Category: Birding Reports

The first day of The June Challenge went pretty well, with more surprises than I’d have expected.

The kick-off field trip started at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve at 6:15 and we got our target birds – Common Nighthawk, Bachman’s Sparrow, and Brown-headed Nuthatch – in about an hour. (Tina Greenberg was there before six and had a couple of Chuck-will’s-widows fly over as well, so I think I’ll arrive early for tomorrow morning’s field trip.) Then we went on to the Windsor boat ramp, where we whiffed on our two target birds, Bald Eagle and Laughing Gull, but our consolation prizes were great looks at Prothonotary and Yellow-throated Warblers, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Red-eyed Vireo, and Summer Tanager, plus our first surprise of the morning, a late-migrating Spotted Sandpiper flying down the boat channel. We went on to Sweetwater Wetlands Park, where we saw all the expected species, a few semi-expected species like Snail Kites (four of them), American Coot, and Roseate Spoonbill, and our second surprise of the day, a late Bobolink spotted by Debbie Segal, only the second June record for that species in Alachua County. We ended the day at noon with about 60 birds on our lists.

Park Ranger Danny Rohan came walking up while we were ogling the Bobolink and got to see it. He told us to keep an eye out for a Laughing Gull that had been hanging around, which we were never able to find, and he mentioned that the spoonbill numbers had been as high as 17 recently. While he was talking to us, he got a call from Geoff Parks, who was at the creek inflow near the sedimentation pond. Geoff had seen at least one Tree Swallow mixed in with the Northern Rough-winged Swallows there, so we executed a quick march – but only Bob Carroll, way back at the end of the line, was fortunate enough to see it fly over.

Yesterday Jennifer Donsky found a Ring-billed Gull at the Home Depot Pond, so after finishing up at Sweetwater, Barbara Shea and I drove over there, and sure enough the gull was sitting on the grassy slope leading down to the water’s edge. As near as I can tell, it has exactly one primary feather left on its right wing, none on its left wing, and no tail to speak of, so although it can fly a little it’s probably not going anywhere and may not survive very long. Barbara got a documentary photo, since there are only two or three previous June records for the county: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/40692387640/in/dateposted-public/

Another surprise today was a Least Tern, discovered at Depot Park by Erin Kalinowski at lunchtime. It’s the second Least this week: Felicia Lee saw one at Sweetwater Wetlands Park on May 26th.

Yesterday James Roland saw a Brown Pelican in the retention pond at Townsend, north of Glen Springs Road at NW 23rd Terrace. It was just taunting us; it refused to stick around for the Challenge. I cruised by three hours later and the pond was pelicanless.

Do you need Yellow-breasted Chat or Pied-billed Grebe for your June Challenge list? Mike Manetz suggests Bolen Bluff for the chat. He saw one there on the 15th, “singing from dead sweetgums at the base of the slope, as you look to the east.” And Brad Hall called to report a grebe at Home Depot Pond today, which he noticed (but Barbara and I missed) while looking at the Ring-billed Gull.

Don’t take this the wrong way, but may I knock your socks off? On May 28th Ian Davies and five others went birding in the dunes of Quebec’s Tadoussac Bird Observatory, along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. They started in the rain at 5:45 a.m. Nine hours and 41 minutes later they quit, having recorded 108 species of birds, of which 24 were warblers. Socks still secure? I’m not surprised, but hold on to them now, because the number of individual warblers they recorded was 721,620. As Ian wrote, “Today was the greatest birding day of my life.” He’s still young, but I feel confident that he will never have a better one. Luckily for us, he’s an eBird administrator, which means that he posted an eBird checklist with the details, and it’s illustrated with 44 photos and two videos. Check it out here, and be sure to read Ian’s introductory comments, which made me giddy: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S46116491 (Thanks to Gainesville birder Min Zhao for forwarding this to me.)

(For one month only, I’m reviving the Alachua County birding reports. “Why? Oh God, why?” you ask, burying your face in your hands. For The 15th Annual June Challenge, that’s why. News and updates pertaining to next year’s Challenge and any future Challenges will be posted on the Alachua Audubon Society Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/AlachuaAudubon/ But this will be a transitional year, in which news and updates will appear both on Facebook and in your inbox. So consider this fair warning: no birding reports next year, just Facebook. Go there instead. No, I don’t like it either. Sorry.)

