Author: Rex Rowan

Looks like a fall migration to me

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Rufous Hummingbirds have already returned to two local feeders. Both are adult males. One that’s been visiting Mike Manetz’s yard since the 11th is wearing a little silver bracelet, so it’s probably the same bird that Fred Bassett banded there in January; Mike got a photo. Just across the Gilchrist County line, one has been coming to Jim Allison’s feeder since the 12th. Both of these beat the county’s previous early arrival date by about two weeks; that was an adult male that Greg Hart saw at his place in Alachua on August 25, 2003.

Mike Manetz, Bob Carroll, and I checked for shorebirds at Hague Dairy on July 17th. There was plenty of water, but the vegetation was too high for shorebirds; they prefer the unobstructed view provided by mud flats and other vegetation-free landscapes. In the four weeks since then, all the vegetation has been mowed down, and when the Ewings (father Dean, sons Caleb, Benjamin, and Samuel) visited on the 14th they found seven shorebird species: “5 Lesser Yellowlegs, 4 Semipalmated Plovers, 9 Least Sandpipers, 5 Pectorals, 3 Solitaries, 1 Spotted, and best of all 6 Stilt Sandpipers!” Samuel got a photo of all six Stilts: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/14730385127/ All were in the same spot as last year, the northwest corner of the lagoon. A Laughing Gull was out there as well. Remember that a Short-billed Dowitcher and a Wilson’s Phalarope were recorded there last August, so it would be worthwhile to check back frequently.

Samuel has been watching the sky from his NW Gainesville neighborhood, and it paid off on the 15th with a pair of Eastern Kingbirds and a Cliff Swallow, our first fall migrants of both species.

Mike Manetz and I found nine warbler species at San Felasco Hammock on the 14th as we walked the Moonshine Creek and Creek Sink Trails, including one Worm-eating, single Louisiana and Northern Waterthrushes, 3 Black-and-whites, 2 Prothonotaries, 2 Kentuckies, 7 Hoodeds, 3 American Redstarts, and 10 Northern Parulas.

John Killian sneaked out to the sheet flow restoration area on the 12th in hopes of seeing the Buff-breasted Sandpiper that Matt O’Sullivan and I found on the 10th, but it had moved on. He writes, “I did see a Roseate Spoonbill, half a dozen each of Spotted and Solitary Sandpipers, 3 Pectoral Sandpipers, 9 Black Terns, and a Laughing Gull. There must be about 100 Black-bellied Whistling ducks out there as well.”

Speaking of Black Terns, I saw a flock of 14 at Newnans Lake during the stormy weather on the evening of the 14th.

Bob Carroll went to Arizona in late July. He’s telling the story on his blog. In order:

http://bobsgonebirding.blogspot.com/2014/08/birding-in-arizona-and-new-mexico.html

http://bobsgonebirding.blogspot.com/2014/08/part-2-silver-city-nm-and-road-to-portal.html

I expect another installment any day now.

Don’t forget to keep up the pressure on the County Commission in regards to Barr Hammock. Email the Commission at bocc@alachuacounty.us and urge them to keep the loop open.

There’s an election coming up on the 26th. I don’t know whether Lee Pinkoson or Harvey Ward is the better candidate overall, but I can tell you that Ward has declared himself to be against both the Plum Creek project and the Barr Hammock trail closure, while Pinkoson has not.

Buff-breasted Sandpiper at Paynes Prairie

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

I have figured this out. All I have to do, if I want to see good birds, is follow Matt O’Sullivan around. It’s that easy. I don’t have to think about where to go, or what I should be looking for. I just have to go with Matt O’Sullivan wherever he goes, and I will see good birds.

Today, for instance. We visited the Sheetflow Restoration Project, which should be completed this coming winter. As we trudged along, Matt was telling me he’d really like to see a Buff-breasted Sandpiper, though he knew they were more likely from late August through September. Being older (much, much older) and wiser (okay, no, but definitely older), I reminded him that there were only two previous records of Buff-breasted Sandpiper in the county: one from September 10-13, 2005, and one on September 17, 2011. So in other words, this was a bird that (a.) he shouldn’t expect too see at all, ever, and (b.) that, on the exceedingly rare occasions when it did visit us, would be expected in mid-September, not early August. Yes, said Matt, I understand, but it is a bird I would very much like to see, oh, look, what is that bird flying? Probably just a Pectoral Sandpiper, I said in an expert tone of voice, but I followed the bird with my binoculars, and when it landed I squinted at it for a second and then I looked at it through my telescope and then I looked dazedly at Matt. I was almost inclined to punch him in the nose at that point, because no one should have such good luck, because it was a Buff-breasted Sandpiper.

