Category: Birding Reports

The 14th Annual June Challenge begins on Thursday. The June Challenge, for those new to Alachua County birding, is a friendly competition in which individual contestants try to see as many species of birds in Alachua County as they can from June 1st to June 30th. It has expanded a bit since 2004, when Becky Enneis came up with the idea. That first year fewer than ten birders participated. Last year 42 Alachua County birders submitted lists, there were 64 additional submissions from 23 other Florida counties, and out-of-state birders sent three more, one each from Maine, Kansas, and Kentucky.

The ultimate purpose of the Challenge is to inspire birders to keep going through the heat of June – to have fun, to get out in the fresh air and sunshine and to see some beautiful birds – but there are other reasons to do it. In addition to the 100 or so breeding birds we expect here, very late spring migrants and very early fall migrants have been found in June, as have coastal strays like Sandwich Tern and Willet, and unexpected wanderers like Fulvous Whistling-Duck, Reddish Egret, and Snail Kite. So there are discoveries to make – and not all of them are birds; June mornings can be beautiful and lively, full of butterflies and wildflowers, and much milder in temperature than you’d expect.

As with all contests, there are rules:

1. All birds must be seen within the boundaries of Alachua County between June 1st and June 30th. (You 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. The question of whether this bird or that bird is “countable” toward your total has created some confusion. Any free-flying bird is countable for the purposes of the Challenge, but keep track of how many ABA-countable and non-countable species are on your list (“ABA” is American Birding Association). Report them in this format: Total number of species seen, followed by parentheses containing (number that are ABA countable / number that are not), e.g., 115 (112 / 3). The Black Swans and domestic Graylag-type geese at the Duck Pond, for instance, would be on the “uncountable” part of your list, while wild-plumaged Mallards and Muscovy Ducks at Red Lobster and Home Depot Ponds would be on the countable part. If you have any questions about a specific bird, ask me.
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.
5. EMAIL YOUR LIST TO ME BY MIDNIGHT ON FRIDAY, JUNE 30TH. There will then be a June Challenge party at TJC creator Becky Enneis’s house in Alachua, probably on July 8th, at which a remarkably handsome trophy and other prizes will be given out.

To help you keep track of your sightings, I’ve attached an automatic 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 card-stock trifold checklists that you can use. Just send me your mailing address and I’ll drop one in the mailbox for you.

You can do the Challenge on your own, of course, but I’ll be at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve at 6:15 a.m. on Thursday 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 either La Chua or Sweetwater Wetlands Park ($4 admission for La Chua, $5 for Sweetwater). You should be home by lunchtime with 40-50 species on that 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 want an idea of what such a morning would be like, I described 2015’s “jump start” in a Gainesville Sun blog here: http://fieldguide.blogs.gainesville.com/347/the-june-challenge/ )

Anyway, 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 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 14th Annual June Challenge. Good luck to all!

Matt Bruce saw a Least Tern at Chapmans Pond on the 23rd. They’re probably annual here in late spring and early summer, but on the rare occasions when someone spots one it’s usually on the big lakes rather than small bodies of water like Chapmans.

A visiting birder named Jeffrey Bailey photographed a late Yellow-rumped Warbler at Sweetwater Wetlands Park on May 16th. See his checklist (with the photo) here: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36909374 There’s only one later record for the county.

I went out to Powers Park and Gum Root Swamp this evening to see if the rain had changed things at Newnans Lake. The mud flats all appear to be underwater, but there’s still a wide grassy shore – though it may be too soggy to walk on. At Gum Root Swamp I went down to the first bridge to see if Hatchet Creek had risen significantly – if so, the water level in the lake could be expected to rise a lot more – but it was merely a trickle. That may change after today’s rains. Lloyd Davis was out there at first light this morning, walking east from Powers Park toward Prairie Creek and beyond, and at that point there was still enough shoreline to accommodate 8 White-rumped Sandpipers, 46 Semipalmated Sandpipers, a Semipalmated Plover, and a Spotted Sandpiper.