So anyway, the Challenge begins on Friday, June 1st. As always I’ll be at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve at 6:15 a.m. to jump start it with Common Nighthawk and (hopefully) Bachman’s Sparrow, and you’re welcome to join me, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced birder. From Longleaf we’ll go to Newnans Lake and then to Sweetwater Wetlands Park ($5 admission for Sweetwater). You should be home by lunchtime with 40-50 species on your checklist. Directions to Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve: From Gainesville, take State Road 20 (Hawthorne Road) east. Measuring from Waldo Road, at 4.4 miles you’ll pass Powers Park, and shortly thereafter you’ll cross the bridge over Prairie Creek. Three and a half miles after that, turn right onto County Road 325 and proceed 2.3 miles to the Longleaf parking lot on the right.

If you’re otherwise occupied on the 1st and can’t join me, I’ll be in exactly the same place at 6:15 a.m. on Saturday the 2nd, and we’ll do it all over again.

On the 3rd we’ll make our annual visit to the Burrowing Owls at Watermelon Pond, courtesy of Alachua County’s Parks and Conservation Lands Department and county biologists Andi Christman and Michael Drummond. We’ll meet at the gate to the Burrowing Owl field 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, which is a dirt road. Turn left onto 250th 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. The preceding mileages are right for my car but should probably be considered approximate for yours. 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

You probably remember, but here are the rules. There’s been one change:

1.  All birds must be seen within the boundaries of Alachua County between June 1st and June 30th. (Non-Alachua birders are challenged to participate within your own counties.)
2.  Each bird on your list must have been SEEN. Heard-only birds do not count; you’ve got to actually see those Chuck-will’s-widows and Eastern Screech-Owls. Consequently, don’t trust eBird with your June Challenge list, since it lists heard birds the same as seen ones.
3.  You are free to put Muscovy Ducks, retention-pond Mallards, and Whooping Cranes on your list, but no other exotic or domestic birds this year.
4.  You’re competing with other Alachua County birders to see who can amass the longest individual list – BUT send me an email if you find something good so that I can alert the other contestants and they can go out and look for it. It is, after all, a friendly competition. If you got a photo, send that as well so that I can share it with everybody else.
5.  EMAIL YOUR LIST TO ME BY MIDNIGHT ON SATURDAY, JUNE 30TH. There will then be a June Challenge party at TJC creator Becky Enneis’s house in Alachua, probably on July 1st.

To help you keep track of your sightings, I’ve attached an automatic Excel checklist that Phil Laipis created several years ago. Type in the date you saw each species in the row headed “First Seen,” using the format “6/1” for June 1st, “6/2” for June 2nd, etc., and the checklist will automatically add everything up for you (you can also use “1” or “x”). If you don’t have Excel, or you prefer keeping track on a paper copy, we’ve got some trifold checklists that you can use. Just send me your mailing address and I’ll drop one in the mailbox for you.

If you win, you get The June Challenge trophy, two and a half feet tall and lovingly crafted from the finest wood-like material. Your name and your accomplishment will be engraved in the purest imitation gold and affixed to the trophy, a memorial that will last throughout all eternity, or until someone drops it onto a hard surface. You keep the trophy at your house for a year, contemplating the evidence of your great superiority to all other birders, and then the following June you either win again or you sadly pass the trophy on to the next June Challenge champion and sink back into the common mass of birderdom.

Hints for new Challengers: Bird as much as you can during the first few days and last few days of the month, to get late spring and early fall migrants; eight migrant warblers and twelve migrant shorebirds have been recorded here in June, mostly at the beginning of the month. Check the big lakes repeatedly (especially Newnans and Lochloosa) for coastal strays like gulls, terns, and pelicans. Check your email inbox or the AAS Facebook page to learn what other people are seeing and for tips on where to go. I apologize in advance for the many birding reports you’ll get in early June…

Please join us for The 15th Annual June Challenge. Good luck to all!

