Author: Rex Rowan

It’s a long-standing daydream of many Gainesville birders: a tropical storm blows in, the lake is full of seabirds, and instead of having to stand at Palm Point, squinting through our telescopes at distant specks moving against the far treeline, we commandeer a motorboat, go roaring out into the lake, and give chase.

And in fact, that’s what happened on Saturday.

First, however: I was surprised when John Hintermister called on Saturday morning to tell me about the Black-capped Petrel. Since Hurricane Matthew accomplished its tour of the Florida coast on Friday, and was already in Georgia when the sun set, I’d assumed that storm-blown birds would have been at the lake Friday, not Saturday, and that as the storm receded they’d have taken advantage of the existing daylight and calmer conditions to return to the coast. Accordingly, I went to Palm Point Friday morning, as the hurricane approached. Matt Bruce was there, too, and he said that Andy Kratter had already come and gone. None of us saw anything on the lake but a couple of Laughing Gulls. Well, I said, I’ll come back in the afternoon, when the storm is closer.

I did go back in the afternoon, when the storm was somewhere around Jacksonville, after the local rain and wind had diminished a bit. Craig Bateman was already there and Ryan Terrill showed up a few minutes after I did. There were some swallows flying back and forth at the point, maybe 3-5 Cliff Swallows and 3 Barn Swallows. Ryan got a picture of one of the Cliff Swallows: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/30086682532/in/datetaken-public/  And Craig spotted a Royal Tern across the lake that eventually flew right past the Point, allowing Ryan to get another good shot: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/30201274865/in/datetaken-public/  That was about it. I wrote off Matthew as a typically unproductive Atlantic hurricane and went home.

But then! This morning Adam Kent and Chris Burney went to Newnans Lake, wondering if any wind-blown birds were still hanging around. They started at Powers Park but didn’t see much, so they went on to Owens-Illinois Park in Windsor, where the sun would be at their backs. Adam was scanning the lake when he saw a bird sitting on the water a long way out. It had a black back and a black cap and the white on it sort of gleamed, and he realized that it was a Black-capped Petrel. The word went out, and Adam estimates that as many as 50 people showed up to look at it during the morning (Jonathan Mays counted 32 standing there at once).

The bird stayed a good distance out from the shore, flying briefly and then sitting for long periods of time on the water, and Andy Kratter commented to Adam that it was a shame it was so far away, because the 2004 petrel was not documented by a photo either. So Adam had an idea. He turned to Debbie Segal and asked, “Don’t you own a boat?” Debbie does own a boat, but it was parked at her place several miles north of Gainesville. However it occurred to her that her mother’s cousin, Marshall Irby, also owned a boat – and that he lived right there in Windsor! So she gave him a call, and he was very obliging. He brought his boat down to the ramp, where Debbie, Adam, and Ryan Terrill (with camera) climbed aboard, and they headed out into the lake. It worked like a charm, and Ryan got several photos from close range. (Incidentally, Adam told me that Mr. Irby got a huge kick out of the experience. “I’ve never done anything like this!” he said.) Then they returned to the boat ramp and Glenn Price, John Martin, and Mitch Walters, all carrying cameras, went out in their place and got even more photos. Several of us were watching this from Palm Point through our telescopes. We were impressed by how close they were getting to the bird – they were standing in the boat, looking down – and when the bird flushed off the water we were able to see it fly.

Here are the best photos I’ve seen from those two excursions:

The petrel sitting on the water, as it was originally discovered (though it was far more distant than this when Adam first saw it): https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/30116472881/in/datetaken-public/

The petrel in flight: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/29572051753/in/datetaken-public/

Another flight photo, the kind of dramatic look you’d get from a boat in the Gulf Stream, but only if you were very lucky: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/30166867066/in/datetaken-public/

Another flight photo, showing the underparts, including the characteristic underwing pattern: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/29572065864/in/datetaken-public/

And one more. Since it’s a bird of the Gulf Stream, this is possibly the only existing photo of a Black-capped Petrel with trees in the background: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/29572019343/in/datetaken-public/

I last saw the petrel from Palm Point around 11:30, and I headed home at 12:45. However an out-of-town birder named Graham Floyd reported seeing it at 5:30, “flying north up center of lake following a boat. Distinct black cap and white band cutting across underside of wings, white below.” So it’s possible that it may still be present on Sunday.

