Category: Birding Reports

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jack and Mary Lynch of High Springs (of Calliope Hummingbird fame) have a Western Tanager visiting their yard. They’re opening their yard to visitors this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning (March 5-7) from sunrise to 10:30 a.m. Mary writes, “We are open to folks letting themselves in by the side gate as early as they wish. Please enter slowly because there is an active Bluebird box to the right as they enter the gate. Also, please, please stress the importance of not parking anywhere beyond our driveway or no one will see any birds or have any quiet because of the blasted dogs next door. Oh and our address now is 18841 NW 244th Street. High Springs is now part of the County 911 Fire and Rescue so they changed our street and house numbers to end confusion.” Again, do not park north of their driveway. South of the driveway is fine, and across the street is fine, but not north of the driveway because of the dogs.

A Winter Wren was discovered along O’Leno State Park’s River Trail last October, but no one went back to see it until Mike Manetz re-found it on February 10th. The bird was last seen on the 20th. On the 25th Doug Richard of Ocala went up in hopes of finding it. He didn’t, but he did manage to photograph one of the earliest Louisiana Waterthrushes ever recorded in Alachua County: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/25192295310/in/dateposted-public/

Lloyd Davis saw a Barn Swallow at Sweetwater Wetlands Park on the 25th, tying (or setting?) the early record for Alachua County. The locally-nesting swallows seem to be early arrivals. Martins arrive in January and February, and Barn Swallows and Northern Rough-winged Swallows arrive in early March.

Speaking of spring arrivals, the county’s first Chuck-will’s-widow of the spring was flushed by Andy Kratter in his SE Gainesville yard on the 29th, the first Swallow-tailed Kite was seen in SW Gainesville on the 2nd, and the first Indigo Bunting was seen by Ron Robinson on the 3rd. It’s time for the first Ruby-throated Hummingbirds to show up.

I ran into Roy Herrera at La Chua today and he told me that at Sweetwater Wetlands Park he’d watched a Limpkin work over a fallen log for twenty minutes, methodically probing into cracks with its bill. In my experience Limpkins eat snails and freshwater mussels, nothing else, so I couldn’t figure out what the bird had been doing. I looked up Limpkin in Birds of North America Online, and under Food Habits I found this (after lots of stuff about snails and mussels, of course): “Occasionally eats lizards, frogs, insects, crustaceans, and worms; may be especially useful when forced into suboptimal habitats during drought and flooding. Reported eating grasshoppers on lawns in drought. Five individuals observed in Sarasota Co., FL, in burned marsh adjacent to good snail habitat raising their wings to stir up masses of small ‘blind mosquitoes,’ then snapping at grasses where the insects alighted. Commonly eats rotten wood, usually before or after foraging on normal prey. One vagrant in Florida Keys fed on mash put out for domestic ducks.” Roy also mentioned that he has repeatedly seen one Limpkin sitting down in a particular spot near the boardwalk. Roy wonders if it may be on a nest; the area is partly hidden by grass, so he can’t tell for sure. In northern Florida, according to Birds of North America Online (again), Limpkins lay their eggs between late February through July, so it’s certainly possible that Roy’s bird is sitting on eggs.

Earlier this week Ron Robinson went walking on Sparrow Alley, where he saw a Sharp-shinned Hawk nab a Blue Jay and bear it down to the ground. The two birds struggled for a moment, and then a Bobcat leaped out from behind a tree and landed on both birds! In the confusion the Sharpie got away and the Blue Jay, still stunned, fluttered up into the low branches of a tree. Ron watched as the Bobcat climbed a neighboring tree, hopped over into the tree in which the Blue Jay was still trying to gather its wits, and then dropped straight down on the Blue Jay, driving it to the ground, then picking it up and trotting away with it.

Butterflies are slowly emerging. I saw a Black Swallowtail and a Monarch where Cross Creek empties into Orange Lake on the 18th, a Tiger Swallowtail in my NE Gainesville back yard on the 25th, and a second Black Swallowtail at La Chua on the 3rd. A few Cloudless Sulphurs are flying around, as well as a couple of Orange-barred Sulphurs straying north from South Florida.

The accessible part of the La Chua Trail has been extended, though you still can’t get all the way out to the observation tower. There was a bison at the water control structure today.