He got a bunch of photos, of which he posted three:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/118053703@N02/14691607168/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/118053703@N02/14691604918/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/118053703@N02/14691602358/

If you know the Sheetflow Restoration Project, then you know there’s a metal bridge over a narrow earthen enclosure, or cell. This cell has water in the middle, but most of it is short grass, and that’s where the Buffy has been staying, in company with several Killdeer and a couple of Spotted Sandpipers. However, there is no access to the Sheetflow Restoration Project during working hours, so you should run over there this afternoon if you want to see it, or cross your fingers and hope that it sticks around.

Migrant warblers and shorebirds

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Matt O’Sullivan was away in his native England for a couple of weeks, but when he got back into town he wasted no time in finding some good birds. At Bolen Bluff on the 5th he saw a Louisiana Waterthrush, 2 migrant Prothonotary Warblers, and the fall’s first Worm-eating Warbler. Returning two days later he relocated the Worm-eating and one of the Prothonotaries, but also spotted a Short-tailed Hawk (photo here). He commented, “I think the hawk wasn’t an adult. It appeared densely mottled with streaks that blended together on the underside. I don’t know if that suggests local breeding or if it’s a wandering juvenile or subadult.” Dalcio Dacol and Craig Walters walked Bolen Bluff on the 9th and found most of the warblers reported by Matt, plus a few more: Worm-eating, Prothonotary, Black-and-white, Yellow, and the fall’s first Ovenbird.

Dalcio had found the season’s second Kentucky Warbler while walking San Felasco’s Moonshine Creek Trail (south of Millhopper Road) on the 5th. Deena Mickelson saw his report and went looking for it on the 6th. She found it “exactly where Dalcio had reported it, at the beginning of the Moonshine Creek Trail, right after I’d gone downhill, but just before the first bridge was in view” (photo here). She also saw 3 Black-and-white Warblers.

Debbie Segal saw a nice mix of sandpipers at Paynes Prairie on the 7th: 3 Spotted, 5 Solitary, 2 Least, 2 Semipalmated, a Pectoral, and a Lesser Yellowlegs. She also saw a single Laughing Gull and a trio of Yellow Warblers.

Swallow migration gets underway in August. Adam Kent reported a Purple Martin and 5 Barn Swallows over his SE Gainesville home on the 9th, but small numbers of southbound Barn Swallows have been reported by several other birders over the past two weeks. Usually the largest numbers of Barn Swallows pass through during the last week of the month; that’s also your best chance of seeing Bank and Cliff Swallows.

Take a minute to watch any Swallow-tailed or Mississippi Kites you see. Their numbers are starting to dwindle as they begin their migration, and we won’t see them again until next spring.

If you’re over 50, you might as well turn in your binoculars: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140805-aging-birders-breeding-bird-survey-volunteers-science/ (“Some surveys—such as the BBS—require volunteers to record information on all the birds they can detect in a brief three-minute window, which might be challenging for some older people if they have a lot of information coming at them rapidly, Farmer said.”) Um, sorry? What? There were an awful lot of words in that sentence…

Wow, everybody’s going to Cuba! In addition to Halifax River Audubon Society, which I mentioned in the last email, Joni Ellis notified me that she’s got two slots still open on a Cuba trip: “Cost will be ~ $3,000 including airfare from Tampa, visa, health insurance, all lodging, meals and transportation. Just bring beer money!” (Itinerary and details here.) And Rob Norton, who has compiled the West Indies seasonal report for American Birds/North American Birds for thirty years or so, writes, “The Ocean Society and Holbrook Travel will be sponsoring Christmas Bird Counts (4) in Cuba this season. I have worked with local ornithologists and guides to establish these areas as an historic opportunity to participate in that country’s official CBCs. Dates are Dec 13-22, details at holbrook.travel/tofcuba.”

Oh. THAT migration.

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Thoreau called it “the royal month of August,” and he was right. The stupendous clouds, the heat, the lushness of the greenery – and of course the birds. June and July begin migration with a trickle, but August opens up the floodgates. Shorebirds peak this month, and warblers, swallows, flycatchers, and other passerines will be on the move.

Speaking of warblers, Frank and Irina Goodwin saw two Yellow Warblers at La Chua on the 30th, the very day I sent out the last birding report – in which I complained that no one had seen any Yellow Warblers. On the 31st, John Hintermister found a very early Kentucky Warbler along the nature trail at Poe Springs Park, while Samuel Ewing had a Louisiana Waterthrush at Loblolly. And today Barbara Woodmansee hosted an American Redstart in the backyard water feature that she and her husband had just finished building; that’s only the second of the fall. Four days, four migrant warblers. That’s more like it.

On June 21st, the summer solstice, we enjoyed 14 hours and 3 minutes of daylight. Today we’ll have 30 minutes less. Birds are still singing, but only occasionally. I still hear Northern Cardinals every day, but Great Crested Flycatchers, Brown Thrashers, and Carolina Chickadees, though still around, aren’t singing much.