All good things must come to an end. But so must all mediocre things. This birding report, for instance. I can’t remember exactly when I started it, but I’ve being sending it out for over fifteen years. Lately it’s been superseded by the “Alachua County Birding” Facebook page and eBird’s various “alerts.” I’ve noticed that many solicitations and questions posed here have gone unanswered (though mailed out to over 550 addresses!). I’ve had birders who are on my mailing list ask me questions which I’d answered a few days previously in a birding report. More to the point, only a few people pass along their unusual sightings to me anymore; I have to get most of my information from eBird. All of this suggests to me that the reports are not much read anymore. I suspect that this is because most of us have moved from desktop computers to smartphones, and the birding report is too long to read on a smartphone – it’s still written for a person relaxing in front of a monitor with a cup of coffee. But it’s the nature of contemporary society to move on from one communications platform to another, and it makes no sense to complain. It was fun while it lasted, and I’m surprised that it lasted more than fifteen years.

Plus, I’m 60 years old, and if my brain holds out – a pretty big if, as it happens – I’ve got only 10 or 20 years to accomplish some of the other things I wanted to do in my life. I’ve got a whole house full of books to read and some other stuff I’d like to do as well. The internet just gets in the way. So I’m discontinuing the Alachua County birding reports. If you want to keep up with the local sightings, take advantage of eBird alerts or the “Alachua County Birding” Facebook page. If you don’t want to join Facebook under your own name, then come up with a fake name like Harry Dogsbotham (maybe something a bit more plausible) and use it solely for checking the birding pages on Facebook (but if you want to join the “Alachua County Birding” Facebook page using a fake name, let Mike Manetz or Bob Carroll know what you’re doing via private email). And don’t forget to join the Alachua Audubon Facebook page for program meetings and field trips (like next year’s Burrowing Owl field trip).

My thanks to you all for many years of support and conversation.

This is sort of hard for me to grasp, but there are people who would like to keep orioles away from their hummingbird feeders. Can anyone offer advice on how to do that? Secondary question: what’s the best oriole feeder out there?

As soon as I sent out the birding report announcing the Birds and Brew gatherings, we realized there was a conflict with Bob Carroll’s Third Thursday field trips. So we’re changing Birds and Brew to every FIRST Thursday of the month. Our initial meeting will be Thursday, August 3rd, at 7 p.m. A map showing the location of First Magnitude Brewing is here, and the brewery’s “Visiting Us” page, with parking information, is here. Please join us. I’ve heard that all the cool kids will be there.

In other High Society news, the June Challenge party will take place on Saturday evening (that’s tomorrow) at 6 p.m. Details in first paragraph here: https://alachuaaudubon.org/2017/07/01/well-thats-that/

If you’ve got any good bird photos that you’d like to share, Alachua Audubon has a “Birding Photos” Flickr page that welcomes your contributions: https://www.flickr.com/groups/3599086@N23/pool/with/34779629775/ (Click on the link to see Erika Simons’s amazing photo of a Great Blue Heron with a young alligator dangling from its bill!)

A few other things that I noticed about the new AOU … sorry, AOS checklist upon further examination:
– Blue-winged Teal, Cinnamon Teal, and Northern Shoveler have seceded from the genus Anas, perhaps because they didn’t like the sound of it, and have gone into the genus Spatula. Traitors! (But ha ha! Spatula!)
– Gadwall, Eurasian Wigeon, and American Wigeon have also jumped ship from Anas and been recruited into the genus Mareca. Turncoats!
– The family Emberizidae used to be huge, containing New World warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks, buntings, sparrows, longspurs, and blackbirds, as well as Old World buntings. Over the years one group and then another have left the warm embrace of the Emberizidae and formed families of their own, until only the New World sparrows and Old World buntings remained. This checklist creates a new family, Passerellidae, for New World sparrows (including towhees and juncos), leaving only the Old World buntings – which are on the North American list only because they occasionally stray to the Aleutian Islands – as the last remaining members of Emberizidae. Good bye, emberizids! It was fun saying “emberizids” while it lasted!
– The sequence has been reshuffled almost as drastically as last year. The tail end of the North American bird list, as found in field guides, checklists, et cetera, formerly followed this order: warblers, tanagers (including grosbeaks and buntings), sparrows (including longspurs), blackbirds, and finches. Now it goes like this: finches, longspurs, sparrows, Yellow-breasted Chat, blackbirds, warblers, and tanagers (including grosbeaks and buntings). And the sequence of blackbirds is, as my Army son would say, ALL jacked up, what with the new division into five subfamilies.
– You can see the Alachua County bird list in its new sequence and with all the taxonomic appurtenances here.

