catalog entry accompanying the earliest Alachua County specimen in the museum, a male collected “three miles west of Gainesville” by J.C. Dickinson, Jr., on 13 Oct 1946, notes, “New county record.” In the course of a 2001 telephone call, Dr. Dickinson informed me that he had shot the bird off a telephone line along Archer Road (“I did all my bird identifications along the barrel of a shotgun”), and he confirmed that it had been the first sighting in the county. The population subsequently grew, as it did everywhere. Though it was missed on the first Christmas Bird Count (1957), it’s been recorded on every one since, sometimes in high numbers. In the eighteen years between 1968 and 1985, there were nine years during which a thousand or more starlings were counted on the CBC, with a maximum of 4,367 in 1976. Thankfully, however, their numbers have dwindled. Over the past twenty years, the largest CBC count has been 538 and the average count has been 218. Over the past ten years, the high count has been 134 and the average count has been 80. The reasons for this decline are not clear to me, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. All I’m going to ask is this: Where are all these starlings hanging out? Where do you find starlings in Alachua County, especially in large numbers? I see them at the dairy, I see a few around Citizens Field, but that’s about it. Where are they?

Are you anxious to rub the noses of the Gainfully Employed in the fact that you’re retired? Then Third Thursday Birding is for you! Bob Carroll writes, “Our April 21st Third Thursday field trip will be to Cedar Key. With a little luck, we should be in the heart of spring migration. Early weather predictions are terrific. The morning will start off in the upper 60s and the high for the day will be 81 with a 0% chance of rain. Let’s hope that prediction holds up [Editor’s Note: Ha ha ha!]. Also, the tides should work out for us. Low tide is at 8:18, but it won’t be a really low sea and then will rise throughout the morning. So mid morning should be good at Shell Mound for shorebirds, and early afternoon will be good for gulls and terns on the docks near the airport. Now if the warblers, tanagers and other migrants will cooperate, it should be a terrific day. My plan is to gather in the Target parking lot on Archer Road at about 7:00. We’ll go to Shell Mound first (probably at about 8:30), then to the church to check the mulberry trees. Then we’ll hit the cemetery and museum grounds. Based on the time and the birding, we may also make a stop at the Trestle Trail or drive some of the neighborhoods. Lunch will be at Steamers on Dock Street. We’ll decide on a time once we see how the birding is going. I expect to get back to Gainesville late in the afternoon. It would help to know how many people will be joining us at Steamers. If you’re planning to have lunch with us, please let me know. And also remember to save May 5 for a Breeding Bird Atlas field trip with Adam Kent. I’ll send you details later next week.” Bob can be reached at gatorbob23@yahoo.com

Karl Miller writes, “I am looking for volunteers to help with color band resighting surveys for Florida Scrub-Jays in Ocala National Forest. We are looking for experienced birdwatchers who can walk two or three miles without any physical limitations. Volunteers will work in teams of two or three, and will be driven to the site and accompanied during the survey by FWC personnel. Dates of the survey are April 23, 25, and 26, and they can come for any of those days they wish. It’s a great time of year to be out in the scrub and see nesting kestrels and other cavity-nesting birds too!” If you’re interested, contact Karl at karl.miller@myfwc.com or 352-575-3023.

Gainesville’s own Gina Kent is the cover girl for the April-May issue of the Nature Conservancy’s magazine.

You can read about Mac Stone’s photography for this article, and see some of the photos that didn’t get used, at this link: http://blog.nature.org/science/magazine/outtakes-going-great-heights-swallow-tailed-kites-birds-photography/

Spring migrants are beginning to pour through. American Redstarts have been reported daily since April 1st. On the 6th Ron Robinson had two males in his birdbath at once: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/25713758333/in/dateposted-public/

John Hintermister had the spring’s first Worm-eating Warbler at San Felasco Hammock on March 29th, by four days a new early record for the county, and on the following day two were seen, one by Pamela Graber at San Felasco and one by Trina Anderson at her home in SW Gainesville. Becky Enneis had one at her drip pool on April 6th: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/26224124412/in/dateposted-public/

Blackpoll Warblers have also checked in earlier than usual. Felicia Lee reported one at San Felasco on April 3rd, by eight days an early record for this normally-late spring migrant, and Matt O’Sullivan saw one on the UF campus on the 5th, which would have been an early record if not for Felicia’s sighting. We don’t usually see our first of the year until about April 20th, and most sightings are in May.