The June Challenge begins next Thursday. I’ll send out another reminder before then, but let me repeat one point: Don’t keep your June Challenge list in eBird! You definitely DO want to include heard birds in your eBird checklists, but you CAN’T count heard birds in The June Challenge. We’ve got some paper checklists if you want one, and there’s a nice computerized checklist that Phil Laipis created in Excel, which I’ll attach to my next email.

Short-tailed Hawks haven’t been reported lately. The season’s first was seen near Prairie Creek on March 31st, there were several sightings during the second half of April, and three were extensively studied and photographed over Powers Park on April 30th. Since then, however, eBird doesn’t show a single sighting.

Also among the missing:

Cedar Waxwings, usually the last wintering birds to leave us, seem to be gone. There were only seven local reports during the first week in May, and three since. They were last reported on the 15th, when Alicia Johansen saw a flock of 12 at Sweetwater Wetlands Park and Darrell Hartman saw another flock at a blueberry farm near Lake Alto. This was not a big winter for waxwings; that’s two winters in a row with low numbers.

I haven’t seen a Bobolink report in a few days. There was a small flock hanging around the eastern shore of Newnans Lake in the middle of the month – we counted 48 on the 12th and 23 on the 15th – but Lloyd Davis reported only 1 on the 20th, and there’s been nothing since then.

Our Paynes Prairie Whooping Crane stayed with us for almost exactly a year. First noted near Bolen Bluff on April 21, 2016, she was last seen near the Visitor Center on April 14th by Sarasota birder Keith Pochy. I expect she’ll be back, though. She’s visited the Prairie almost annually since 2009.

On the 15th, while searching unsuccessfully for the Sandwich Tern and Common Tern that Lloyd Davis had found the day before, Mike Manetz, Debbie Segal, and I came across a color-flagged Semipalmated Sandpiper at Newnans Lake. Mike got a photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/34368934180/in/dateposted-public/  There’s a “Florida Banded Bird Resightings” Facebook page, and Mike posted the photo there. After some confusion about the flag color – it looked yellow to us, but she insisted that it was “dirty white” – Louise Laurin of the Canadian Wildlife Service informed Mike that it had been banded on July 28, 2016, on the southwest coast of James Bay, Ontario. There’s a lot of shorebird research going on there, and you can see the landscape and some of the birds and researchers at this web site: http://www.jeaniron.ca/2016/JB16/p1.htm  Though the bird has carried the flag for ten months, it obviously found it irritating. In this video – and I apologize for the quality, it was a handheld point-and-shoot on high zoom – you can see it repeatedly stretching and flicking its left leg: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/34295357700/in/dateposted-public/

Though surprising, it was not quite as exciting as the flagged Semipalmated Sandpiper that Rob Norton found at Orange Lake in 2011. Greg Stephens photographed it on 29 July – https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/6015517732/in/album-72157622617268857/ – and after making some inquiries Rob received a photo of the same bird taken immediately after the flag had been applied on the north shore of Alaska on 25 June, only 34 days previously – https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/6032618881/in/album-72157622617268857/

There are still a good number of sandpipers along the eastern shore of Newnans Lake, most of them north of Prairie Creek. Though I’d advise rubber boots, the walking is fairly easy (see a photo from the 15th here). The indefatigable, irrepressible, irreplaceable Lloyd Davis made the walk on the 19th and tallied 4 Black-necked Stilts, 2 Semipalmated Plovers, 2 Killdeer, 7 White-rumped Sandpipers, and 53 Semipalmated Sandpipers, not to mention 2 Roseate Spoonbills.

