Author: Rex Rowan

A correction: I wrote earlier that our June Challenge party will be held on Friday the 8th. Since Friday isn’t the 8th, that would be a pretty neat trick. No, the party will take place at 6 p.m. on SATURDAY, JULY 8TH at Becky Enneis’s house in the town of Alachua. Map here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1p7B11MuC4CM9N3eTT7sx1HFWyIs&usp=sharing Beer, soft drinks, and grilled hot dogs will be provided by the management. Please bring something tasty to share, whether it’s your famous quinoa-and-durian salad with natto dressing or a box of Publix fried chicken.

If you haven’t already done so, please send me your June Challenge results. Remember to send them in this format: if you saw 100 ABA-countable species and 2 non-countable species (like the Black Swans and Greylag Geese at the Duck Pond), report “100/2.” If you saw 101 ABA-countable species and no non-countables, report “101/0.” The contest will be won by the birder with the highest total of ABA-countable species. If there’s a tie, the non-countable species will be used as a tie-breaker. So 101/0 would beat 100/2, but 100/2 would beat 100/1.

Mike Manetz and I spent a bit over an hour on the Powers Park pier yesterday evening, hoping to eke out one last June Challenge bird. I was hoping to see the Belted Kingfisher, Mike was hoping for a tern straying from the coast. We never saw the kingfisher, but we heard a few Least-Tern-like calls off toward Lakeshore Drive, each sounding farther away than the last. We never caught a glimpse of the source, however, so our vigil was fruitless. Our only other sightings of interest were a couple of Swallow-tailed Kites and a Least Bittern. We packed it in at 7:30, with heavy clouds and lightning to the east and south. While we were there, one of the anglers reeled in a catfish, and some teenage kids were watching. “Why is it so ugly?” one of them asked. “Why are YOU so ugly?” the other one replied. Former middle-school-teacher Mike smiled. “I miss being in the classroom,” he said.

When we’d first gotten out of the car I’d noticed that the lake level was much higher than normal. Hard to believe the shoreline was walkable only a month and a half ago, when I took this photo. But we’ve had our rainiest June on record. In 2012, the year the previous record was set, the situation was similar. There was low water at Newnans Lake, even lower than this year, with even more shorebirds. Tropical Storm Beryl hit on May 28th, bringing the water level up, but still leaving plenty of muddy shoreline and shallows, which remained in place nearly all month despite normal summer rainfall. Newnans Lake was a bird bonanza, and our June Challenge list included Blue-winged Teal, Northern Shoveler, Ring-necked Duck, Lesser Scaup, Ruddy Duck, Common Loon, American White Pelican, Reddish Egret, Semipalmated Plover, American Avocet, Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, Spotted Sandpiper, Semipalmated Sandpiper, White-rumped Sandpiper, Stilt Sandpiper, Franklin’s Gull, Least Tern, Gull-billed Tern, Black Tern, Forster’s Tern, Royal Tern, and Black Skimmer. The arrival of Hurricane Debby on June 26-27 brought enormous amounts of rainfall that filled the lake back up – and set a June precipitation record – but also brought us Sooty Tern and Magnificent Frigatebird to round out our lists. The unusual birdiness wasn’t limited to water-loving species, either; three Black-and-white Warblers showed up during the last week of June, just proving the old adage that when it rains, it pours. Which brings me back around to my original subject. The record-setting rains of June 2012 amounted to 16.34 inches. This year, according to this morning’s Gainesville Sun, we’ve had 16.84 inches, and that doesn’t even include last night’s rain. So if June seemed unusually rainy to you, it was; it was officially the rainiest June ever.

The far end of the La Chua Trail remains inaccessible, though the trail is still open to that point. Howard Adams passed along a note from Donald Forgione, Director of the Florida Park Service: “We will be working with the St. Johns River Water Management District on a permit to replace the culvert. We also will be working with DEP’s District 2 office on additional funding. Of course, all of this takes time and Jerry and I will keep you informed. In the meantime, when asked by our visitors, please let them know that we are working toward the repair of the trail.”

And that’s not Paynes Prairie’s only bad culvert. Amber Roux notified me that there’s a problem at the Prairie’s Main Entrance off 441 near Micanopy: “There is a culvert collapsing on Savannah Blvd (the main park drive) – it is marked by some cones in the road. The road is passable, but there are holes forming across half the width of it.”