Jessica Hightower had the spring’s first Blue Grosbeak at La Chua on April 3rd. That’s another pretty early bird. Until a few years ago the early record was April 10th.

Lloyd Davis had the season’s first Orchard Oriole singing at La Chua on the 4th, and on the 7th Debbie Segal saw several more: ” I noticed a lot of bird activity in a large oak tree in a NW Gainesville neighborhood this morning about 8 am. As I looked through my binocs, I saw one Orchard Oriole after another, both males and females, actively feeding in the tree. There were at least 6 but could have been more.”

The spring loon migration seems to be running behind this year: 373 flyover loons have been counted over Gainesville as of April 8th, compared to 620 as of April 8, 2015, and 702 as of April 8, 2014. But in 2013, only 234 loons had been tallied by April 8th; 239 more were counted after that date. Andy is hoping that he’ll have a late movement of bird this year as well. You can help by watching the sky during the second hour after sunrise. Marvin Smith photographed three very northerly migrants over Valdosta State University in Valdosta, Georgia, at 9:30 in the morning on April 3rd. He was able to get a nice photo of one of them: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/26220158995/in/dateposted-public/

Speaking of good photos, Ron Robinson was able to get an excellent picture of a Chuck-will’s-widow, often heard but rarely seen, on his property west of Gainesville on April 3rd: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/26194194076/in/dateposted-public/

Alice Reakes saw a pair of Sandhill Cranes with a recent hatchling on April 3rd: “Driving south across Paynes Prairie I saw a pair of Sandhill Cranes with a little chick in the first pasture on the west side of the 441, north rim. I was checking out all the new baby calves in that pasture and happened to see the cranes.” She said the youngster was still downy and about ten inches tall. Jennifer Donsky saw a Sandhill sitting on a nest in the Savannah Pointe neighborhood, on the edge of Paynes Prairie, on April 7th.

Fred Bassett recently sent out his Southeast regional hummingbird-banding report for winter 2015-16. “Our Hummingbird Research banding crew has completed another winter hummingbird banding season in the Southeast. Fred Dietrich, Mary Wilson, Donna Carroll, and I combined to band 132 hummingbirds of eight species. Those included 75 Ruby-throated, 26 Rufous, 22 Black-chinned, 4 Buff-bellied, 2 Calliopes, 1 Allen’s, 1 Broad-tailed, and 1 White-eared. The lower-than-average number of banded birds was driven by the lowest number of Rufous since 1999/2000. Without the highest number ever of Ruby-throated, it would have been a dismal season….I think the decrease in Rufous over the past four winters is part of a natural cycle I have observed twice in the past 20 years. I’m looking forward to an increase next winter.”

This weekend’s Alachua Audubon field trips include one that involves a fairly long drive (36 miles, 50 minutes) to Fort White Wildlife and Environmental Area in northern Gilchrist County for a three-mile stroll through the pinewoods on Saturday the 9th, and a walk along the La Chua Trail on Sunday the 10th. Details are on the Audubon web site: https://alachuaaudubon.org/classes-field-trips/

Join Alachua Audubon on Wednesday, April 13th at 6:30 pm for the annual pot luck dinner celebration and help us welcome our newest AAS Board Members. This event will be held at Bubba and Ingrid Scales’s house at 3002 SW 1st Way, Gainesville, located in the Colclough Hills neighborhood across from Sweetwater Wetlands Park between south Main Street and Williston Road. (Look for the AAS signs!) Bring some food to share and a drink of choice, and enjoy visiting with Alachua Audubon members and the Board of Directors.

(There’s a frequently-used abbreviation on the internet: TL;DNR, which means “Too long; did not read.” That’s all I seem to write anymore, TL;DNR stuff. You’ve been warned.)

The wind and the rain have knocked down most of the remaining wild plum, redbud, and dogwood flowers, so that part of spring is over.

The Snail Kite hasn’t been seen since March 23rd.

Trina Anderson found a White-faced Ibis at Chapmans Pond on March 24th. It was seen again by Adam Zions on the 25th but has not been reported to eBird since then, either because higher water levels at the pond have driven it elsewhere or because no one has been looking for it.

Yve Morrell, visiting from Naples, found and photographed a single Gray-headed Swamphen at Sweetwater Wetlands Park on March 27th. It was the first time a swamphen had been seen there since February 21st. It showed up again for the Wednesday Wetlands Walk on March 30th, along with a beautiful white-morph Short-tailed Hawk.