Inspired by the song of the Wood Thrush, Gainesville’s own Zach Neece has written a really lovely composition for clarinet and piano called “Eternal Morning.” The title is from Thoreau, who noted that the Wood Thrush “is the only bird whose note affects me like music. It lifts and exhilarates me. It is inspiring. It changes all hours to an eternal morning.” And Zach notes that performance of the piece “starts with the house lights dimmed to simulate a dawn chorus”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV-i3lIqYuc&feature=youtu.be

A reminder in case you don’t know about the County Rare Birds web site: It allows you to look up the recent sightings that eBird’s filters have interpreted as rare for any county in North America. In some cases these won’t really be rarities, just birds that trip the numerical filters, but in most cases they’re good birds. The best way to understand what the web site has to offer is to click on the link. Once you’re at the site, use the “Search Your Location” function in the left sidebar to find Alachua County. When the list of rarities comes up, you can click on the location to see a Google Map showing where each bird was seen (usually just a park location), and you can click on the eBird checklist (an 8-digit number preceded by S) for more details on the sighting, including photos if available. Here’s the link: http://countyrarebirds.com/

Summer is about a month away, on June 21st. Hmm, June, June. Is there anything else that happens in June? Seems like there might be….

This morning Kim Chaney sent me a very weird report from Sweetwater Wetlands Park. A Great Blue Heron apparently killed two other Great Blue Herons. A visitor alerted her to it. He’d seen one Great Blue “holding a second Great Blue under the water by the neck and standing on its body. He said that the second one was still alive because he could see it kicking. The visitor said the victor was all puffed up, then flew to the other side of the boardwalk. He had a photo of the one holding the other by the neck.” Bob Carroll, Becky Enneis, and I once saw a Great Blue trying to eat a Pied-billed Grebe at Lake Sampson in Bradford County. It carried the grebe around in its bill like a football for 45 minutes. And I know of two instances of a Great Blue eating a Least Bittern (one photographed here). But all those were for the sake of food. I can’t explain a Great Blue actually killing another Great Blue – and not once but twice! Bizarre.

This morning Lloyd Davis walked east from Powers Park (toward Prairie Creek and then beyond) and found a Sandwich Tern (only the 8th occurrence for Alachua County), a Common Tern, 3 Laughing Gulls, and a late-record Bufflehead. The low water is starting to attract bigger birds too: he had 45 American White Pelicans, 19 Great Egrets, and 18 Wood Storks. Still a lot of shorebirds too, including White-rumped and Stilt Sandpipers and Semipalmated Plovers. The Ruddy Turnstone that Lloyd found on the 12th was not seen again after that date.

This morning (May 12th) Lloyd Davis found Alachua County’s 8th-ever Ruddy Turnstone walking along the eastern shore of Newnans Lake about halfway between the Windsor boat ramp and Prairie Creek. He got a superb photo.

Also this morning, Mike Manetz found a Swainson’s Thrush and a singing American Redstart at San Felasco Hammock. Historically, that’s only the 17th spring record for Swainson’s Thrush in Alachua County – but the third since May 5th!

It’s finally here, and man does it look good: https://www.amazon.com/Peterson-Sounds-Eastern-America-Guides/dp/0547905580/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494525209&sr=8-1&keywords=9780547905587 If you’ve ever wanted to be Mike Manetz, now’s your chance. I notice that Tom Webber of the Florida Museum of Natural History received special thanks on the acknowledgments pages.

Last year’s spring migration peaked April 15-23, which struck me as a little early. This year there were two peaks. The first came at about the time I’d expect, April 23-28, and under normal circumstances the warbler migration would have been largely finished after that. But this year a powerful front blew through on May 4/5, pushing a number of migrants eastward and bringing us a second peak that ran from May 5-8. This later peak included four species that we don’t often see in spring: Swainson’s Thrush, Bay-breasted Warbler, Yellow Warbler, and Black-throated Green Warbler. With the help of eBird and a few observers who emailed me directly I compiled a spreadsheet showing the dates and numbers of selected migrant passerines that came through Alachua County between April 15th and May 11th, and you can look at it here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-AfPcnNxCF_F4G_F1JRNzgK8xJrUXth2DHd7yL_gqhw/edit?usp=sharing (Note the last two columns on the right, one showing the total number of individual migrants reported on a given day, and the other showing the number of species reported.)