Also on the lake on Saturday was a juvenile Herring Gull. It tied the early fall-arrival record for the county, which – this is sort of interesting – was set 20 years ago to the day, October 8, 1996, the morning after Tropical Storm Josephine went ashore at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, bringing 20 Herring Gulls, 2 Black Skimmers, 4 Sooty Terns, 2-3 Common Terns, and 2 Pomarine Jaegers (the county’s first and only) to Newnans Lake. We didn’t have a crowd of 50 people that morning. I think it was just me, John Hintermister, and the late Judy Bryan. I’m not sure there were 50 birders in Alachua County in 1996….

Moving right along. Most of us have long suspected that the Ewing family has a “special arrangement” with the birds. I’m not sure whether cash changes hands, or investment tips, or whatever, but a suspiciously large percentage of good birds around here are seen by Ewings. Most recently, their NW Gainesville yard hosted a Canada Warbler and a Nashville Warbler on Friday, and a Cape May Warbler on Saturday. Cape May is normally rare here in fall. Another Cape May was seen and photographed by John Martin and Matt Bruce at Palm Point on the 8th. Both were probably blown in by the storm.

Chris Burney found three Golden-winged Warblers (three!) at Bolen Bluff on the 5th, as well as 12 other warbler species.

Danny Rohan recorded the fall’s first Savannah Sparrow on the 3rd at Sweetwater Wetlands Park. Just one day later than the county’s early record.

Those of you who have birded the Shands Pier in Green Cove Springs should know that it was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew. Steve Raduns posted a photo of the pier’s remains: https://www.flickr.com/photos/134018738@N05/30165018496/

Want to earn big bucks as an Avian Research Biologist? As in $71,000 to start? Yeah, I know, it’s not as profitable as sending out an email birding report like I do, but it’s pretty good. Anyway you’d have to relocate to Lafayette, Louisiana, but if that doesn’t bother you then reply to this advertisement from the U.S. Geological Survey by October 21st: https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/PrintPreview/452709000

John Hintermister called at 8:54 a.m. to report that he was watching a Black-capped Petrel from the Windsor boat ramp!

This is the second for Alachua County, and only the third inland record for Florida.

At 12:17 Matt O’Sullivan wrote to alert me to a “male Wilson’s Warbler and female Golden-winged at Bolen Bluff maybe 100 yard down the left fork of the trail from the split in the little clearing. I think I’m at 12 warbler species and I haven’t moved from this spot!!! They seemed to be in a large flock, the Wilson’s was very responsive to tape and called a lot!”

If you can get away, it’s time to go birding!

Well, it’s fall. I mean, really fall. The kind with birds in it. On the 30th Ron Robinson had two Rose-breasted Grosbeaks at his feeder west of Gainesville and Andy Kratter heard two more flying over his SE Gainesville home. Andy also estimated 300 calling Swainson’s Thrushes flying over before dawn. Often – for reasons that aren’t clear to anyone – hearing lots of birds flying over before sunrise doesn’t translate to birds in the woods after sunrise. But this time it did. The same morning Andy heard all the Swainson’s, Chris Burney tallied 16 of them along the Prairie Creek Preserve’s Lodge Trail (“probably more – seen and calling in almost every location”). He also had two Gray-cheeked Thrushes, a Scarlet Tanager, and 15 species of warblers including 4 Blackburnians, 5 Chestnut-sideds, 4 Black-throated Blues, and 10 American Redstarts.