A Black-throated Blue Warbler reported by Karl Miller at San Felasco’s Moonshine Creek Trail on March 29th was heard only, which is too bad; it was the earliest recorded in Alachua County since Frank Chapman shot one on April 5, 1887.

Migrating loons are still flying over on fair mornings, from the Gulf to the Atlantic en route to northern nesting grounds. I counted 38 going over my back yard this morning between 8:26 and 9:00, 29 of them in the five minutes between 8:40 and 8:44.

Lots of locally-breeding neotropical migrants have arrived in the past two weeks:

Sam Ewing heard a Red-eyed Vireo singing in his NW Gainesville neighborhood on March 19th. Caroline Poli reported 7 at Camps Canal on the 26th, and on the 27th Bryan Tarbox and friends reported 10 at Bolen Bluff. Keep in mind that Blue-headed Vireos sing at this time of year and can be mistaken for Red-eyeds.

Hooded Warblers have been here since at least the 20th, when Mike Manetz found 3 along San Felasco’s Moonshine Creek Trail. Caroline Poli had 6 there on the 24th. But in migration they can show up anywhere; witness the one seen by Bryan Tarbox in the Duck Pond neighborhood on the 28th and the one seen by Geoff Parks at Sweetwater Wetlands Park on the 29th.

Lloyd Davis photographed the spring’s first Eastern Kingbird at Cellon Creek Boulevard on March 22nd. Andy Kratter saw another during a SE Gainesville loon watch on the morning of the 26th.

Single Indigo Buntings appeared in NW Gainesville, SW Gainesville, and along the western shore of Newnans Lake on the 22nd.

Only a couple of Prothonotary Warblers have shown up so far. Caroline Poli found one at San Felasco Hammock on March 24th and Adam Kent found one in NW Gainesville on the 30th.

Summer Tanagers wintered here in large numbers, and some of these wintering birds continued to be seen through the end of March. The first spring arrivals were one that Caroline Poli found at Camps Canal on March 26th, and then several reports on the 29th: Jonathan Mays reported one from his SE Gainesville home and another while running on the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail, John Hintermister reported four at San Felasco Hammock, and then there were two reports from visiting birder Simon Tam, including one bird at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens and four at Paynes Prairie.

Great Crested Flycatchers are extraordinarily frustrating to track. The first of the spring *normally* shows up about March 25th. Birders report lots of heard-only Great Cresteds in early and mid-March, and repeated reminders that White-eyed Vireos can mimic a Great Crested Flycatcher’s wheep! rarely motivate them to track down these heard birds to confirm their identities. This year the eBird filter somehow got reset to mid-freakin’-March, meaning that people who recorded Great Crested Flycatcher prior to March 25th were not even prompted to write down details of their observations. Did they hear it? Did they see it? We don’t know! Great Crested Flycatchers shouldn’t *normally* be here before the last week in March! If you hear one, track it down! Okay? Okay! And yet I know I’ll be saying the same thing next year, because no one seems to remember this. Anyway … looking at the increasingly-dubious eBird output, the first date on which there were *several* reports of Great Crested Flycatcher was March 27th, when they were seen or heard in four locations.

Listen, develop your own knowledge and expertise of local birds. Don’t depend on the eBird filters to tell you what’s early and what’s late. The filters often seem to be messed up anyway. And there’s lots of bad data in eBird. Lots and lots and lots. Really, lots. You’d be surprised.

Carol and Ching-Tzu Huang tell me that there’s a family of Great Horned Owls in the pines behind Trinity United Methodist Church at 4000 NW 53rd Avenue. Evening is the best time to see them.

As of March 21st there were still Vaux’s Swifts at UF’s Dauer Hall, but according to Ben Ewing they were mixed in with about 40 Chimney Swifts that were spending their first night in the chimney. Ben wrote, “Heard calling among the Chimney Swifts. It was impossible to pick out how many birds there were, though I suspect all were still there. Some of the swifts seemed to be slimmer and smaller, these may have been the Vaux’s.”