At this point it’s likely that passerine migration is over, BUT … of the nine reports of Connecticut Warbler from Alachua County, six came on May 11th or later – in fact, three came after May 20th.

Steve Hofstetter has discovered that his NW Gainesville backyard is a birding hotspot. On the 7th he saw a male Bay-breasted Warbler there: “As it worked its way through a live oak, I was able to watch it for about 20 seconds. I could clearly make out the rusty sides, throat and cap. It made for a strong contract with the cream-colored nape. I could also make out the dark band through the eyes and strong white wing bars. Compared to what they look like in the fall, the contrast in colors make for a beautiful-looking bird and an easy ID. The color of the nape reminded me of a Bobolink.” On the following day he had another unusual visitor, a male Black-throated Green Warbler. As he was admiring it, he made his third remarkable observation in two days: “During this time I kept hearing this loud rattling chip note. I finally found the bird, it was a young Brown-headed Cowbird being fed by a Carolina Chickadee. It was a sad sight and no baby chickadees were anywhere to be found. Cowbirds usually parasitize open-nest species, but on occasion they lay in cavities (i.e., bluebirds, House Wrens, and chickadees). I think it is the first time I’ve seen one being raised by a chickadee. I heard this cowbird calling for over two hours with only temporary breaks (probably when it was being fed). I felt sorry for the chickadee.” I think this is the first such observation for Alachua County.

On the evening of the 7th Mike Manetz and I walked out Hatchet Creek – no longer a creek, but a series of puddles – to the north end of Newnans Lake. Once we got there and started walking east along the lakeshore we found a lot of weedy shallows but not much in the way of mud flats. There were only six shorebirds: 2 Leasts, 2 Lesser Yellowlegs, and 2 Spotted Sandpipers. Two days later Mike and I made another try, walking north from Palm Point along a narrow (sometimes nonexistent) beach almost to the old crew team dock at the end of East University Avenue. We didn’t do much better this time: we saw 22 Lesser Yellowlegs and 4 Spotted Sandpipers. Lloyd Davis had better luck on the 10th, making the long walk south from the Windsor boat ramp to Prairie Creek: he saw 13 White-rumped Sandpipers, 18 Stilt Sandpipers, 12 Spotted Sandpipers, 1 Long-billed Dowitcher (down from a high of 440 on April 21st), 20 Least Sandpipers, 20 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 5 Lesser Yellowlegs, 1 Killdeer, and 2 Black-necked Stilts. So thanks to Lloyd you know where to go, and thanks to me and Mike you know where not to go.

The Alachua Audubon field trip to Jacksonville on May 6th coincided with 50-degree temperatures and 30 mph winds. Consequently we had an uncomfortable and unproductive morning. However we tallied six species of swallows streaming north along the dunes, and Erin Kalinowski spotted a Common Eider sitting on the sand at the mouth of the St. Johns River, which Glenn Price was able to photograph as it was flying away: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/33792798553/in/dateposted-public/ On the same day in another part of Jacksonville, Kevin Dailey saw a flock of Eastern Kingbirds flying north over the St. Johns River, remarkably late for such a large migratory flock, but of a piece with the swallow flight we’d witnessed along the coast, all birds that had been pushed east by the front.

This Saturday morning, county biologist Michael Drummond will lead a walk at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve. Details here: https://alachuaaudubon.org/event/longleaf-flatwoods-reserve-clep/?instance_id=671

Laura Gaudette saw a Brown Pelican at the north end of Newnans Lake on the afternoon of the 5th.