Dotty Robbins writes, “If you want to stay informed on water issues in our area, I suggest subscribing to Our Santa Fe River’s newsletter. It covers a range of topics–as you can see below. It’s free, and you can opt to receive it once a week–my preference. OSFR would like you to join, but you don’t have to, and they don’t pester you. It will keep you informed on local planned development and anything that affects rivers, springs, and aquifer. I really appreciate the efforts of folks who are willing to stand up and fight for our environment.” Here’s the link to Our Santa Fe River’s news site, and the link to “Subscribe to Our Newsletter” is at the bottom of the page: http://oursantaferiver.org/wp/news/

Sarah Brown, a biologist at Tall Timbers, writes, “Just wondering if anyone knows of a good birder that would like to do point counts for us from April-June on Osceola National Forest in Lake City for $16/hr. I haven’t gotten any good applicants and am getting a bit nervous I won’t find someone so if you happen know of anyone please let me know. Thanks!” If you want to do some birding in the pinewoods and get paid $16 per hour for it, contact Sarah at sbrown@ttrs.org

Here’s a question for the knowledgeable folks on the mailing list. Let’s say a Summer Tanager is spending the winter in Gainesville. How far is it likely to roam? Phil Laipis saw one in his neighborhood near University and 34th on December 11th. Eleven days later, Andy Kratter saw one at Lake Alice, approximately 0.8 mile away. Both Phil and Andy described the bird as a female with reddish undertail coverts. Sam Ewing then had three sightings of a female Summer Tanager at his place between January 6th and January 11th. Sam lives about 0.7 miles from Phil and 1.2 mile from Lake Alice. Then, on February 17th, Sam photographed a female Summer Tanager with reddish undertail coverts at the intersection of NW 34th Street and 16th Avenue, 0.7 miles from his house, 1.0 mile from Phil’s house, and 1.8 miles from Lake Alice. What would you think? All the same bird?

Since December 1st, birders have reported Summer Tanagers in 21 different locations. Were there 21 different individuals, or as few as 8 or 9? It’s impossible to be certain, but if we knew how far a Summer Tanager would wander we might be able to group the sightings geographically and come up with a realistic estimate. All winter Adam and Gina Kent have made repeated sightings of up to three individual tanagers at their place near the intersection of University and Waldo. Could one of these be the bird that Bubba Scales and Geoff Parks heard at Citizens Field, just one mile away, on January 2nd? In other words, are we talking about three individuals in this case, one of which flew to Citizens Field, or was the Citizens Field bird a fourth individual?

I’ve started thinking more about this since I spotted a color-banded Carolina Chickadee at my backyard feeder on the 13th and 14th. I reported it to the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, which has been color-banding backyard birds around Gainesville, and I was informed that it had been banded “at a backyard site a little over 1.5 miles away from your address.” (He wouldn’t tell me where or when, though. The bands were a silver USFWS band over bright yellow on the right, light purple on the left. I’d be interested in knowing where and when it was banded.) If a little short-winged homebody like a Carolina Chickadee will roam a mile and a half, how far will a long-winged intercontinental migrant like a Summer Tanager wander?

Spring is here, by which I mean the Northern Parulas are arriving. Adam Zions has had one in his SW Gainesville yard all winter, but on the 20th he saw one that he recognized as different, “an assumed migrant,” and three days later Mike Manetz heard six of them singing at San Felasco’s Moonshine Creek Trail.

John Hintermister, who lives several miles north of Gainesville, and Linda Hensley, who lives in NW Gainesville, both had Nashville Warblers visit their yards on the 22nd. Linda’s cousin got a photo of the bird perched in a wild azalea: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/25211455006/in/dateposted-public/ These are Alachua County’s fourth and fifth Nashville Warblers of the winter season.

A couple of days ago I had twenty or thirty American Goldfinches at my feeder. Today I don’t have a single one. Ron Robinson reported something similar. This happens every winter. It probably has something to do with the availability of wild food sources; elm trees are suddenly covered by edible samaras, for instance. Once these wild food sources are eaten, or fallen, the goldfinches will return to the feeders. Meanwhile enjoy your cardinals, House Finches, and Chipping Sparrows. (Why don’t the House Finches abandon the feeders for wild foods too? They’re in the subfamily Carduelinae just like the goldfinches.)

If you’ve got an answer for the question posed in the first three paragraphs, I’d like to hear it.

At 5 p.m. on Tuesday the County Commission will hold a public meeting at Eastside High School to vote on Plum Creek’s “Envision Alachua” plan. There will be presentations by county staff and by representatives of Plum Creek. There will be time for public comment. All of this may extend to a second meeting at 5 p.m. Thursday. The county’s Environmental Protection staff have produced a report that advises against Envision Alachua: “The Plum Creek proposal contains policies that would reduce protections and allow intense growth that is incompatible with this rural area of the County….Staff has analyzed the Envision Alachua Sector Plan application including the supporting data and analysis and, based on the results of that analysis, is making a recommendation to the County Commission that it deny the proposed amendment.” (You can see the full report at this link.) This may be the meeting that decides whether Gainesville continues as Gainesville or starts turning into Orlando, so come to the meeting if you can to support the county staff and to urge the County Commissioners to hold the line.