I watched a very enjoyable online documentary this morning called “Counting on Birds,” in which the host goes along on Christmas Bird Counts in New Hampshire, Maine, and Ecuador, as well as the “Cuba Bird Survey.” I most enjoyed the the first twenty minutes, which take place in New Hampshire. The host does get the history of the Christmas Bird Count a little bit wrong. It didn’t “start out as a killing game.” The “side hunts” that Frank Chapman cited when he proposed the Christmas census in Bird-Lore magazine had mostly faded into the past by 1900, so there was no need for him to put an end to them, as the host declares he did. You can read Chapman’s original CBC proposal – its brevity so out of proportion to its significance – here. And you can watch “Counting on Birds” here: http://video.nhptv.org/video/2365128454/

Speaking of the Cuba Bird Survey, Daytona Beach’s Halifax River Audubon Society will be participating this year, from December 1-12. The trip will cost about $5,000 with air fare. For more details click here (download it for better graphics).

The Ewing family just returned from a sixteen-state summer vacation during which, Samuel informs me, he got 48 life birds. He posted a very nice gallery of photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/

We’re beginning to fill in the field trip schedule on the Alachua Audubon web site. We’re up to early November at this point, so feel free to take a look and start putting anything that interests you on your calendar: https://alachuaaudubon.org/classes-field-trips/

Migration? What migration?

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

September 1st will mark one hundred years since Martha, the last of all the Passenger Pigeons on earth, died in the Cincinnati Zoo.

When I was in high school my favorite author was the late Allan Eckert, who wrote several realistic novels about wild creatures. Wild Season was one of his best, a dramatic and beautifully-plotted depiction of the natural world that was sympathetic without being too sentimental. Eckert also wrote novels about the extinction of two North American bird species, one about the Great Auk called The Great Auk (now sold as The Last Great Auk) and one about the Passenger Pigeon called The Silent Sky. Both were painfully affecting, and I see from Amazon’s customer reviews of The Silent Sky that my experience was not unique: “Some books test your humanity, rip you apart and put you back together in a new way, and this is one….This book was compelling to read and impossible to forget….Rarely have I openly wept while reading a book; this is one such book. My God, what did they do….”

In my late twenties I wrote Eckert a fan letter, and one of the highlights of my life was the day this titanic figure of my youth telephoned to thank me for it.

Anyways, I think I may have linked to this before: http://www.lostbirdfilm.org/

It’s not, alas, available from Netflix, but this one is: http://www.abirdersguidetoeverything.com/ (Watch for Kenn Kaufman’s cameo at the end.)

The reason I’m telling you about these books and movies is that everyone seems to be staying inside, so you might as well do something bird-related if you’re staying inside. The reason I think everyone is staying inside is that NOBODY’S REPORTING ANY BIRDS TO ME!

Maybe the migration is just really slow. The number of migrant warblers being reported (to me, or to eBird) is much smaller than normal for late July. John Hintermister saw the county’s first American Redstart of the fall at his place north of Gainesville on the 29th. Deena Mickelson saw the fall’s first Prairie Warbler at Ficke Gardens (immediately south of the Baughman Center at Lake Alice) on the 27th. Though there have been seven Black-and-white Warblers reported, there hasn’t been a single Yellow. On the 28th I walked a mile out the north fork of the Levy Lake Loop – the section the neighbors want to close – in search of Yellow Warblers, but had no luck.

Speaking of Levy Lake, it looks as though the County Commission will delay their decision on the trail until October, after the election and after budget talks. Hopefully they will not turn our 6.5-mile loop into a twelve-mile out-and-back death march, but they will require frequent reminding: bocc@alachuacounty.us I’ll probably schedule a couple field trips out there so that you can see what’s at stake.

Al Lippman got this video of 100+ Swallow-tailed Kites over a melon field west of The Villages on July 18th: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9-OEWdejiY&feature=youtu.be

There’s a new Facebook page for young (under 26) birders: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Jocotocowanderings/

Last but not least, the American Ornithologists’ Union just published its 55th Supplement to the Check-list of North American Birds. Changes to Florida birds are nil. Clapper Rail and King Rail have both been split, the former into Clapper and Ridgway’s Rails, the latter into King and Aztec Rails; however Florida birders will not be affected unless they’ve seen Clapper Rail in the southwestern U.S. (now Ridgway’s) or King Rail in Mexico (now Aztec). A couple of the parrots have been shifted from one genus into another, Nanday Parakeet from Nandayus into Aratinga, and Mitred Parakeet from Aratinga into Psittacara. Nutmeg Mannakin has been renamed Scaly-breasted Mannakin. You can see the Supplement here: http://aoucospubs.org/doi/pdf/10.1642/AUK-14-124.1

First migrant shorebirds

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

This morning Mike Manetz and I walked about three and a half miles at Paynes Prairie, going out Sparrow Alley and coming back along the soon-to-be-bulldozed Sweetwater Dike. We noticed a few signs of the season – Orchard Orioles and Prothonotary Warblers seemed to have departed Sweetwater and gone south, and we neither heard nor saw a Yellow-breasted Chat anywhere along our route. But we did see a couple of fall migrants – two Least Sandpipers and one Spotted Sandpiper, southward bound from their northern nesting grounds.