Saturday’s walk at Watermelon Pond fielded only a couple of local participants, as well as a group of traveling birders from Bradenton. We hiked from the boat ramp along the firebreak toward the Fox Squirrel Loop, but a light rain began and the satellite showed a huge mass of green, yellow, and orange bearing down on us from the west, so we turned back to the parking lot. We’d seen nothing more remarkable than a trio of Prairie Warblers in a single waxmyrtle bush – my first migrants of the spring – but we assumed that we were about to be drenched with rain, so the Bradenton folks headed home. Alan Shapiro then suggested that he and I could keep birding as long as the rain held off. So we drove up to the north entrance of the Wildlife and Environmental Area and had a very nice couple of hours, because the rain never materialized after all. We saw the usual birds there – American Kestrel, Eastern Bluebird, Red-headed Woodpecker, Eastern Meadowlark, Yellow-throated Vireo – but we also found two singing Bachman’s Sparrows and a Loggerhead Shrike sitting on a nest, so it turned out to be an excellent day.

It’s cam time! Every spring various organizations put up nest cams, which show adults brooding eggs and feeding chicks, and then the chicks fledging (if everything goes well, which it doesn’t always). This year you can choose from the DC Eagle Cam, situated in a tulip tree in the National Arboretum – http://dceaglecam.eagles.org/ – or the Kestrel Cam in a nest box in Boise, Idaho – http://kestrel.peregrinefund.org/webcams – or the two Barn Owl cams, in two nest boxes in Stockton, California – http://www.portofstockton.com/daggettrd-owlcam

If you’re not joining the Alachua Audubon walk to Fort White Wildlife and Environmental Area on April 9th, you might be interested in the annual Alligator Lake Spring Festival in Lake City: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/banners/41a484be824484a11b12083a379b6f37

Also, Alachua Conservation Trust is holding a Moth Night – blacklighting for moths – at the Prairie Creek Lodge on Sunday, April 3rd. More information here.

Alachua Audubon has a new front page: https://alachuaaudubon.org/ Also, check out the Best Birding Sites page, which now features photos: https://alachuaaudubon.org/best-birding-sites/

Rob Norton photographed the Snail Kite at Sweetwater Wetlands Park this morning. “Here’s the story: I met Erika Simons at the last flow control where she thought she saw the bird around 7:30. I decided to wait with her for possible return. I saw it arrive in the corner from the Prairie side of the canal at 8:50. We watched and photographed it until about 9:40. When it left, it was carrying a twig and I got really interested in that. I think the time of year and quality of habitat have switched on a response in this bird. Too bad more kites are not present, yet. Snail Kite at the Prairie is not unprecedented, but seeing one carrying nesting material could be.” The kite has been seen every day since the 20th, usually once or twice in the morning and once in the late afternoon. Your best chance is probably to be there when the gates swing open at 7 a.m. and to walk as rapidly as you can to the point most distant from the entrance. It seems to spend all its time around the south “moat,” but especially in the southeastern part of the complex. I put up a rather hastily-written blog post on the Gainesville Sun site, which is worth looking at for the photos: http://fieldguide.blogs.gainesville.com/807/a-rare-bird-visits-gainesville/

This morning Ron Robinson and I conducted a loon watch at Jonesville County Park on County Road 241. We got there just before 8:00 and left just before 10:00. The 28 loons we saw were all flying northeast between 8:30 and 9:15. We actually did a little better this morning than Andy Kratter, who counted 7 loons between 8:20 and 10:00 from his usual vantage at Pine Grove Cemetery. As we were finishing up, Ron pointed out a Loggerhead Shrike sitting on a nest in a small oak tree.

Speaking of Ron, he lost his camera clip while looking for the Brown Creeper at Tuscawilla Prairie. Has anyone seen it? Here’s what it looks like: http://spiderholster.com/black-widow/

Future Shock: Yesterday, in an email to eBird regional reviewers on the subject of documentary photographs, eBird Project Leader Brian Sullivan wrote, “Ideally we’ll get to the point where computer vision algorithms will scan these images during upload and give people feedback on whether the species is right or wrong – something that could drastically improve data quality. Seems like science fiction, but we’re actually pretty close on this.” Soon enough, birders will be superfluous. Do I have the birding skills of an algorithm? Probably not.

Alachua Audubon has scheduled a field trip to Watermelon Pond on Saturday morning. However the weather seems to have scheduled a conflicting thunderstorm, so….