Just for your amusement, here’s a June Challenge entry from Phillips County, Montana, submitted by Ben Ewing, who had (or maybe still has) a summer internship doing grassland-bird surveys. They’re listed in the order that he saw them. Eight of these would be lifers for me.

Canada Goose
Ring-necked Pheasant
Mourning Dove
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Western Meadowlark
Red-winged Blackbird
American Robin
European Starling
Mallard
Black-billed Magpie
Killdeer
Horned Lark
Northern Harrier
Chestnut-collared Longspur
Baird’s Sparrow
Brown-headed Cowbird
Sprague’s Pipit
McCown’s Longspur
American Wigeon
Eastern Kingbird
Lark Bunting
Western Kingbird
Barn Swallow
Franklin’s Gull
Willet
Tree Swallow
Lark Sparrow
Common Grackle
Rock Pigeon
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Long-billed Curlew
Marbled Godwit
Ring-billed Gull
Common Nighthawk
Grasshopper Sparrow
Gadwall
Blue-winged Teal
Western Wood-Pewee
House Wren
Cedar Waxwing
Yellow Warbler
Song Sparrow
Yellow-headed Blackbird
House Sparrow
Wilson’s Phalarope
Double-crested Cormorant
American White Pelican
Gray Partridge
Bobolink
Savannah Sparrow
Redhead
Ruddy Duck
Eared Grebe
Western Grebe
Great Blue Heron
White-faced Ibis
American Coot
California Gull
Swainson’s Hawk
American Avocet
Black-necked Stilt
Golden Eagle
Common Raven
Sharp-tailed Grouse
Short-eared Owl
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Cliff Swallow
Turkey Vulture
Gray Catbird
Chimney Swift
Hairy Woodpecker
Least Flycatcher
Warbling Vireo
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Baltimore Oriole
Northern Flicker
American Goldfinch
Vesper Sparrow
Cinnamon Teal
Brown Thrasher
Marsh Wren
Common Goldeneye
Bufflehead
Lesser Scaup
Sedge Wren
Common Yellowthroat
Loggerhead Shrike
American Kestrel
Brewer’s Blackbird
Sandhill Crane
House Finch
Red-tailed Hawk
Lazuli Bunting
Downy Woodpecker
Chipping Sparrow
Great Horned Owl
Greater Sage-Grouse
Black-headed Grosbeak
Black-capped Chickadee
Green-winged Teal
Brewer’s Sparrow
Clay-colored Sparrow

On the 27th Lloyd Davis saw a Louisiana Waterthrush at San Felasco Hammock’s Moonshine Creek Trail (the loop trail south of Millhopper Road, adjoining the parking lot). He writes that he found it “about half way between the two bridges, following the creek.” This was the county’s first fall migrant, one week after the last day of spring. One thing that The June Challenge has given us in its fourteen years is an awareness of how early some southbound migrants can get here: Louisiana Waterthrush is recorded almost annually during the last week of June, and in 2013 we had three different Black-and-white Warblers during the last few days of the month.

On that subject, Trina Anderson saw the fall’s first Belted Kingfisher today at Powers Park, “flying and chattering across the canal entering the lake.”

If you still need King Rail for the Challenge, you might be interested in this from Anne Casella: “Lloyd Davis told me about some King Rails at the Bolen Bluff platform. I went out there on Thursday and there were at least three and one of them flew in when I played my app. They were much more cooperative than the Sweetwater King Rail who grunted at me two days in a row but never came into view.”

I just got back from a week and a half visiting my son in upstate New York. On the second leg of the drive home, from North Carolina to Gainesville, I occupied myself by watching for the earliest indicators that we were entering the ecological South. Most came in southern South Carolina – an Anhinga flying over I-95 along the Pocotaglia River, a Great Egret and a Snowy Egret near Orangeburg, a road-killed alligator and a cypress tree along the Combahee River, a cabbage palm at Yemassee, and a road-killed armadillo just south of Savannah. I didn’t see any Cattle Egrets till Jacksonville. In New York, just as in Florida, there were white birds following the tractors in the fields – but in New York they weren’t Cattle Egrets, they were flocks of Ring-billed Gulls flapping slowly along.