Mike and Bob Carroll and I checked out the Hague Dairy after a field trip committee meeting on the 17th. We were hoping for a repeat of last year, when heavy rains flooded a stubble field just north of the lagoon, attracting shorebirds of several species, including Wilson’s Phalarope and Short-billed Dowitcher. However upon reaching the field in question we discovered that it was still overgrown with vegetation three feet high, not exactly prime habitat for the birds we were hoping to see.

Ron Robinson and I birded the western shore of Newnans Lake on the morning of the 13th, visiting Powers Park, Palm Point/Lakeshore Drive, and Gum Root Swamp. No interesting terns, no Laughing Gulls, no Louisiana Waterthrushes, and no Prothonotary Warblers, but we did find the county’s first Black-and-white Warbler of the fall at Palm Point and another at Gum Root. Another Black-and-white was in my back yard on the 17th, along with a Yellow-throated Warbler (which doesn’t live in my neighborhood, so it must have been a migrant as well).

On July 10th between 7:30 and 8:00, Geoff Parks saw “about 16” Swallow-tailed Kites roosting in a dead pine directly across NW 39th Avenue from the Magnolia Parke entrance. At 7:45 on the morning of the 14th he passed by the tree again and noted 10-15 kites.

I mentioned a nest of Blue Grosbeak eggs at La Chua in the last birding report. The three eggs hatched on the 8th, and the young seemed to be doing well. But on the 15th Deena Mickelson, who’d been keeping an eye on the nest, wrote, “I went by this morning, after the thunderstorm had rolled out, only to find the entire nest gone. At first I only saw the male nearby, but on my return the female was there as well. Both were in the shrubs on each side of the one that had contained the nest. When a Fish Crow landed on the weather station across the trail the male and female grosbeak both got really agitated for a while. After the crow left they quieted down again, but stayed in the area. I confess I clambered up on the bottom rung of the fence trying to see if the nest was visible anywhere, but I couldn’t see it anywhere; I suspect it went in the water underneath and that’s that, as they say.”

On a more cheerful note, here’s a picture of a “parliament” of Burrowing Owls from Steve Collins in Texas: https://www.flickr.com/photos/odephoto/14687813742/ (“Parliament” is considered the proper collective noun for a group of owls, but Chaucer wrote a poem called the “Parliament of Fowls” that involved more birds than just owls; the Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning of parliament in this instance as a “consultative assembly,” and specifically refers to Chaucer’s “parlement of briddes.” It doesn’t mention parliament as a collective noun for owls, so that must be a fairly recent invention.)

Have you been sending daily emails to the County Commissioners, asking them not to close access to the north part of the trail at Barr Hammock? The Gainesville Sun published an editorial against closing the trail on the 13th: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20140713/OPINION01/140719946/1076/opinion01?Title=Editorial-Homes-and-hikers You can tell the Commissioners your opinion at bocc@alachuacounty.us They’re eager to know your opinion and they can’t hear from you too often!

Louisiana Waterthrush, bad Barr Hammock news

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

I don’t know if you like this sort of miscellaneous post or not. If you’ve got the time to browse some links, maybe you do. If you’re in a hurry and just want to know the latest birding news, maybe you don’t. I’ll put the (meager) birding news at the top today, and then when I start posting links you can click the little X in the upper right hand corner and get back to whatever else you were doing. (But jump down to the last paragraph before you do that. It’s important.)

Louisiana Waterthrushes are starting to show up. I’d heard one at the north end of Newnans Lake while canoeing with Bob and Erika Simons on June 24th, but we never got a look at it, and two subsequent June trips to Gum Root Swamp failed to find one. The first actual sighting of the summer was made by Lloyd Davis at La Chua on the 5th. He got a photo, which he posted on his Facebook page. I saw the summer’s second this morning, along Camps Canal.

I’ve checked eBird to see if anyone has reported other early-fall migrants, like Black-and-white Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Least Sandpiper, or Lesser Yellowlegs, but not yet; Louisiana Waterthrush is the extent of our fall migration so far.