Spring is running late this year. I saw my first redbud blossoms last week, and a few maples in bloom along Waldo Road. Wild plums are just getting started. Virginia Peppergrass and Black Medick are only now beginning to bloom. Generally all of these are well along by mid- to late January. In fact last winter we saw a Red Maple in full bloom, attracting hundreds of honeybees, in mid-December! True, that was unusually early; but this year everything is unusually late.

Winter rarities are still around, but I wouldn’t wait much longer to see them. The most recent eBird reports for the Brown Creeper at Tuscawilla Prairie, the Black-chinned Hummingbird at the Ewings’ home, and the Vaux’s Swifts at UF’s Dauer Hall are all dated February 13th.

Our rare wintering warblers are gone, or simply being seen less often (maybe because no one’s looking for them any more): the most recently-reported Wilson’s Warbler was at La Chua on the 4th; the Worm-eating Warbler at UF was last reported on the 6th; the American Redstart at the Hague Dairy was last seen on the 7th; the one remaining Nashville Warbler was last reported at Chapmans Pond on the 8th. On the other hand, as of the 14th Adam Zions is still seeing one of the two Black-throated Green Warblers that wintered in his SW Gainesville neighborhood.

The two Purple / Gray-headed Swamphens are being seen semi-regularly at Sweetwater Wetlands Park, but not in their old spot. You have to walk out to the farthest point on the boardwalk, cross your fingers, and hold your mouth right. They were seen earlier this afternoon by Barbara Shea (who followed those instructions to the letter).

Speaking of colorful birds at SWP, a pair of Painted Buntings has been seen regularly around the gate down the slope from the restrooms, most recently by Jeffrey Graham on the 13th, “near a picnic table to the right on the paved path just after the gate.” Jeffrey included a couple of photos in his eBird checklist. Dick and Patty Bartlett, who live in an adjoining neighborhood, have had two females visiting their place recently.

Using a GoPro camera, Bubba Scales of Wild Birds Unlimited has posted some up-close-and-personal feeder videos that are both amusing and amazing. Check out all the orioles in Lloyd and Marie Davis’s back yard and the throngs of waxwings and goldfinches at Gene and Pam Stine’s place: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbOKxl32u5t9tkmHF6igPXQ

The Common Loon was still in the North Florida Regional Medical Center pond on the 10th, but I didn’t see it on the 12th. “Loonacy” will begin a month from today, when Andy Kratter starts tallying northbound loons during daily skywatches from Pine Grove Cemetery. Last year I wrote a Gainesville Sun blog post about Andy and his dog Newman conducting a loon watch: http://fieldguide.blogs.gainesville.com/62/loon-migration-over-gainesville/

And of course the Sandhill Cranes are leaving. Yesterday Adam Zions estimated 275 going north over SW Gainesville, Chip Deutsch counted 98 going north over NW Gainesville, and Donny Griffin saw a flock of 75 going north over the Osceola National Forest.

Once again Bob Carroll’s Third Thursday Retirees’ and General Layabouts’ Birding Group is sticking its thumb in the eye of the working man. Bob writes, “As promised, this month we will be visiting Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland. Many of you will remember the great time we had there last year. And recent reports from the Reserve have been very promising including four male Painted Buntings! My plan is to leave from the Target parking lot on Archer Road at 6:30 on Thursday morning, February 18. That should get us to the Reserve by 8:45. I’m going to take a different route this time to try to avoid some of the heaviest traffic, and I’ll have details for you on Thursday morning. Last year we ate lunch at Palace Pizza in downtown Lakeland. The food was terrific, but the parking was a nightmare. Well, there’s good news on that front. Palace Pizza has opened a second location that is fairly close to the Reserve. It has a very large parking lot because it’s part of a Publix shopping area. So that’s our lunch destination this time, and I am really looking forward to it. I thought their pizza was really delicious! Please let me know if you’re planning on going with us.” Bob can be reached at gatorbob23@yahoo.com

The Sierra Club is hiring a “grassroots organizer” for its water-quality campaign, and the position will be based in Gainesville. The job description reads: “Sierra Club seeks an Organizing Representative based in Gainesville, Florida to coordinate a broad, volunteer-based citizen education effort and build teams of activists on our campaign to promote clean water for Florida’s springs, rivers, lakes and estuaries.   The ideal candidate has a strong background in recruiting and motivating people to build grassroots power and possesses strong coalition-building, media relations, advocacy, and communications skills. If you can engage volunteer committees, interact with stakeholders at all levels, and have a passion for Sierra Club’s mission to explore, enjoy, and protect the planet, take a look at the full job description and application information here: https://chm.tbe.taleo.net/chm01/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=SIERRACLUB&cws=1&rid=674&org=SIERRACLUB ”

Remember: Eastside High School, Tuesday, 5 p.m. Let the County Commissioners know that you like Alachua County the way it is.