You may be able to see a few of these birds yourself during Alachua Audubon’s two field trips this weekend, one with Adam Kent at San Felasco Hammock’s Progress Center on Saturday and one with Barbara Shea at Powers Park and Palm Point on Sunday. Meeting times and places are here: https://alachuaaudubon.org/classes-field-trips/

Some winter birds are moving in. A couple of early Ruby-crowned Kinglets were reported: on the 20th Bryan Tarbox saw one along the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail “half-way between Boulware Springs Park & La Chua,” and on the 21st Adam Zions saw one at Bell Ridge Longleaf Wildlife and Environmental Area in eastern Gilchrist County. These were the first two Ruby-crowned Kinglets in Florida this fall. Less surprisingly, Palm Warblers are increasing. A total of four were spotted on migration count, one in each of four different locations. Tom Tompkins noted four at the airport on the 21st, and they’ve been reported to eBird pretty much daily since then. Gray Catbirds are also getting more common. The first was seen on the 20th, and they’ve been reported every day since. Usually their numbers peak somewhere around October 10th, but Jennifer Donsky has already reported 18 on a single walk, along the La Chua Trail on the 30th.

(By the way, returning to Adam Zions’s Ruby-crowned report, Bell Ridge Longleaf WEA is a 720-acre property northwest of Newberry, owned and managed by Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Described as “one of the highest quality longleaf pine sandhill forest tracts in Florida,” it’s near the intersection of State Road 47 and County Road 232 in eastern Gilchrist County. An overview can be seen here and a trail map here. If you’d like to learn more about the ecology of the place, you can read the FWC’s management plan.)

Remember this weekend’s field trips. And the weekly Wednesday Wetlands Walks at Sweetwater Wetlands Park, beginning at 8:30 every Wednesday morning.

We recorded 131 species on Saturday’s fall migration count. The complete list is at the end of this email, but I can tell you that our 67 birders (in 26 parties) found 25 species of warblers, including a late Louisiana Waterthrush, two Golden-wingeds, a Cerulean, and, even rarer in fall than Cerulean, a Cape May. Also 2 Roseate Spoonbills, a Whooping Crane, 3 Whip-poor-wills, a Peregrine Falcon, an Alder Flycatcher, 3 Bank Swallows, and a singing (in mid-September!) Bachman’s Sparrow. Shorebirds were few, gulls and terns absent altogether, and big misses or surprising low counts included 2 Eurasian Collared-Doves, no White-winged Doves, only 4 Loggerhead Shrikes, no Brown-headed Nuthatches, 1 European Starling, and no Brown-headed Cowbirds.

While Mike Manetz and I were compiling the migration-count results at his house on Monday, Mike got a call from Matt O’Sullivan, who was at Palm Point watching a Canada Warbler and a Cerulean Warbler chase each other around. Mike went over to Palm Point that afternoon and saw the Cerulean but failed to find the Canada. He went back this morning, however (Tuesday the 20th), and saw both: “15 warbler species in all. Cerulean was in the large oak by the split in the trail. Canada was out by the road, but flew back into the park.”

eBird now offers you a chance to set up a profile page that will display your birding accomplishments, lists, photos, sound recordings, and recent checklists: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/profilepages/ eBird administrator Marshall Iliff offers his own profile page as an example: http://ebird.org/ebird/profile/MzQ2MDM/US

Angela Luzader recently posted a video of a Snowy Egret engaged in a feeding behavior I’ve never seen before, apparently mimicking the splashing of an insect that’s fallen into the water: https://www.flickr.com/photos/birds-by-angie/29605146765

On Wednesday, September 21st, Chris Farrell of Audubon Florida will give a presentation on “Climate Change: Implications for North Florida.” Mr. Farrell will give an update on climate-change research and the potential threats to North Florida. He will discuss possible climate scenarios for our region and their potential effects on biodiversity.