Remember this Blue Grosbeak that Barbara Woodmansee and I saw on June 21st? The consensus was that it was a one-year-old male in the process of attaining full adult plumage. Females just don’t show that much blue, after all. On the other hand, according to Birds of North America Online, “Apparently incubation is by female only.” If that’s the case, why is this “one-year-old male” sitting on a nest? It’s not just goofing around, either, because it laid at least two eggs, at least one of which hatched on the 8th. The reasonable conclusion seems to be that this is an atypical female with extra blue … well, I was going to say pigment, but as I understand it, blue coloration in birds isn’t based on pigment but on feather structure, so … this is starting to get too scientific for me. Andy Kratter said something about submitting a note on this odd bird to one of the ornithological journals, so maybe he can explain it.

A bird that puzzles a lot of people is the Red-winged Blackbird. Even experienced birders who have no trouble identifying them as Red-wingeds don’t always know why certain females have rosy faces and why some males are still streaked below. This well-illustrated blog entry is chiefly aimed at distinguishing Red-winged Blackbird from Tricolored Blackbird, an ID problem that we don’t face in Florida, but a lot of the captions provide valuable information along the way, for instance, “The strong peachy-buff wash on the face and throat, along with the bright rusty scapulars indicate that the female is an after-second-year bird.”

Ted Floyd is the editor of Birding magazine. I don’t like him. I tell you this because, while I would normally discourage you from reading anything he writes, I thought this piece from 2012 was quite good and worth your attention (despite the whiff of tiresome contrarianism that arises from everything he writes): http://blog.aba.org/2012/07/most-wonderful.html

The Barr Hammock meeting did not go well, and in three months the majority of the Commission will vote 3-2 (Baird, Chestnut, and Pinkoson vs. Hutchinson and Byerly) to close the loop trail unless they are convinced otherwise. I’ll send more information later, but this is something that’s going to depend on the public EXPRESSING outrage, not merely BEING outraged. And I think ultimately that will involve showing up at a BOCC meeting, not just sending an email. Meanwhile emails should not cease, because it’s simply intolerable that a private citizen should be able to control the public’s access to public property: bocc@alachuacounty.us

The June Challenge 2014 – Alachua County results

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Huh. I guess summer’s already over. I escorted visiting Clay County birders Martha Fethe and Jan Morgan out to see a Prothonotary Warbler today. We started at the Lake Alto Preserve, where I found one singing just two weeks ago, but no dice. So we tried Camps Canal, where they were singing earlier this spring. Nope. Then we tried River Styx, where they’ve been reliable in the past. Nada. Are they just laying low, or have they wound up their breeding season and started south? (Or am I just an incompetent birding guide?)

The Eleventh Annual June Challenge fielded 50 participants, though two didn’t submit totals to be publicly listed. Here’s the list of participants and their tallies. For the fourth time the contest ended in a tie for first place. Congratulations to Maralee and Danny, who will share the big garish trophy, and also to second-place winner Lloyd Davis and third-place winner Chris Cattau. However let me congratulate EVERYONE who braved the June heat and joined us in seeing and appreciating our beautiful summer birds. To paraphrase Grantland Rice, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s not even how you play the game, it’s THAT you play the game in the first place.”

Maralee Joos 116 (113/3)
Danny Shehee 116 (113/3)
Lloyd Davis 113 (110/3)
Chris Cattau 111 (107/4)
Barbara Shea 109 (106/3)
Howard Adams 107 (105/2)
Bob Simons 107 (105/2)
Bob Carroll 104 (101/3)
Rex Rowan 102 (101/1)
Dalcio Dacol 101 (101/0)
Brad Hall 101 (101/0)
Ron Robinson 101 (98/3)
Barbara Mollison 100 (98/2)
Felicia Lee 100 (97/3)
Benjamin Ewing 100 (96/4)
Samuel Ewing 100 (96/4)
Anne Kendall 97 (97/0)
Erika Simons 97 (95/2)
Sharon Kuchinski 94 (92/2)
John Martin 93 (91/2)
Geoff Parks 93 (90/3)
Deena Mickelson 91 (91/0)
Anne Barkdoll 90 (87/3)
Phil Laipis 86 (86/0)
Tina Greenberg 85 (84/1)
Bob Knight 83 (83/0)
Debbie Segal 82 (82/0)
Ellen Frattino 82 (80/2)
Becky Enneis 81 (80/1)
Amber Roux 81 (80/1)
Christine Zamora 81 (80/1)
Nora Parks-Church 81 (78/3)
Elizabeth Martin 79 (77/2)
Katherine Edison 77 (74/3)
Hannah Ewing 76 (73/3)
Adam Zions 76 (72/4)
Barbara Woodmansee 75 (75/0)
Carol Huang 70 (69/1)
Conrad Burkholder 69 (69/0)
Emily Schwartz 69 (69/0)
Roy Herrera 68 (68/0)
Bill Enneis 56 (56/0)
Sue Ann Enneis 56 (56/0)
Sidney Wade 51 (59/0)
Debbie Spiceland 43 (43/0)
Arthur Baker 34 (34/0)
Alex Baker 34 (34/0)
Andy Baker 34 (34/0)