Debbie Segal will give a presentation on Sweetwater Wetlands Park at the Prairie Creek Lodge (7204 SE County Road 234, between Rochelle and the Camps Canal bridge) at 6:30 p.m. on the 29th: “Debbie will describe how the constructed treatment wetlands operate using native wetland plants to remove nutrients and pollutants from the water. Debbie is an environmental scientist who has worked in the field of wetlands ecology, soil science, and environmental permitting for over 25 years. While working with Wetland Solutions, Inc., Debbie helped design and permit Sweetwater Wetlands Park. She is a volunteer for the Alachua Audubon Society and the Florida Springs Institute where she advocates for environmental protection.” Debbie will also lead a walk at SWP the following morning, March 30th, beginning at 8:30. The public is welcome to attend both events.

Mike Manetz and I got to the Snail Kite location around 10:15 or 10:30 this morning, only to be told that it had flown down the southern “moat” to the west. We walked down that way as fast as we could, and Mike saw a bird with white rump and bowed wings disappearing over the willows to the southwest. We spent the next three hours standing around waiting for it to come back. We left around 1:30, meeting Jonathan Mays, who was just arriving, on our way out. Jonathan emailed at 5:00 to tell me that he was just leaving Sweetwater without having seen the kite. So it was gone most of the day.

But at 5:30 I heard from both Glenn Israel and Sidney Wade that the bird was back at the eastern end of Cell 3, the point farthest from the entrance. So you’ve still got a couple of hours of daylight to see it.

Here’s one of Lloyd Davis’s photos from this morning: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/25309717963/in/dateposted-public/

We knew it had to happen sooner or later, what with all those snails. Lloyd Davis just phoned (9:50 a.m.) to alert me to the presence of a male Snail Kite at Sweetwater Wetlands Park. He said it was mostly hanging around Cell 3 (the most distant cell), foraging and perching in the willows. Photos to come later, but I’m on my way to Sweetwater right now!

March 14th is Pi Day because 3.14. I was unaware of this until yesterday. Now listen, when I was a-comin’ up we didn’t have holidays about math. Math was math, and it stayed in the classroom where it belonged. If we needed a holiday, we found a handy president. Andy Jackson was born on March 15th, for instance, and Jimmy Madison on March 16th. Celebrate them if you like, but leave the math alone. That’s my counsel if you want it, Leave The Math Alone. I’ve lived my life by that creed, and I’ve done all right except for the poverty and the stupidity.

Adam Zions relocated the Bell’s Vireo at Sparrow Alley on the 12th. It was on a side trail off the power line cut. As you walk out the power lines, look for lanes cut to your left. There’s one that continues as a trail beyond the black plastic silt fences. Follow that one until you find a largish patch of tall reddish grass (broom sedge). This is also the area where Bryan Tarbox and I heard a call on the 8th that we suspected to be the vireo. Mike Manetz supplied me with a couple samples of calls, the sort of thing you should listen for as you walk around out there: http://www.xeno-canto.org/304431 and http://www.xeno-canto.org/34622

Loonacy is underway. Andy Kratter started doing his annual spring-migrant loon watches on the 10th, and saw his first of the season – two of them – passing over on the 13th. He solicits your loon sightings: “It’s that time of year again when you should be looking up between 8 and 10 AM to watch for loons as they migrate over Alachua County. I had my first this morning, a pair at 8:57 a.m. For the past 12 years I have been counting Common Loons as they migrate between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. The migration is compressed in both time and space: 95% of the birds pass over Gainesville from 50-120 mins after sunrise, between 21 March and 12 April, almost all are heading ENE to NE between Paynes Prairie and north Gainesville. To help figure out the extent of this migration, it would be great if others want to help. It is best to choose spots with an open view of the western sky. I keep track with pen and paper, and record time, number of loons in group, and direction of movement. If seen well, the birds can also be aged (adult or non-adult). Accurate timing and flock size is important so we can avoid double counting. The loons fly fast (ca. 50 mph) and often quite high in loose flocks (from 1-35 birds). Watch for ‘bowling pins with wings’ (to quote Ron Robinson). I watch from Pine Grove/Evergreen Cemetery in SE Gainesville, and scan with binoculars from south to north across the western sky to pick up loons flying at a distance. Send me your counts with data and your exact location. I also troll eBird, but make sure you record the data (here is an example of one of my checklists: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S22598125 ). It will be interesting to see how this year’s El Niño conditions affect the migration. Please email or message me on Facebook if you want any more information or want to participate in any way. Andy Kratter kratter@flmnh.ufl.edu ”

I’m noticing dogwoods coming into bloom. Additional signs of spring:

Jonathan Mays spotted the season’s first Chimney Swift on the 8th, by twelve days a new early record for the county: “singleton flyover, twittering and in with Tree Swallows.” The Vaux’s Swifts roosting at Dauer Hall on the UF campus were reported during the last week of February: 14 birds on the 22nd, then one each on the 23rd and 24th. Vaux’s has been recorded here as late as April 7th, so over the next few weeks any silent swifts should probably be submitted to eBird as “Chimney/Vaux’s Swift.” Of course you don’t have to do that if you can recognize vocalizing birds as one species or another.