And here are the migration-count results:

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 44
Wood Duck 8
Mottled Duck 53
Mallard/Mottled Duck hybrid 2
Blue-winged Teal 434
Northern Bobwhite 4
Wild Turkey 4
Pied-billed Grebe 7
Wood Stork 8
Double-crested Cormorant 21
Anhinga 50
American Bittern 2
Least Bittern 2
Great Blue Heron 43
Great Egret 59
Snowy Egret 30
Little Blue Heron 95
Tricolored Heron 11
Cattle Egret 316
Green Heron 11
Black-crowned Night-Heron 3
White Ibis 152
Glossy Ibis 16
Roseate Spoonbill 2
Black Vulture 173
Turkey Vulture 264
Osprey 8
Bald Eagle 17
Northern Harrier 4
Cooper’s Hawk 2
Red-shouldered Hawk 92
Red-tailed Hawk 10
King Rail 8
Sora 1
Purple Gallinule 3
Common Gallinule 185
American Coot 31
Limpkin 16
Sandhill Crane 23
Whooping Crane 1
Killdeer 4
Spotted Sandpiper 2
Solitary Sandpiper 2
Semipalmated Sandpiper 1
Least Sandpiper 25
Rock Pigeon 185
Eurasian Collared-Dove 2
Mourning Dove 97
Common Ground-Dove 7
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 12
Eastern Screech-Owl 6
Great Horned Owl 11
Barred Owl 10
Common Nighthawk 2
Whip-poor-will 3
Chimney Swift 39
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 11
Belted Kingfisher 16
Red-headed Woodpecker 52
Red-bellied Woodpecker 279
Downy Woodpecker 187
Northern Flicker 9
Pileated Woodpecker 104
American Kestrel 6
Peregrine Falcon 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 7
Acadian Flycatcher 60
Alder Flycatcher 1
Empidonax, sp. 13
Great Crested Flycatcher 1
Eastern Kingbird 9
Loggerhead Shrike 4
White-eyed Vireo 714
Yellow-throated Vireo 12
Red-eyed Vireo 364
Blue Jay 296
American Crow 360
Fish Crow 40
crow, sp. 16
Purple Martin 2
Bank Swallow 3
Barn Swallow 42
Carolina Chickadee 258
Tufted Titmouse 450
Carolina Wren 499
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 441
Eastern Bluebird 48
Veery 97
Swainson’s Thrush 8
Catharus, sp. 1
Wood Thrush 1
Gray Catbird 1
Brown Thrasher 21
Northern Mockingbird 83
European Starling 6
Ovenbird 131
Worm-eating Warbler 7
Louisiana Waterthrush 1
Northern Waterthrush 61
Golden-winged Warbler 2
Blue-winged Warbler 8
Black-and-white Warbler 20
Prothonotary Warbler 8
Tennessee Warbler 1
Kentucky Warbler 4
Common Yellowthroat 91
Hooded Warbler 23
American Redstart 47
Cape May Warbler 1
Cerulean Warbler 1
Northern Parula 202
Magnolia Warbler 3
Blackburnian Warbler 3
Yellow Warbler 52
Chestnut-sided Warbler 11
Black-throated Blue Warbler 5
Palm Warbler 4
Pine Warbler 42
Yellow-throated Warbler 84
Prairie Warbler 51
Eastern Towhee 48
Bachman’s Sparrow 1
Summer Tanager 55
Scarlet Tanager 1
Northern Cardinal 680
Blue Grosbeak 2
Indigo Bunting 4
Bobolink 10
Red-winged Blackbird 649
Eastern Meadowlark 7
Boat-tailed Grackle 210
Common Grackle 328
Baltimore Oriole 23
House Finch 42
House Sparrow 21

For the fifth fall in a row we’ve got Alder Flycatcher in Alachua County. Matt O’Sullivan first noted the bird along Sparrow Alley on the 1st and Adam Zions saw it again on the 3rd, but in both cases it was silent. On the 7th Mike Manetz actually heard it giving an identifying pip! All of our local Alder sightings seem to have occurred in generally open landscapes with wooded or shrubby edges – the Cones Dike Trail, the Levy Lake Loop, and Sparrow Alley. Mike found the bird by walking out Sparrow Alley past the powerlines and when he got to a big dip in the trail he cut to his right through the treeline into the old police-horse pasture. There, at the edge of an “island” of large oaks, he found the bird among some Hercules-Club (small tree with a spiny trunk, reference photos here).