Spring-migrant passerines have been pretty sparse, but on the 5th Debbie Segal saw a Cape May Warbler and a rare-in-spring Swainson’s Thrush at Bolen Bluff; on the 5th Ryan Terrill saw a Blackpoll Warbler and 2 American Redstarts on the UF campus; and on the 4th Martin and Holly Bern saw a Rose-breasted Grosbeak at Newnans Lake State Forest on the trail east of State Road 26 (officially called the Lake Pithlachocco Trailhead). On the 2nd Bob Carroll and I also walked the Lake Pithlachocco Trail, seeing 4 American Redstarts, 1 Cape May Warbler, 1 Black-throated Blue Warbler, and 1 Ovenbird, but I’m linking to my eBird checklist mainly so you can see the photo of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird that Bob found building a nest: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S36483807

On the afternoon of the 4th Mike Manetz and I checked out the Newnans Lake shorebird situation in advance of the rain (which caught us ten minutes before we got back to the car). Starting at the Windsor boat ramp we walked south about two and a half miles through knee-high grass and weeds, which will probably be waist high by next week. We were hoping for something really exciting, but our best birds were a flock of 31 breeding-plumage Stilt Sandpipers, a Semipalmated Plover, and a White-rumped Sandpiper. Lloyd Davis, walking east from Powers Park on the 5th, did a smidge better, with 38 Stilt Sandpipers and 2 White-rumpeds. Though Least Sandpipers are still common – I counted 112 – other species are present only in single and low double digits: 12 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 4 Long-billed Dowitchers, 1 Solitary Sandpiper, 1 Greater Yellowlegs, and 11 Lesser Yellowlegs. Or possibly they’ve moved to the north end of the lake. Has anyone walked in from Gum Root Swamp recently?

Speaking of shorebirds, Linda Hensley and her cousin Polly Wimberly reported seeing the Ruff from Powers Park on the 3rd. That was the first report since the 27th, another reason to think that shorebirds may be congregating somewhere besides the southeastern shore of the lake.

Sunday’s field trip to Powers Park and Palm Point put quality over quantity. We didn’t see a single migrant warbler, possibly because it was another extremely windy day and possibly because they’re just not here. But we did see three Short-tailed Hawks rise up out of the trees along the shoreline between Powers and Lakeshore Drive and drift in our direction until we got close looks at two of them, one hanging up there so still that we were able to put him in the scope as if he were perched. At Palm Point we saw the grisly sight of Black Vultures eating another Black Vulture who was still alive (!). On a more cheerful note, we also saw a pair of Laughing Gulls fly over the road, the nest of a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and yet another Short-tailed Hawk (probably one of the three from Powers) hanging in the air until we’d ogled him to our hearts’ content.

For the past two or three summers, American Robins have nested in Geoff Parks’s NE Gainesville neighborhood. This year he hadn’t noticed a robin since April 5th, and he assumed that the breeding pair had left and wouldn’t be back. But on the evening of the 5th, “to my surprise, as I was heading down 6th Terrace from 23rd Avenue, one was singing loud and clear to the east.”

Tom Webber reports that the American Kestrel nest across the street from the Gainesville Police Department seems to have failed: “I last saw the male on 24 April, the female on 28 April. I’ve checked ten times since the 28th.”

Debora Greger forwarded this article about Europe’s first-ever Red-winged Blackbird. In Florida we ignore them as best we can. In Scotland they charter airplanes to get a look at one: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/01/birdwatchers-flock-orkney-catch-glimpse-american-red-winged-blackbird?CMP=share_btn_link

The Ruff seems to be ranging around the southeastern section of Newnans Lake today. Initially it was at the mouth of Prairie Creek and visible with a scope from Powers Park, but around mid-morning the Ewings (Dean, Ben, and Sam) saw it flush in response to a Bald Eagle and fly north. At 10:30 Glenn Price got this great photo “more towards the Windsor boat ramp”: http://www.raptorcaptor.com/Nature/Recent/i-5VnqxtM/A