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, on the other hand, were late this year: the first of the season usually arrive during the first few days of March, but this year’s first were reported on the 11th by a Wild Birds Unlimited customer and on the 12th by Mike Manetz in NW Gainesville and Jonathan Mays in SE Gainesville.

Deena Mickelson saw the spring’s first Yellow-throated Vireo at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve on the 1st.

Cynthia Lukyanenko reported a pair of American Kestrels nesting at the Gainesville airport on the 6th, one of them already sitting on a nest “in the glass enclosure of one of the outdoor lights.” Tom Tompkins tells me that they’ve been nesting at the airport for at least three or four years. Otherwise, as far as I know, this is the first nesting of American Kestrel within the Gainesville city limits since Charles Doe reported one at P.K. Yonge School (now Norman Hall at UF) in July 1939.

On the 12th, I heard my yard’s Red-headed Woodpecker making the queeah call, which it uses only during spring and summer. It’s been chuckling all winter, but this was the first time I heard the breeding-season call.

Bubba Scales says that the American Goldfinches are returning to backyard feeders after two or three weeks eating wild foods. I still have only two in my NE Gainesville yard, but he thinks that will change within the week. Watch for Pine Siskins among the goldfinches. Bubba set a video camera in Tom Hoctor’s NW Gainesville yard and got footage of several siskins, a couple of goldfinches, and a Yellow-rumped Warbler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za8QwOuMvpk&feature=youtu.be

The Black-chinned Hummingbird is still at the Ewings’ place as of this morning.

This is sort of weird. I put up my latest blog post yesterday: http://fieldguide.blogs.gainesville.com/778/flowering-now-wild-plums/ This morning I received notice of a “pingback” and when I visited the linked web address I found that someone had posted my blog post on their own site and then added a couple of stock photos: https://davgilks.wordpress.com/2016/03/14/flowering-now-wild-plums-field-guide/ Why would they do that? It must be all the money involved, yeah, that’s got to be it.

Earlier this week ACT staff notified Alachua Audubon that they would not be able to lead Saturday’s field trip to Prairie Creek Preserve. The trip has therefore been cancelled.

Andy Kratter writes, “Lark Sparrow this morning at south end of Depot Park (near First Magnitude). It was in the fenced off area right at the NW corner of SE 10th Ave at Veitch, right where the Western Kingbirds were a few years ago. A mean old mockingbird gathering nest material chased it off with some Palm Warblers and Chipping Sparrow into the brushy ditch that borders the west end of the pond.”

Go south on Main Street, pass through downtown and continue south through the Depot Road traffic circle. A quarter of a mile south of the traffic circle, turn left onto SE 10th Avenue. When the road ends at a T-intersection, turn left and pull onto the grassy shoulder on the right side of the road. The bird was still present at 10:30. There’s a fence marking the boundary between the lot containing the gray building and the park property, and it was feeding on the ground between that fence and the ditch.

This is the 16th or 17th Lark Sparrow ever recorded in Alachua County. Of all these, it’s only the second spring migrant (the other was found and photographed by Sam Ewing near Watermelon Pond on April 11, 2012), though three more wintered locally and remained into March or April. Andy bikes this route frequently, and he hasn’t seen the bird until today, so I assume it’s a migrant – and of the previous 15 or 16 records, all but three were one-day wonders, so see the bird today if you can.

So go see the Lark Sparrow! But DON’T go on the field trip to Prairie Creek, because there won’t be one.