Samuel Ewing gathered several of his favorite June Challenge bird photos into a single graphic: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/14546797873/in/photostream/

And Danny Shehee posted photos of most of the birds he found during the June Challenge (the web site takes a few seconds to load): https://www.facebook.com/danny.shehee/media_set?set=a.781530085232879.1073742022.100001276839703&type=1&l=11d4f076e2

Finally, here’s the cumulative list of birds reported here during the month:

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Swan Goose (domestic)
Graylag Goose (domestic)
Black Swan (domestic)
Muscovy Duck
Wood Duck
Mallard
Mottled Duck
Lesser Scaup
Ruddy Duck
Northern Bobwhite
Indian Peafowl (domestic)
Wild Turkey
Pied-billed Grebe
Wood Stork
Double-crested Cormorant
Anhinga
Brown Pelican
American Bittern
Least Bittern
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Cattle Egret
Green Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
White Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Roseate Spoonbill
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Swallow-tailed Kite
Mississippi Kite
Bald Eagle
Cooper’s Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk
Short-tailed Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
King Rail
Virginia Rail
Sora
Purple Gallinule
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Limpkin
Sandhill Crane
Black-necked Stilt
Killdeer
Spotted Sandpiper
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
White-winged Dove
Mourning Dove
Common Ground-Dove
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Barn Owl
Eastern Screech-Owl
Great Horned Owl
Burrowing Owl
Barred Owl
Common Nighthawk
Chuck-will’s-widow
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Red-headed Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
American Kestrel
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Acadian Flycatcher
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Loggerhead Shrike
White-eyed Vireo
Yellow-throated Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Fish Crow
Purple Martin
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Brown-headed Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Louisiana Waterthrush
Prothonotary Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Hooded Warbler
Northern Parula
Pine Warbler
Yellow-throated Warbler
Yellow-breasted Chat
Eastern Towhee
Bachman’s Sparrow
Summer Tanager
Northern Cardinal
Blue Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Bobolink
Red-winged Blackbird
Eastern Meadowlark
Common Grackle
Boat-tailed Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Orchard Oriole
House Finch
House Sparrow

Outside Alachua County, we received 86 entries from 28 other Florida counties, 35 entries from ten counties in Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, and two entries from Florida birders traveling outside the country, one from Abaco in the Bahamas and one from Hyderabad, India.

Barr Hammock in trouble

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

A small group of landowners whose property adjoins Barr Hammock’s Levy Lake Loop has complained that the presence of pedestrians on the trail “negatively impact [their] privacy and quiet enjoyment of [their] property.” They would like to close the section of the trail that runs behind their land. If they were to succeed in doing this, there would be no loop trail – you’d have to walk five miles in, then turn around and walk five miles out. The Environmental Protection Department is fully aware that this is not a good idea, and has said so to the County Commission. However there will be a public hearing on the matter on Tuesday, July 1st. I can’t see how the county could rationally decide in the landowners’ favor – the landowners are, after all, asserting private-property rights over public property – but if you’re willing to speak on behalf of keeping the trail open, the meeting will take place at 5 p.m. in the Grace Knight Conference Room, located on the second floor of the Alachua County Administration building (12 SE 1st Street, downtown Gainesville). Otherwise, especially if you’ve enjoyed the trail at Levy Lake, you can send an email to the entire Board of County Commissioners, asking them to maintain the trail as it is, at bocc@alachuacounty.us

Twenty-one people showed up to see the Burrowing Owls at Watermelon Pond on Saturday morning. As we gathered in the county park I heard a bird singing from a willow beside the boat ramp. One random phrase followed another without repetition (almost like one of my birding reports!). It sounded to me like a Gray Catbird, but they’re not supposed to be here, so I asked Mike Manetz, who was just getting out of his car, what he thought. “Gray Catbird!” Mike said. We were able to get the bird in the telescope and everyone got to watch it as it sang. Samuel Ewing managed a photo in the low light: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/14503575746/ Gray Catbirds normally nest north of us, but every few years we’ll find one singing during the summertime, and from 2000-05 we had several that summered here and even nested. Still, it’s a surprise to see one at this time of year.