Early this afternoon Mitch Walters had his own Ruff tale to tell: “Couldn’t resist, had to get in on this Ruff action. I was just there with Andy Kratter, Adam Kent, and Co. at Powers Park. At first I brought my scope, saw Andy and a couple of others out there on their kayaks getting REALLY close to the bird. I then texted Andy if I could borrow his kayak to take some shots of the bird. To my surprise he said YES. So I rushed back to my house, grabbed my camera gear and returned to Powers where I swapped with Andy. It got overcast, so I had to take my ISO to about 1000-1250, so a little grainy. Glad I didn’t scare it off, I was so nervous I would do that and upset all the spectators (because at one point the birds did flush for some reason, but I swear it wasn’t me). But wow, what a bird and what an experience!! Thanks Andy for the kayak.” One of Mitch’s outstanding photos shows the extent of the iridescence; it runs from the nape to the upper breast. This is one studly Ruff: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/33436404323/in/dateposted-public/

Since we’re on the topic of shorebirds, Mike Manetz found 12 species at the end of the La Chua Trail this morning, the most notable being 5 Stilt Sandpipers, a White-rumped Sandpiper, a Semipalmated Plover, and a Semipalmated Sandpiper. Lloyd Davis photographed two Semipalmated Plovers (originally found by Jennifer Donsky) on the 19th: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/34245627205/in/dateposted-public/

Still, yes, still on the topic of shorebirds, Mike writes, “Ran into Lloyd today and apparently the other day he made it all the way out Hatchet Creek to the north end on foot, past the old decayed pilings. He said there was mud out there, but no shorebirds. With us missing the predicted rain yesterday and today, and very little predicted the rest of the week, both Newnans and La Chua could get much more interesting.” Back in 2000 and 2012, the trail following Hatchet Creek out to the lakefront was well trodden, and many great birds were found out there, including first-county-record Sanderling, Ruddy Turnstone, and Hudsonian Godwit, and one of the county’s four Buff-breasted Sandpipers. The parking area – unfortunately gated by the St. Johns River Water Management District – is shown on this map. It’s on the east side of State Road 26 a little south of the junction with County Road 222. (Note that this is NOT the same place as Gum Root Park.) Park as best you can near the gate, follow the trail in to the open area, cut left and continue past the picnic shelter, do NOT cross the bridge (also marked on the map), and follow the creek all the way out to the lake. Keep your eyes and ears open for Acadian Flycatchers and Prothonotary Warblers, both of which nest out there.

(Of course now that I’ve devoted all this time to shorebirds, it’ll rain like crazy for the next week.)

Mike also found 60 Bobolinks out at the end of La Chua this morning. They should be passing through for another three or four weeks, unless the drought has affected the Southern Wild Rice that they feed on. They can often be seen from fairly close range at Sweetwater Wetlands Park.

This weekend’s field trips were, well … not entirely worth attending. Saturday’s Cedar Key trip didn’t lay eyes on a single tanager, bunting, grosbeak, cuckoo, or oriole. We saw only six warbler species, three of them spring migrants. We did stumble across a mixed flock of shorebirds – Short-billed Dowitchers, Dunlin, Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones, Least Sandpipers, Spotted Sandpiper – which we ogled from point-blank range at the Old Fenimore Mill condos. But there was little else to look at, and by the time we got to the State Museum half of our participants had gone home. Their departure satisfied the birding gods, who, having received their sacrifice, finally yielded up a few birds: a Prairie Warbler, male and female Blackpoll Warblers, male and female Cape May Warblers, and two Red-breasted Nuthatches. (Thanks to Ching-tzu Huang for the photos!)

Sunday’s field trip to Kanapaha Botanical Gardens also started out unpromising, but then picked up. Mike Manetz wrote, “Fairly slow until we came upon a tall tree called silky oak which was flowering and loaded with insects. In that tree we had four Cape May, a Blackpoll, two Palms and a Parula, all fairly in the open. The tree is not far from the garden house, going out the exit to the right.” Mike’s trip nearly did better in that one tree than we did in four hours at Cedar Key!