Still no word from the “Anonymous eBirder,” but we don’t need him any longer because I saw the Bell’s Vireo today. Here’s where it is:

Walk out Sparrow Alley and turn left at the power line cut. Go past the first set of power poles, with the Osprey nest on top. You’ll have noticed the black plastic “silt fencing” parallel to the power line cut on both sides of the trail. Not far past the power poles, the fencing makes a 90-degree turn and comes in perpendicular to the edge of the trail on both sides. About a hundred feet beyond this point you’ll see a small cluster of leafless trees on the right. The bird was in the blackberry just beyond these trees. Mike Manetz and I thought we heard it at that exact spot yesterday afternoon at around 2:00, but we never got a look at it.

Bill Pennewill and Lee Yoder are going to be mad at me, because they stuck around till 12:30 in hope of seeing the bird. Finally the three of us headed toward the exit, but I turned back to photograph some wild plum trees in the old ani field while they went on to lunch. On the way back from taking my pictures I walked down the power line cut one more time, and as I approached the cluster of leafless trees at about 1:30 I saw a small green-and-yellow bird hop up from the ground at the edge of the trail into the brambles (I don’t think I’ve ever seen a vireo on the ground before). As I watched through my binoculars it continued to forage along the edge of the trail, always less than a foot off the ground. And then I lost track of it. I stuck around for another five minutes to see if it would come out again, but it didn’t.

I have no idea whether it stays in that spot all the time or not. Mike thought he heard it on the other (south) side of the trail this morning, and later both Bryan Tarbox and I heard some Bell’s-like vocalizations even further south, toward the main part of La Chua.

There are plenty of White-eyed Vireos around, one or two Orange-crowned Warblers, plus an Empidonax flycatcher (it looked like a Least to me, but didn’t vocalize) that was directly across the trail from the Bell’s spot. So caveat empid (“Let the birder beware”): the Bell’s isn’t the only greenish bird out there.

From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

Not content with finding good birds in the world at large – he discovered Duval County’s first-ever Green-tailed Towhee on the 3rd, and what may be Florida’s first-ever Bermuda Petrel in December (if it’s not North America’s first-ever Barau’s Petrel) – Sam Ewing is now discovering good birds online. Looking over an anonymous birder’s eBird checklist from a walk on the La Chua Trail yesterday, he realized that a photograph labeled “Orange-crowned Warbler” did not, in fact, show an Orange-crowned Warbler, but Alachua County’s second-ever Bell’s Vireo! Here’s the checklist: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S28009914  (The error may have been corrected by the time you see this.) Using my special eBird-Reviewer powers, I’ve contacted the anonymous birder to ask exactly where the bird was seen, and I’ll send out an update once I get the answer (or find the bird myself). It was almost certainly somewhere along Sparrow Alley, since the observer wrote that he saw White-throated Sparrows “on the path going right after the barn (away from boardwalk) about halfway to power line trail.”

Lloyd Davis discovered a Le Conte’s Sparrow at the Hague Dairy this morning. If you go in the “back entrance” of the dairy from NW 59th Drive – turning off 59th and going through the gate – there will be a small field on your right, just before the pond. There are some big mounds of dirt in that field, and Mike Manetz called to tell me that the sparrow was in the brush at the foot of the mounds. (If you enter the dairy from the front entrance, off County Road 237, follow the driveway all the way past the office, the silo, and the pond; the field will be just before the gate on your left.)

David Kirschke writes that yesterday he saw both the Black-chinned Hummingbird at the Ewings’ place and the Brown Creeper at Tuscawilla Prairie.

Remember the wading birds’ abandonment of Seahorse Key last year, and their re-nesting at Snake Key? I asked Vic Doig of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service if he’d noticed any signs of nest-building yet, and he replied, “There is much more activity at Snake Key but it is early yet. We put out a bunch of nesting bird decoys this week in an effort to lure birds back to Seahorse Key.”

Greg McDermott emailed, “I had a dream the other night that the AOU issued an official ‘Birds of Alachua County’ list. It included only the 15 species that everyone takes pictures of at Sweetwater Wetlands Park. Pretty much invalidates your last two and a half decades of work. Sorry.”

I hope everyone was gladdened to see that the County Commissioners upheld the comprehensive plan against the Underpants Gnomes Logic of Plum Creek (Phase 1: Clear forest near Windsor.  Phase 2: ??  Phase 3: East Gainesville prospers!). Please remember to thank Commissioners Byerly, Cornell, and Hutchinson.

A brief but worthwhile essay by BirdFellow’s Dave Irons on the tradition of mentoring in birding: http://www.birdfellow.com/journal/2008/12/19/a_tradition_of_mentoring