The days after Hurricane Hermine’s passage brought numerous migrant warblers. The fall’s first Ceruleans were found on the 5th, one at Bolen Bluff by Mitch Walters (excellent photo here) and one by by Gina Kent at her SE Gainesville home. Several species were more abundant than usual. On the 4th Scott Burgard found 6-10 Prothonotary Warblers in a single feeding flock along the Bolen Bluff Trail. On the 5th Bob Holt noted several Swainson’s Thrushes in the beautyberry bushes in his NW Gainesville yard, by two days an early record for the county. Perhaps most impressive was the abundance of Kentucky Warblers. Only four were reported to eBird during the entire month of August, but from September 2-5 at least sixteen were seen; Adam Zions found more than a third of those, six of them, along San Felasco’s Creek Sink Trail on the 4th. On the same walk Adam tallied 8 Veeries, the first of the fall. (Veeries are always the earliest thrush in fall migration, with pretty big flights during the first week of September; the county’s early record is August 29th.)

Since we’re on the subject of warblers, Mike Manetz and I walked the nature trail at Poe Springs Park on the 8th. We found 11 species of warblers, the best of which were a Swainson’s, a very pretty adult-female Cerulean, and four Kentuckys.

Some raptors are on the move too. There were two Peregrine Falcon sightings on the day after Hurricane Hermine’s passage, one by Adam Zions and Ken Spilios along the La Chua Trail and one by Bryan Tarbox in downtown Gainesville. These were the earliest Peregrines ever recorded in Alachua County by 13 days. An early Northern Harrier was spotted by Michael Brock in the big field adjoining the parking area at San Felasco Progress Center on August 23rd, another was seen by Adam Zions at La Chua on the 3rd, and there have been a couple of sightings since then.

Speaking of seasonal firsts, Greg Hart of Alachua saw an adult male Rufous Hummingbird at his feeder on the 2nd, and his old Air Force buddy Ron Robinson saw two Baltimore Orioles in his yard west of Gainesville on the 5th.

On the other hand there are seasonal lasts. The last (so far) Mississippi Kites were seen on the 2nd, one at La Chua by Caroline Poli and Jessica Hightower, and one at Turkey Creek by Jennifer Donsky. Adam Zions saw two Swallow-tailed Kites at La Chua on the 3rd, and Andy Kratter, who lives only a mile or two to the north, saw two on the same day. If you’d like to see some of the post-breeding and migratory routes of individual Swallow-tailed Kites, check out the “Swallow-tailed Kite Migration” blog at the Avian Research and Conservation web site: http://www.swallow-tailedkites.org/

Alachua Audubon’s field trip season begins this week with a walk at Poe Springs County Park on Saturday the 10th. And our Wednesday Wetland Walks at Sweetwater Wetlands Park kicked off on the 7th (my apologies to Debbie Segal for not getting the word out in time), and will be held every Wednesday morning through next May. You can see the field trip schedule here: https://alachuaaudubon.org/classes-field-trips/

While we were standing on the pier at Powers Park this morning, Scott Flamand asked me, “Is this the best day of hurricane birding we’ve ever had in Alachua County?” I allowed, “It’s better than average.” Several hours later I’m thinking more along the lines expressed by Scott. Though I’m still inclined to rank 2008’s Tropical Storm Fay ahead of it – Red Phalaropes, Parasitic Jaeger, Leach’s Storm-Petrel – I’m not sure I can think of another storm that sent us more birds than Hermine.

We started at Palm Point around seven. I was delayed by a fallen tree on Lakeshore Drive, and when I got to the Point the half-dozen birders assembled there had already seen several coastal species, including two Gull-billed Terns. John Martin pointed out a group of 13 Magnificent Frigatebirds sailing above the tree line to the south. There were Royal Terns and Forster’s Terns and a couple of Common Terns, but Sooty Terns were the most abundant, flying south in a long line.