Bubba Scales has been having fun with his Go Pro video camera. He sets it up near a feeder or birdbath and later views the footage and edits it down to a video. Here’s one that shows a Cape May Warbler and a Gray Catbird coming to a jelly feeder in NW Gainesville on the 21st: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQWEcwbXf0E&feature=youtu.be

And here’s one of a male Painted Bunting in his SE Gainesville back yard on the 9th: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nfCq69UFSc

And speaking of pretty birds, even pretty birds that aren’t here any more, I just discovered two great photos of this winter’s Scissor-tailed Flycatcher by Mitch Walters:

Yesterday afternoon Cindy Boyd emailed that she could see the Ruff with a scope from the Powers Park pier, “pretty much right at the mouth of Prairie Creek” (if you’re standing at the end of the pier looking straight out at the lake, Prairie Creek is off to your right). This morning Dave Gagne called to say that it’s still there, visible with a spotting scope.

Something that Matt Bruce and I didn’t see when we discovered the bird, which others have noticed since, is the beautiful iridescence on the side of the bird’s neck, visible in this Jonathan Mays photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmays/34187987465/in/datetaken/

You won’t be able to see the iridescence from Powers Park, but if you don’t have a boat it’s your best bet for seeing the Ruff.

It happens regularly that one or two Mississippi Kites are reported before mid-April, but the majority tend to wait till the second half of the month to move in. Most show up after April 20th, making them one of our latest arrivals. Carol Wooley reported one at the western edge of Gainesville during the first weekend of March and Cindy Boyd saw one in east Gainesville on March 31st, but there were no more sightings until one appeared on its customary perch in a pine tree in Trina Anderson’s SW Gainesville yard on April 11th. Four more were seen over the next eight days, and then six showed up on the 20th. So they’re here on schedule, and anyone who regularly watches the sky over the next week is likely to spot one.

Migrant shorebirds are arriving. Jennifer Donsky found three Semipalmated Plovers at La Chua Trail on the 19th. Matt Bruce and I saw a Semipalmated Sandpiper at Newnans Lake on the 21st, and on the same date Mike Manetz found a White-rumped Sandpiper – an early record for the county by four days – at La Chua. And you might have heard something about a Ruff. As I told you, Matt got better photos of the Ruff than I did: https://www.flickr.com/photos/7553931@N02/33370716843/in/datetaken/

While Mike Manetz was walking out La Chua on the 21st he also saw eight male Bobolinks.

One of Bubba Scales’s Wild Birds Unlimited customers informed him that a trio of Cape May Warblers had been coming to her grape jelly feeder since the 17th. Bubba visited on the 21st and confirmed the ID.

Still no Blackpoll Warblers. If you’re working on a county year list, you want to make a special effort to see Cape May, Blackpoll, and Bobolink during spring migration, because they’re not easy to find in fall.

Scott Robinson spotted a Scarlet Tanager at Split Rock Park on the 9th and found it still there on the 15th.

Matt Bruce heard an Acadian Flycatcher singing from a swampy area near Lake Lochloosa on the 8th.

Karl Miller reported a Red-breasted Nuthatch at Swallowtail Farm on the 8th. It looked for a while like we were going to have another invasion winter, with two reported in October and two more in November, but then they dried up. Two wintered at Cedar Key, and they’re still being seen, so we’ll look for them on Saturday’s field trip.

Every morning on his way to work, Tom Webber checks out the American Kestrel nest across 8th Avenue from the Gainesville Police Department. Lately he’s been seeing only “the tip of the female’s tail in the entrance to the nest cavity,” which suggests that she’s still incubating.

On the afternoon of the 20th Laura Predny wrote, “The Swallow-tailed kites over Tuscawilla Preserve are multiplying. Today I am counting 14. I might be off by 1 or 2, but at least a dozen. They’re putting on a beautiful show. It can probably be viewed best at Thrasher Park. They’ve been out there most afternoons lately.” Thrasher Park (AKA the entrance to Tuscawilla Preserve) is across from the Native American Heritage Preserve in Micanopy. Here’s a map: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NfvCyXiSUddvfMWVcUjohqdrJxY&usp=sharing