Remember to send me your June Challenge results by midnight on the 30th. We’ll have a party, and present the trophy to this year’s winner, at Becky Enneis’s house on the evening of Friday the 8th. Stay tuned.

Barbara Shea just notified me that there’s a Brown Pelican at Powers Park, or was, as of 9:17.

Erin Kalinowski saw two American White Pelicans from Powers Park at about 3:30 this afternoon.

Mike Manetz added Broad-winged Hawk to his June Challenge list the other day. He was sitting on the floating dock along the river when one flew right over his head, continued to the other shore, and perched out in the open, calling (which means that Mike can also add it to his Columbia County June Challenge, if he’s doing one). He thinks one might be nesting in the park.

Karl Miller and Howard Adams both reported large terns (Royal or Caspian) at Newnans Lake in the past week, but they were too far off to confidently ID. Still, scoping Newnans from Palm Point is an excellent way to add uncommon birds to your June Challenge list.

Geoff Parks thought he heard an American Robin calling in his neighborhood earlier this month, but only once and he wasn’t sure. Still, he did hear one singing “loud and clear” on May 4th, so it might be worth checking his neighborhood (roads east and west of NE 7th Street between 16th and 23rd Avenues) to see if you can find one.

Today I added Black-capped Chickadee, Savannah Sparrow, Caspian Tern, and Green Heron to my own June Challenge list. No, I’m not delusional. I’m in upstate New York visiting my son for a week and a half, so what better way to pass the time than by doing a Jefferson County, New York, June Challenge? I’m up to 39 species at this point, and at Derby Hill Bird Observatory this morning (the outing was a Father’s Day present) a couple of excellent local birders named Gerry Smith and Tom Carrolan told me where I might find singing Golden-winged Warblers.

We all know that Lloyd Davis gets around more than anybody. But I was still a surprised when he turned up in a photo on the National Audubon Society web site, watching a Great Gray Owl at Minnesota’s Sax-Zim Bog: http://www.audubon.org/news/want-photograph-boreal-birds-winter-head-minnesotas-sax-zim-bog

Alachua Conservation Trust is looking for a part-time Land Management Specialist “responsible for supervising and training interns who participate in ACT’s Women in the Woods program on various resource management field projects, conservation and operational tasks relating to prescribed fire, trail maintenance, and recreational improvements.” If you’re interested, here’s a link: http://alachuaconservationtrust.org/index.php?/alachua_v2/jobs

On the afternoon of the 12th a visiting Massachusetts birder named Nathan Dubrow photographed a singing male Painted Bunting at the beginning of the La Chua Trail, “on the right side of the sidewalk as you walk out towards the Prairie just before the stable building.” Several birders combed the area around the stable first thing this morning, but without success. Painted Buntings nest along the Atlantic coastal strip from Brevard County northward, so they shouldn’t be in Alachua County right now. However there are three old summer records. A male was seen at Lake Alice on 19 July 1972, a pair was at Ron Robinson’s place in Alachua on 14-15 June 1987, and of two singing males seen along Wacahoota Road in mid-May 1997 one was seen again on 5 July. Only one of those birds was present for an extended period of time, so this may have been a one-day wonder. Or it may not….

Mike Manetz saw a Whooping Crane from the observation tower at the Paynes Prairie Visitor Center on the morning of the 13th.

On the evening of the 12th several birders gathered on the boardwalk between Alachua Sink and Little Alachua Sink in hope of seeing Great Horned Owls and Barn Owls. One Great Horned was perched out in the open when we got there, but the rest of the action happened after 8:30. One Barn Owl flew out at 8:32, and a second Great Horned and a second Barn Owl flew out at 8:40. When I left, two Great Horneds were perched in that solitary pine near the beginning of Sparrow Alley and a third was visible and calling in the big oak beside the stable.

On the morning of the 13th Conrad Burkholder saw two Eastern Kingbirds and a male Orchard Oriole along Cellon Creek Boulevard. He also heard a Northern Bobwhite calling, though he didn’t see it.

Sixty-two people showed up for Saturday morning’s field trip to see the Burrowing Owls at Watermelon Pond.