So … what about those hummingbird / oriole questions? Any ideas?

On the 3rd Eric Amundson found the fall’s first Black-and-white Warblers, two of them, along the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail where it crosses County Road 234 in Rochelle. These are among the earliest ever for Alachua County. Except for 2013, when Black-and-whites showed up in three widely-separated locations in late June, the earliest ever recorded here were found on July 7th – one in 2001, one in 2002, and one in 2003.

Alachua Audubon is sponsoring a new birding program, tentatively called “Birds and Brew.” The first Birds and Brew will be held on Thursday, July 20th, at 7 p.m. We’ll meet at First Magnitude Brewery (1220 SE Veitch Street), stroll to Depot Park to look for birds, and return to First Mag for a cold brew and good conversation. Birds and Brew will be a monthly (3rd Thursday evening) event. All birding skill levels are welcome; enthusiasm is what matters! Bring your binoculars and a thirst for good craft beer (but if you forget your binoculars, stop by anyway, because we’ll have some to loan out). Thanks to Adam Kent and Christine Denny for the idea and to Michael Brock, Mike Manetz, and Adam for working out the details.

Something else for your calendar: on Thursday, July 27th, Adam and Gina Kent will tell us about their recent trip to southern Africa. “The talk will focus on birds, but will also touch on other interesting aspects of the region such as mammals and fascinating landscapes. Learn about a diversity of natural communities including emblematic tropical woodland, the desert-like karoo, and fynbos, a shrubby heathland that looks more like something out of a Mediterranean garden than one’s typical vision of Africa.” Time, place, and other details here: https://alachuaaudubon.org/event/wildlife-and-landscapes-of-south-africa/?instance_id=670

The American Ornithologists’ Union is preparing to release its annual Check-list Supplement, but the results are already on line. You can view them here (click on “View Comments” for votes and discussion on each proposal), but I’ve listed some of the more interesting ones below:

– The proposal to change the name of Ring-necked Duck to Ring-billed Duck failed – unanimously. Look at the View Comments page to learn why.
– The proposal to split Willet into two species failed. The vote was 5-5. Andy Kratter, a member of the committee, tells me that proposals need the approval of 75% of the committee to pass.
– Thayer’s Gull no longer exists as a separate species, having been lumped into Iceland Gull by unanimous decision.
– The proposal to split Bell’s Vireo into two species (eastern and western) failed, though the vote was 5-5.
– A large-billed Red Crossbill resident in the South Hills of Cassia County, Idaho, has been split from other Red Crossbills by a vote of 8-2. It’s now a separate species called Cassia Crossbill (Loxia sinesciuris).
– The proposal to lump Common Redpoll and Hoary Redpoll into a single species failed, though the vote was 5-5.
– The proposal to split Yellow-rumped Warbler into three species (eastern Myrtle, western Audubon’s, and Central American Goldman’s) failed, though the vote was 5-5.
– Yellow-breasted Chat is no longer classified as one of the wood-warblers (family Parulidae). It has been given its very own family, Icteriidae (similar to Icteridae, the blackbird family, but note the extra i).
– Le Conte’s Sparrow and Thrasher are now LeConte’s Sparrow and Thrasher, with no space between Le and Conte’s (one committee member writes facetiously, “YES. I look forward to deleting that extra space henceforth”).

Speaking of lumping and name-changing, last year the AOU (which was founded in 1883) was lumped with the Cooper Ornithological Society (founded in 1893), and the new entity is now known as the American Ornithological Society. Goodbye AOU, hello AOS.

Don’t forget the June Challenge party, coming up on Saturday, July 8th, at 6 p.m. Map here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1p7B11MuC4CM9N3eTT7sx1HFWyIs&usp=sharing Winners will be announced and a good time will be had by all. Beer, soft drinks, and grilled hot dogs will be provided by our host, Becky Enneis, but please bring something extraordinarily delicious to share.

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.