Ryan Terrill was scoping the lake when he noticed that several birds were perched on the fishing pier at Powers Park. He decided to go check them out, and almost everyone else at Palm Point tagged along. Upon arriving at the fishing pier, we found a Sandwich Tern perched on the railing, surrounded by Forster’s Terns and Laughing Gulls. It was the county’s seventh Sandwich Tern. We crowded up onto the pier and spent the next hour scanning the lake. We saw Least Terns. We saw Black Terns. We saw a Caspian Tern. It dawned on me at some point that during 130 years of keeping bird records in Alachua County, nine species of terns had been recorded – Sooty, Least, Gull-billed, Caspian, Black, Common, Forster’s, Royal, Sandwich – and that every last one of them was present on the lake as we stood there. I announced to the birders on the pier that if we saw another species of tern, it would necessarily be a new species for the county. This is called foreshadowing…

Other birds provided occasional distractions. A steady stream of swallows passed overhead, mostly Barns, but a surprising number of Purple Martins and some Banks. Flocks of Eastern Kingbirds flew over the treetops, heading south, and we saw two flocks of Bobolinks as well. A Short-billed Dowitcher flew over, giving an identifying “tu-tu!” call.

Ryan declared that he was going to check out some other bodies of water. He and Bryan Tarbox and Mitch Walters drove off. The rest of us hung around for a little longer, but we reached a point where we felt we’d seen everything, and people started to drift away, to go home or try another birding spot. Hurricane Hermine was over. So we thought.

I went home, took off my shoes, and listened understandingly as my wife explained that she didn’t much like this whole birding thing. Then the phone rang. It was Mike Manetz, calling from the observation platform at La Chua. Ryan Terrill had phoned him: there was a Bridled Tern on Lake Wauberg! A first county record! Poor Mike had to hike all the way from the observation platform to his truck in the La Chua parking lot and then drive to Wauberg. Driving from my house, I got there ahead of him and found a cluster of birders at the Wauberg boat ramp picking through more terns. Lots of Forster’s, five Sooties, a dozen Leasts, at least one Common, another Sandwich – but no Bridled that we could see. This was explained a few minutes later when John Hintermister got a call from Jonathan Mays, who’d just photographed the Bridled Tern – at the La Chua observation platform!

When I heard that, I cursed that Bridled Tern, his parents and his siblings, and all Bridled Terns that ever existed or ever will, and I called it a day and headed home. I made it nearly to University Avenue when my phone rang. It was my daughter: “Bob Carroll just called. There are four Brown Noddies at Newnans Lake.” Another first county record! As of yesterday, nine species of terns in 130 years. And today, eleven species of terns in six hours! I turned east on University and headed for Powers Park. I walked out onto the fishing pier that I’d just left a couple of hours previously – because there wasn’t anything left to see – and Bob Carroll, Bob Holt, and Scott Robinson tried to find me a Brown Noddy among dozens of Sooty Terns. They had seen from one to four earlier – Scott wrote, “It had the rounded tail, entirely brown plumage, paler forehead, and paler brown under the wings. The time I saw four birds, only one of them was definitely a Brown Noddy; the others were nearby and looked all brown, but were not in great light” – but now all the birds were too far out for any details to be visible. I could see that a few of them were dark, but at that distance I was unable to distinguish a noddy from a juvenile Sooty.

I called Mike and he put the word out, and before long the pier was filled with birders. We were such an amusing sight that an amateur photographer was taking pictures of us. I had a chance to talk to birders who had gone elsewhere and seen other hurricane-blown birds. Phil Laipis had photographed two Red-necked Phalaropes at the Windsor boat ramp. Ted and Steven Goodman had found a Black Skimmer at Orange Lake and a Sanderling at Lake Lochloosa. John Martin had photographed a Black Skimmer and a Willet at La Chua. Jonathan Mays had seen 22 dowitchers at La Chua, and said that the American Golden-Plover was still around.