 

Luckily some Burrowing Owls showed up too. I counted 12, including an adult standing at the mouth of a burrow with three sets of fiercely-staring yellow eyes visible below her (see Robert Emond’s digiscoped photo below).

 

County biologist Michael Drummond saw at least one more chick in that burrow, and thought that the total count in the field was somewhere between 13 and 17 owls. You can see six of them in this photo by Keith Collingwood.

 

Several other birds of interest to June Challengers were seen on the trip, and on a subsequent walk in the nearby Watermelon Pond Wildlife and Environmental Area, including Common Nighthawk, American Kestrel, Red-headed Woodpecker (photo below by Keith Collingwood), Eastern Kingbird, Purple Martin, Eastern Meadowlark, and Orchard Oriole. Barbara Shea arrived before sunrise and saw a Chuck-will’s-widow and a Barred Owl as well.

 

Loggerhead Shrikes were nowhere to be found at Watermelon Pond, but today Anne Barkdoll found three of them “next to a large retention pond at 3744-3756 SW 24th Avenue, which is somewhere near/in the new Butler wasteland. It is open and grassy next to the retention pond between two apartment complexes. Never expected to see a shrike here. Had to stop and back up. Fortunately little traffic.” Drive carefully, Anne!

Roseate Spoonbills were reported today by Karl Miller at the Deerhaven Generating Station and by Felicia Lee at Sweetwater Wetlands Park.

On Sunday morning ten of us gathered at San Felasco Hammock and walked about three miles of trails north of Millhopper Road in search of June Challenge birds. We had fair to good looks at three of our five targets – Red-eyed and Yellow-throated Vireos and Acadian Flycatchers – and a fantastic point-blank look at a singing Eastern Wood-Pewee at the junction of the Yellow Trail and the Hammock Cutoff. But we didn’t see or hear a single Hooded Warbler. As we neared the parking lot, Danny Shehee heard an odd call from the woods, so he and Austin Gregg and I went looking for it while the rest of the crowd kept walking. We eventually discovered that we were hearing the begging calls of a fledgling Swallow-tailed Kite perched high in a pine tree, being fed by its parent. Afterward, Austin and I crossed the street and walked down the Moonshine Creek Trail until we found a Hooded Warbler. Going down the left fork, there’s a pond off to the right just before you get to the first bridge. One bird was singing on the back side of the pond, and Austin and I both got a look at it. Glenn Israel and his daughter Larissa had gone ahead of us, and they found a second bird singing on the far side of that first bridge, on the left. So now you know where to look.

Barbara Woodmansee asks, “Do you ever go out to Burnt Island? I got lots of fun stuff out there last weekend – Northern Bobwhite, 3 Chuck-wills-widows in the road at dusk, a Bald Eagle, a Brown Thrasher, Eastern Towhees, Great Crested Flycatcher, and probably a Prothonotary Warbler, but I couldn’t count it because I could only hear it.” Burnt Island is #4 on this map: http://www.sjrwmd.com/trailguides/pdfs/lochloosadrivetrail.pdf (Driving along Fish Camp Road – #2 and #3 on the map – can also be good for Chucks.)

One last field trip offer: If you’d like to try for Great Horned Owl and Barn Owl at La Chua, get to the La Chua parking area by 7:45 on Monday evening (they’ll close the gate not long after that). We’ll wait on the boardwalk for the owls to show up. When Mike Manetz and I were out there, the Barn Owls didn’t show till 8:50, but Danny Shehee has seen them closer to 8:30 twice this week. Great Horned Owls are also possible.

Burrowing Owls 7:30 a.m. tomorrow. San Felasco on Millhopper Road 7:30 a.m. Sunday. Okay? Okay.

This morning at Palm Point I ran into Howard Adams, Brad Hall, and Linda Hensley, who told me that one of the culverts along the La Chua Trail had washed out. It’s the one just before Gator Point, the last big bend in the trail before the observation platform, so you can no longer reach the platform. “It would be about an eight-foot jump,” Brad said.

(I was at Palm Point attempting to see the Short-tailed Hawk that Mike spotted on the 6th. Mike had seen the bird at 9:30 in the morning, so I watched the treeline from 8:45 till 9:45 and then gave up. Karl Miller arrived just at 9:45 and got the Short-tailed within half an hour. It figures. Karl described its location as “actually closer to Powers Park than to Palm Point.”)