The three Burrowing Owls were cooperative enough, but the grass had grown longer since the first field trip two weeks ago and they were frustratingly hard to see. However the group contained several June Challenge participants, and they were happy to add another bird to their list, good views or not. (And Katherine Edison got a very nice shot of a Sherman’s Fox Squirrel as she was heading home afterward: http://kvedisonnaturephotos.smugmug.com/Animals/Mammals/i-pf6RvX7/A )

Afterward, several of us went to Peter Polshek’s house on NW 8th Avenue in hope of seeing the Broad-winged Hawk he’d seen and heard repeatedly in the trees on his property. We didn’t have a lot of time, and it hadn’t shown up by the time we left. But Samuel and Benjamin Ewing dropped by in the early afternoon and spotted it. Samuel was able to get a photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/14524708241/ Inspired, I went over to Peter’s early this afternoon. I found Bob Simons and Maralee Joos there. We stood around for a while, watching the sky. Maralee left. Bob and I watched the sky for a while longer, and then Bob left. I kept watching the sky. Then Dalcio Dacol showed up, then Danny Shehee. We continued to watch the sky. We saw birds – Swallow-tailed Kites, Mississippi Kites, a Cooper’s Hawk – but not the one we wanted. After I’d been standing there for two and a half hours, Matt O’Sullivan joined us. We watched the sky. Five minutes later he said, “What’s that?” It was the Broad-winged Hawk. Matt was probably thinking, “I don’t know why these geezers made such a fuss about the bird. That was easy!”

There were some good sightings at La Chua this morning: Adam and Gina Kent saw a Tree Swallow, one of only a few June records in the county’s history, and Bob and Erika Simons saw a Lesser Scaup off the observation platform. You’ve still got a day to try for them.

Remember to send me your final totals on Monday night. And to let me know if you’re attending the June Challenge party on Tuesday night.

And remember to send a quick email in support of Barr Hammock’s Levy Lake Loop to the County Commission. It’ll take less than a minute: bocc@alachuacounty.us

June Challenge finale; and some goosing

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

REMEMBER, June Challengers: (1.) I need your totals, divided into ABA-countable and non-countable birds, by MIDNIGHT ON JUNE 30TH and (2.) please email me if you’re attending the June Challenge party at Becky Enneis’s house on Tuesday, July 1st at 6 p.m.

“ABA-countable” essentially means that native North American birds (and a few naturalized ones like House Sparrow, European Starling, Rock Pigeon, Eurasian Collared-Dove, and Muscovy Duck) are countable, while Black Swan, Swan Goose, Greylag Goose, Indian Peafowl, and other non-established exotics are not. If two birders end up with the same number of ABA-countable birds, then we’ll use the non-countable birds as tie-breakers. Right now I have 96 species on my list, all of them ABA-countable, so my total is 96/0. If I were to drive over to the Duck Pond and add Black Swan, Greylag Goose, and Swan Goose to my list, I would report 96/3 as my June Challenge total – 96 countable birds and 3 non-countable. Incidentally, for more on Swan Goose and Greylag Goose, which may be so genetically jumbled that we shouldn’t be calling them by those names, please see the final six paragraphs of this email.

Samuel Ewing got photos of the NE Gainesville robins on the 25th. Here’s one of them: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/14526392513/

Peter Polshek writes, “There is a Broad-winged Hawk frequenting the tall trees in my yard at NW 17th Street and 8th Avenue (SW corner property). Just park in my driveway and listen for the calling bird.”

I ran into Linda Hensley at Publix this evening, and she told me that she, Howard Adams, and Barbara Mollison found a Roseate Spoonbill and six Glossy Ibises in a flooded field at the Hague Dairy today. So if you need either of those…

On Wednesday I drove to Gum Root Swamp in hopes of seeing a Louisiana Waterthrush. I was surprised to find the big metal entrance gate shut and locked. The informational kiosk, the wooden fence enclosing the parking area, and the walk-through gate were all gone. When I got home I called the Water Management District and asked what had happened. I was informed that the parking area had become a center of “lewd and lascivious behavior,” just like Bivens Arm Nature Park and the Bolen Bluff Trail used to be (and maybe still are?). Hidden cameras had been set up, license plates had been recorded, police had made regular visits, but the lewd and lascivious crowd was not discouraged. Since Gum Root Swamp is a group camping area, the District made the decision just to close the parking area down. You can still park on the culvert across the road, or on the outside of the entrance gate, and groups wanting to use the camping area can make arrangements with the District. Supposedly I will hear from the land manager about future plans. For what it’s worth, I didn’t find the waterthrush. Little Hatchet Creek is back within its banks, and there’s not much standing water left in the surrounding woods, although rubber boots are still a necessity, and unless you’re wearing hip waders you can’t get out to the lakeshore without getting wet.

I always figure that I need to go looking for Louisiana Waterthrush, but in some cases the waterthrushes find you instead. Greg Hart had one at his nursery in Alachua on the 26th.

Ron Robinson located a family of Pied-billed Grebes in a retention pond at NE 4th Street and NE 35th Avenue. Despite the fact that the address indicates northeast, it’s a block west of Main Street.

If you’re still looking for Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Andy Kratter writes, “3 Rough-winged Swallows still present at the Depot Road ponds, south of SE 10th Street and the bike trail on high voltage lines that run north-south.”