I thought to check my watch, and found that 2:30 was rapidly approaching, the time when I’d agreed to meet Tom Tompkins at the airport’s air traffic control tower to scan the grassy strips bordering the runways for grasspipers. So I left Powers Park without seeing the noddy and headed for the airport. As he activated the automatic gate to let me in, Tom came out on the walkway that encircles the top of the tower and shouted, “There are two Black Skimmers on the runway!” I hurried up to the top level and there they were, an adult and a juvenile, out there on the asphalt along with six Laughing Gulls – and two Willets! When a small Delta airliner came down the runway for its takeoff, all the birds flew out of the way and then returned to the exact spots where they’d been. I knew that Mike Manetz was working on a county year list, and that he still needed Willet, so I gave him a call and he hurried over and saw them. I told him about the skimmers too, but he thought I was joking until I actually pointed at them sitting on the tarmac. We scanned for grasspipers for a few minutes, but we saw nothing more interesting than Pectoral Sandpipers, Least Sandpipers, a Solitary Sandpiper, and a few Killdeer. And then I did call it a day.

So I think maybe Scott Flamand was right, or pretty close to it. All in all, Hurricane Hermine was probably the birdiest tropical storm to hit Gainesville in the 21 years that I’ve been paying attention.

We had all nine of the tern species previously recorded in Alachua County at Newnans Lake this morning, and I commented, “If we saw any more species, they’d have to be new for the county.” Well, Ryan Terrill just reported a first-county-record Bridled Tern at Lake Wauberg! Get there if you can!

I went to Palm Point this morning to see if Tropical Storm Hermine had blown anything onto Newnans Lake. The first thing I noticed was that the water level in the lake had dropped considerably over the past couple of months, exposing several yards of bare “beach” at the Point itself. This is good news, as it will give us a lot of room to set up our spotting scopes tomorrow morning after the storm has passed. Hermine is forecast to make landfall on the eastern Panhandle at a little after midnight. We’ll get a lot of rain tonight, and hopefully a lot of birds tomorrow. Be at Palm Point at first light if the weather permits, and in fact a visit later today might be worthwhile.

This morning, though, there wasn’t much to look at. A couple of Spotted Sandpipers chasing around, but no gulls or terns. What saved the morning was Eastern Kingbirds. I had commented to Mike Manetz a couple of weeks ago that I never see migrating flocks of kingbirds anymore. I used to see a few flocks every year in late August or early September, but in the past ten years I’d seen only two or three individual birds at a time. But not long after my arrival this morning I saw a flock of about 85 flying east high above the lake, and as I kept watching the birds kept coming, until I’d tallied 330 Eastern Kingbirds.

Patrick Brady joined me about halfway through the kingbird flight, but there wasn’t much else to see, and no one else showed up. So I gave Mike Manetz a call to see if he was somewhere more interesting. He was: along with Lloyd Davis, Matt O’Sullivan, and Frank and Irina Goodwin, he was standing on the observation platform at the end of the La Chua Trail looking at the American Golden-Plover and a selection of other shorebirds. Patrick had never seen an American Golden-Plover before, so we got in our cars, drove to La Chua, and hiked out to the observation platform. Patrick got his lifer, and we saw nine other shorebird species as well: Killdeer, Lesser Yellowlegs, and Stilt, Pectoral, Least, Semipalmated, Western, Solitary, and Spotted Sandpipers (Black-necked Stilts seem to have migrated out). There were four Roseate Spoonbills. A lot of swallows were flying around, mostly Barns but a handful of Banks and one Purple Martin. And Matt O’Sullivan showed us elderly fellows how it’s done by picking out the second-earliest American Bittern ever seen in Alachua County and the earliest Mallard, a drake loafing among 50 Mottled Ducks near Gator Point.

Anyway, if you can get away, and the weather’s not too bad, it might be worthwhile to be at “the beach” at Palm Point tomorrow morning, to see if Hermine blows in something exciting like a Magnificent Frigatebird, a jaeger, a flock of phalaropes, Sooty Terns, Cliff or Bank Swallows, or some miscellaneous coastal species.

(For you youngsters under 50, the subject line is an Elton John reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rig3tgyYiAM )

The Black Skimmer is still out there too. Two fantastic birds for the price of admission to La Chua!