Anyway, with the La Chua observation platform inaccessible, your best bet for Whooping Crane may be the observation tower near the Paynes Prairie visitor center. Tom Wronski saw it there this morning: “I had a shift at the Paynes Prairie Visitor Center (VC) this morning, and saw the Whooping Crane from the back of the VC about 10 a.m. It was in the distance hanging out with 2 Sandhill Cranes, but I got a good look at it with the spotting scope in the VC. When I looked for it again about 10:30 a.m., I couldn’t relocate it. I checked periodically, and it was not visible again for the rest of my shift (I left about 1 p.m.).”

Mike Manetz and I ran around southern Alachua County on the morning of the 8th, starting at Barr Hammock’s Levy Loop, where, with Brad Hall, we relocated the drake Ring-necked Duck that Chris Cattau had discovered on the previous evening a mile out the north fork of the trail (Chris’s photo below). We searched unsuccessfully for a Whooping Crane at the Tuscawilla Prairie and in Evinston, found Prothonotary Warbler at River Styx, failed to raise a Northern Bobwhite across the street from the Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve parking lot (though Mike did find one there this morning), and then … and then, gentle reader, we found the Hairy Woodpeckers at Longleaf. First we spent about an hour walking around in the usual spot near the campground, but never saw or heard a thing. On the way out, Mike’s sharp ears picked up a call note from the cypress dome where Deena Mickelson had reported one on May 25th. We’d assumed that Deena’s bird was straying from the campground area, but when Mike heard the call of a second bird it dawned on us that the Hairies might be nesting in the cypress dome. We spent the next twenty minutes trying to see them, and finally succeeded in seeing the male on a tree on the eastern side of the cypress dome. And while I was standing there, peering into the dome in hopes of seeing where the birds might be nesting, a bland little warbler with a yellow patch just below the shoulder and yellow flash markings on either side of its tail flew up into a small tree – a female American Redstart! By two days the latest ever recorded in the county! We spent another twenty minutes trying to raise it again, but without success. Anyway, the location of the Hairy Woodpeckers. Walk out the White-Red Connector toward the service road. Just before you get to the service road look to your left and there’s a stand of cypress trees. The Hairies were both in there. Now Hairies are rare in peninsular Florida, so we want to minimize the disturbance as much as possible. Just stand and watch. It’s quite possible you’ll see them foraging on the edge of the cypress dome. If you see any youngsters, please let me know. It’s been a long time since anyone located an active nest in Alachua County.

 

Trying to find Roseate Spoonbills is kind of like playing Whack-a-Mole. They come and they go, and you never know where they’ll turn up next. Orit Schechtman and Beckie Dale found one in the Townsend neighborhood on the 3rd and 4th, but it wasn’t seen thereafter. I found one at Post Office Pond on the 6th, but it was gone within half an hour. At mid-morning on the 8th Tina Greenberg found one at Powers Park, but by lunchtime it was history. Early this afternoon Danny Rohan found one at Sweetwater Wetlands Park and posted a photo on Facebook, allowing at least a couple of June Challengers to race down to the park and add it to their lists.

Lloyd Davis, Frank Goodwin, and Mike Manetz found a King Rail at Sweetwater this morning, along the south distribution channel. Cross the red metal bridge, turn right, and stay on the trail till it makes a turn to the left. Continue down to the covered pavilion. That’s where the rail was seen, on the far side of the channel with a single chick.

See you Saturday, and maybe Sunday!

So of course Saturday is the Burrowing Owl day.

But for those who are interested, we’ll have a field trip on Sunday too. We’ll walk out the trail at San Felasco Hammock in search of Eastern Wood-Pewee, Hooded Warbler, and Acadian Flycatcher (plus Summer Tanager, Yellow-throated and Red-eyed Vireos … and hopefully American Crows, which I still haven’t seen!). Meet at the parking lot on Millhopper Road at 7:30 a.m.