Two appeals from Florida Wildlife Care:

1. If anyone’s got a chimney containing Chimney Swifts, let me know. FWC has four nestlings that need homes.

2. If anyone’s driving to Jacksonville this weekend, and would be willing to transport an immature Cooper’s Hawk and release it there, please call Leslie Straub at 352-318-8443.

Barbara Woodmansee had an interesting and slightly hair-raising experience on Paynes Prairie yesterday evening, which should serve as a reminder to look down occasionally, as well as up: “While standing in front of the huge cypress tree near the gate where you’re supposed to stop and turn around on Sweetwater Dike, I was looking under the limbs of the cypress tree for that damned Limpkin and happened to glance down at the ground. I noticed that I was STANDING on a young Cottonmouth’s tail. Seriously. It was very annoyed, white mouth wide open, but it never struck at me. I promptly airlifted myself to a safe distance, and then apologized to the little guy. I think this is my first experience of actually standing on a venomous snake. Don’t tell my mother or she won’t let me go out there anymore!” This non-aggressive behavior of Cottonmouths is not particularly unusual, and was the subject of a 2002 paper (skip to “Results” on page 2 if you don’t want to read the whole thing): http://www.bio.davidson.edu/dorcas/research/Reprints/Gibbons%20and%20Dorcas%20-%202002%20-%20Defensive%20behavior%20in%20cottonmouths%20-%20Copiea.pdf

Everything after this is about domestic waterfowl, so jump off now if you’re not interested. And remember to email me if you’re going to the June Challenge party!

Now, as to the domestic Swan Goose and the domestic Greylag Goose. The question was prompted by this photo by Samuel Ewing: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/14343488436/ The bird on the left looks like a domestic Greylag Goose while that on the right has the big knob on the base of the bill that’s characteristic of a Swan Goose. I sent the photo to Renne Leatto of Orange County, who was a prize-winning waterfowl breeder before she became a birder. She told me that these names were inappropriate for the two birds and gave me a primer on domestic geese:

“Unless one is in a wild area within the range of the wild Greylag Goose, you will not see one. In many parts of the world, geese have been domesticated even longer than ducks, and any Greylag-type goose we see in North America, certainly in the U.S., and definitely in the southern U.S., is going to be strictly domestic in origin.

“Here’s the deal with geese … there’s no such thing as a domestic Greylag (although you will see many references to them). It’s like calling a Chihuahua – or even a Husky – a domestic wolf. There are a number of domestic breeds of geese that originally come from the wild Greylag, but they haven’t been wild for 3,000 to 10,000 years. Greylag is to those breeds what Mallard is to most domestic ducks. What messes birders up (more with geese, even than ducks) is that many goose breeds look close to the wild Greylag, or at least they look a lot closer to the wild ancestor than crazy-fancy duck breeds look like a Mallard. To complicate matters, while all breeds of domestic duck (except for Muscovy) come from the wild Mallard, domestic geese come from a combination of two wild species: Anser anser and Anser cygnoides, the wild Swan Goose. Some people refer to derivatives of the latter as domestic Swan Geese, but again, there is no such thing. They have many breed names but none are Swan Goose.

“Now we make things even more complicated … unlike the situation with Mallard-derived domestic duck breeds and domesticated Muscovies – which CAN (but seldom do) crossbreed, and then have only sterile offspring — domestic goose breeds descended from Anser anser and Anser cygnoides can (and very often DO) crossbreed, and their offspring are always fertile. So the results are that we see too many variations of domestic goose crossbreeds to know with any certainty which ancestral species line dominates.

“I used to have a gander that was primarily the ‘African’ breed, a heavier version of the Chinese breed, both developed thousands of years ago from Anser cygnoides. His partner was a goose which had no sign of having any genes except that of the Embden breed, a pure white variety developed from the Greylag but which looks nothing like it anymore (it looks more like a wild Snow Goose but is not related genetically). Their broods of goslings came out in all shapes and feather colors, all bill and foot colors; some had bill/head bumps (knobs), some didn’t; some had extra-long slender necks, some didn’t; and some were light-bodied while others were medium or heavy bodied. Seeing any one of them as a lone individual in a park or wetland somewhere, even I would only be able to guess at their varied parentage. But one thing I can always say for sure – they are NOT Greylag or Swan Geese. They are many thousands of domestically-bred generations removed from both.”

What does this mean for the June Challenge? Well, this year you can count both species if you’ve seen them – the Swan Goose (the one with the knob) and the Greylag (the one without) – but next year we may just lump them together as “domestic goose.” I’ve submitted Samuel’s picture and Renne’s analysis to eBird’s resident taxonomist, Marshall Iliff, for an official eBird ruling on how these domestic strains should be recorded, but he hasn’t responded yet. When he does – maybe I should say IF he does – I’ll let you know what he says.