This evening Chris Cattau, who found us three nice birds last June, spotted a Ring-necked Duck at Levy Loop. “If you go right coming out of the trailhead it is in an open body of water off the right side of the dike (i.e., not the prairie side). Right now [he wrote at 6:17 p.m.] it’s preening in some vegetation on the western edge of that body of water. Not sure how far it is from the trailhead because I started out going to the left and I’m on the way back now.” However he sent me a latlong marker on a map, which is here. To get to Levy Loop, take 441 south to the vicinity of Lake Wauberg. Turn right onto Wacahoota Road. Shortly – less than a mile – you’ll cross over I-75. Take the first left after that, and follow it all the way down to the parking corral.

Jennifer Donsky found a Northern Flicker at Northeast Park in the late morning of the 7th. It was at the south end of the park, near the playground, and it was later seen by Mike Manetz (who’d previously visited the park five times in an unsuccessful search for it) and Anne Kendall (who’d been there four times previously).

Also on the 7th, Ranger Kim Chaney of Sweetwater Wetlands Park “spotted 4 Limpkin chicks on Cell 3 just south of the immersion overlook (the low overlook opposite the overflow channel on the east side of the park). These are the first ones we’ve seen this season.”

Geoff Parks has been keeping an eye out for American Robins in his NE Gainesville neighborhood, where they apparently nested the past two (three?) summers. He writes that he heard one “once or twice” since May 4th, but not in June. Last year they were seen mainly along NE 7th Street between 16th Avenue and 23rd Avenue.

The Burrowing Owl field trip to Watermelon Pond will take place this Saturday, June 10th. We’ll meet at the gate at 7:30 a.m. To get there, go west on State Road 26 (Newberry Road) to the town of Newberry. When you come to the stop light where 26 intersects US-41, turn left onto 41 and proceed 2.9 miles to SW 46th Avenue. Turn right onto 46th and go 1.2 mile to SW 250th Street. Turn left onto 250th, a dirt road, and go 3.0 miles to the gate. Park as best you can on the roadside. We’ll then walk half a mile to the viewing area. I’ve made a map if you’re confused about any of this, which allows you to zoom in for detail or zoom out for perspective: https://drive.google.com/open?id=170-j_s4JUwiLEg3b100Cq_S1yUw&usp=sharing

Yesterday evening Mike Manetz and I walked out to the La Chua observation platform in hope of seeing the Whooping Crane that was photographed on the 31st roosting in the little patch of open water there. By 8 p.m. we had counted 8 Sandhill Cranes and about 60 Mottled Ducks (including one obvious hybrid with a Mallard-like white ring around its neck), but no Whooping Crane. So we headed back to the boardwalk to shelter from the rain (seen approaching in the photo below) and, once the rain stopped, to watch for owls. Great Horned Owls were the first to arrive, giving raspy little shrieks and flying around from treetop to treetop. At about 8:45 we heard night-herons squawking out toward the Sweetwater Dike. “Those are Yellow-crowneds!” Mike exclaimed. They flew right over us, and we could see the feet and a little bit of leg trailing behind the tail, rather than just the tips of the toes as would be the case with Black-crowned. Five minutes later we heard a weird series of loud mechanical notes from the direction of Little Alachua Sink. It sounded like a frog of some sort, but not one I’d ever heard before. Then two Barn Owls flew out over the treetops and away over Alachua Sink, and as they flew the strange sound went with them and we realized that it was being made by the owls. Later we found it in the collection of online bird calls associated with the Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds; of the two calls labeled “Chitter,” it’s the one on the left, with the little open-book symbol: https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/peterson-field-guide-to-bird-sounds/?species=Barn+Owl+-+Tyto+alba&speciesCode=brnowl

Anne Casella and Jennifer Donsky saw a Short-tailed Hawk over Palm Point yesterday evening, one of those raggedy-looking birds that’s missing some tail feathers and secondaries. It was the first sighting in the county since April 30th. Mike Manetz went out there this morning in hopes of seeing it, and he succeeded: standing at the Point, looking back towards the south, he spotted it at about 9:40, “soaring over the treeline about half way between Palm Point and Powers Park.”

On the 3rd and 4th Orit Schechtman and Beckie Dale noticed a Roseate Spoonbill in a retention pond in the Townsend neighborhood (NW 23rd Terrace north of 23rd Avenue). Their friend Madeline Davidson notified me of the sighting, and on the 5th I visited the pond three times but didn’t see the spoonbill. So at lunchtime today, since I couldn’t go birding in the rain, I made a driving tour of some local ponds – the Townsend retention pond, the retention ponds behind the Royal Park Plaza, Clear Lake, the retention pond behind Dick’s Sporting Goods in Butlerzilla, and, finally, Post Office Pond, where I found a spoonbill at 12:30. Mike Manetz got there at a little after one, but it had already gone. (There was nothing else of note in any of the other ponds, by the way, only a few White Ibises, Snowy Egrets, Little Blue Herons, and Tricolored Herons.)

I mentioned in the previous email that an Orchard Oriole was seen in the grove of trees in the corner of Cell 2 near the red metal bridge. On the morning of the 5th several birders saw a first-year male and a female delivering insects and dropping fecal sacs, obviously caring for a brood of nestlings. Linda Hensley got a photo of the male, and wrote, “We watched this bird fly back and forth with insects/caterpillars almost non-stop.”

Danny Shehee found a drake Blue-winged Teal while exploring near the old Sweetwater Dike on the 3rd. I went out this morning, intending to follow in Danny’s footsteps, but it wasn’t necessary: the teal was right there in the marsh, well before the cypress tree that serves as a landmark. I also saw 19 Glossy Ibises and a pair of Common Ground-Doves, both of which I needed for my June Challenge list. If you’d like to try for it yourself, walk out La Chua to the water control structure – the culvert where there’s often a little waterfall these days – and then turn right, following the narrow wildlife trail for about a quarter of a mile. Then cut left along the edge of the marsh, looking off to your right. Oh heck, here’s a map.

Felicia Lee emailed this morning at 8:30 to report a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron and an Orchard Oriole at Sweetwater Wetlands Park. Both are very tough birds to see here. Felicia wrote that the Yellow-crowned “circled over Cell 1, landed briefly, then circled over Cell 2.” The oriole might be easier to relocate. If you’re walking from Cell 1 to Cell 2 on the metal bridge, the first thing you see once you’re across is a grove of trees on your right. Saturday’s field trip heard an Orchard Oriole sing there, just once, but we never saw it. Felicia saw a female in the same grove this morning.

Saturday’s second June Challenge kickoff – the one for working stiffs – followed the same itinerary as Thursday’s. We started a little earlier at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve, hoping to see both Chuck-will’s-widows and Common Nighthawks, but thanks to the fog we saw neither. We did, however, find Bachman’s Sparrow, Brown-headed Nuthatch, Yellow-throated Vireo, Yellow-throated Warbler, and Red-headed Woodpecker. At Windsor we saw two Bald Eagles and got a decent look at a Red-eyed Vireo; we missed Spotted Sandpiper and Laughing Gull. La Chua produced Indigo Bunting, Blue Grosbeak, Yellow-breasted Chat … and a surprising appearance by a White-winged Dove, which flew up and landed in a tree a few yards away. And at Sweetwater Wetlands Park we saw Purple Gallinule, Least Bittern, American Coot, Common Yellowthroat, Limpkin, Black-crowned Night-Heron, and Sandhill Crane. We ended up with just over 50 species for the morning.

Pied-billed Grebes can be hard to find in June. On Saturday Danny Rohan showed us one that’s been easy to see in Cell 2 at Sweetwater Wetlands Park. Cross the aforementioned metal bridge, keep going straight, turn right on the trail between Cells 2 and 3, and look to your right as you walk along. Just where the open water stops and the vegetation starts, that’s where it’s been hanging out. There’s also at least one in the retention pond where it’s nested in the past, at the corner of NE 35th Avenue and 4th Street (despite the address, this is two blocks WEST of Main Street). Tina Greenberg saw it on the 3rd.

If you’re still looking for White-winged Dove, Alicia Johansen stands ready to help you out. She writes, “White-winged Doves frequent my feeders daily. I’m looking at one right now. If any one wants to add it to their list you can give them my address: 8215 NW 4th Place.” That’s off Newberry Road a little west of I-75.

On the 3rd Lloyd Davis found a locally-rare Northern Flicker at Northeast Park (on NE 16th Avenue a little east of Main Street).

Anne Casella told me that she saw a Loggerhead Shrike the same day I failed to find them along Cellon Creek Boulevard. And the next day Becky Enneis and Linda Holt saw four! I need to tell my doctor that I’m suffering from shrike-blindness. It could be serious.