Tag: Black-bellied Whistling-Duck

Looniness, a profusion of siskins, and more spring arrivals

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

I can tell it’s spring because I found three ticks crawling on me after a “Sneaky Sunday” visit to the sheetflow restoration area this morning. I mentioned this to Mike Manetz as we were leaving. “You’re a tick magnet,” he said.

Mike and I discovered that most of the ducks at the sheetflow restoration area have gone north. When I was last there, in January, I counted 18 species of ducks. This morning we saw only two, Blue-winged Teal and Black-bellied Whistling Duck. However there were a few spring arrivals: two Black-necked Stilts, a Northern Rough-winged Swallow, and, running a little early, the spring’s first Least Bitterns, three of them. The most interesting sightings otherwise included half a dozen Limpkins, 19 Long-billed Dowitchers, and a White-faced Ibis.

Pine Siskins began to show up at feeders all over Alachua County about the middle of the month. If you’ve got American Goldfinches at your place, look for a streaky bird among them with an extra-pointy bill and yellow in the wings, like this one that Sam Ewing photographed in his NW Gainesville yard on the 13th: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/16617935550/ Ron Robinson tells me that he presently has 10 to 15 siskins visiting his feeders. They can be very common some winters. Jack Connor wrote in The Crane for February 1978, “So far, 1978 has been The Year of the Pine Siskin. The little finch, which hadn’t been seen in the county since the winter of 1974-75, has been building in numbers all winter. On the Christmas Count there were eleven; by New Year’s every goldfinch flock seemed to have at least one or two siskins in its midst; by mid-January many mixed flocks were mostly siskins and groups of 20, 30, and even 50 siskins were being counted. Some kind of climax may have been reached the other day when a local birder received a call from a woman who wanted to know how to get rid of Pine Siskins – they were taking over her feeder.” That year the siskins remained well into spring, with the last being seen on May 10th. The county’s late record is June 8th.

Great Crested Flycatchers seem to be at least ten days earlier than usual this spring. Andy Kratter heard one on the 17th and Bryan Tarbox another on the 18th, and Austin Gregg saw one on the 20th, all on the UF campus. Mike Manetz had one in his yard on the 21st.

The loon migration finally got underway on the 18th. Andy Kratter had seen one loon flying over on the 9th, but nothing in the days that followed. On the 18th, however, he saw a single at 9:10, another at 9:15, and then a flock of 15 at 9:30. This is a great instance of what the Brits call “vismig,” the visible migration of birds. Did I write about this on my Gainesville Sun blog? Why yes, yes I did. Remember that Andy will give an informative talk on loon migration at 6:30 in the evening of Monday the 23rd at the Millhopper Branch Library. He’s been watching the cross-Florida loon migration for twelve years now, so it ought to be a particularly interesting program.

Speaking of loons, if you read my *other* blog post (ahem), you know that Mike Manetz and I went looking for the Pacific Loon on Lake Santa Fe, but found no evidence that it had returned for a third winter.

Jacqui Sulek of Audubon of Florida writes, “Scrub-Jay Watch training will take place on May 30th down in Marion County … just 30 (or so) minutes away from you all. We have had other volunteers from Gainesville but surprisingly little participation from Alachua Audubon. Training is half a day and takes place in the field. Surveys take place approximately June 15-July 15 for those who want to participate. Folks who want to participate should contact me at jsulek@audubon.org ”

If you’re interested in going to Cuba this September and participating in a photo contest, have I got the link for you! https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4E7iNkfaDyUVElibkUxcDJqVWNXR3FiMjVPbVdEZ20xLXdz/view?usp=sharing

Looks like a fall migration to me

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Rufous Hummingbirds have already returned to two local feeders. Both are adult males. One that’s been visiting Mike Manetz’s yard since the 11th is wearing a little silver bracelet, so it’s probably the same bird that Fred Bassett banded there in January; Mike got a photo. Just across the Gilchrist County line, one has been coming to Jim Allison’s feeder since the 12th. Both of these beat the county’s previous early arrival date by about two weeks; that was an adult male that Greg Hart saw at his place in Alachua on August 25, 2003.

Mike Manetz, Bob Carroll, and I checked for shorebirds at Hague Dairy on July 17th. There was plenty of water, but the vegetation was too high for shorebirds; they prefer the unobstructed view provided by mud flats and other vegetation-free landscapes. In the four weeks since then, all the vegetation has been mowed down, and when the Ewings (father Dean, sons Caleb, Benjamin, and Samuel) visited on the 14th they found seven shorebird species: “5 Lesser Yellowlegs, 4 Semipalmated Plovers, 9 Least Sandpipers, 5 Pectorals, 3 Solitaries, 1 Spotted, and best of all 6 Stilt Sandpipers!” Samuel got a photo of all six Stilts: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/14730385127/ All were in the same spot as last year, the northwest corner of the lagoon. A Laughing Gull was out there as well. Remember that a Short-billed Dowitcher and a Wilson’s Phalarope were recorded there last August, so it would be worthwhile to check back frequently.

Samuel has been watching the sky from his NW Gainesville neighborhood, and it paid off on the 15th with a pair of Eastern Kingbirds and a Cliff Swallow, our first fall migrants of both species.

Mike Manetz and I found nine warbler species at San Felasco Hammock on the 14th as we walked the Moonshine Creek and Creek Sink Trails, including one Worm-eating, single Louisiana and Northern Waterthrushes, 3 Black-and-whites, 2 Prothonotaries, 2 Kentuckies, 7 Hoodeds, 3 American Redstarts, and 10 Northern Parulas.

John Killian sneaked out to the sheet flow restoration area on the 12th in hopes of seeing the Buff-breasted Sandpiper that Matt O’Sullivan and I found on the 10th, but it had moved on. He writes, “I did see a Roseate Spoonbill, half a dozen each of Spotted and Solitary Sandpipers, 3 Pectoral Sandpipers, 9 Black Terns, and a Laughing Gull. There must be about 100 Black-bellied Whistling ducks out there as well.”

Speaking of Black Terns, I saw a flock of 14 at Newnans Lake during the stormy weather on the evening of the 14th.

Bob Carroll went to Arizona in late July. He’s telling the story on his blog. In order:

http://bobsgonebirding.blogspot.com/2014/08/birding-in-arizona-and-new-mexico.html

http://bobsgonebirding.blogspot.com/2014/08/part-2-silver-city-nm-and-road-to-portal.html

I expect another installment any day now.

Don’t forget to keep up the pressure on the County Commission in regards to Barr Hammock. Email the Commission at bocc@alachuacounty.us and urge them to keep the loop open.

There’s an election coming up on the 26th. I don’t know whether Lee Pinkoson or Harvey Ward is the better candidate overall, but I can tell you that Ward has declared himself to be against both the Plum Creek project and the Barr Hammock trail closure, while Pinkoson has not.

Adventures in Challenging! and exciting breeding news!

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

June Challenge party details! Becky Enneis writes, “The June Challenge Party is coming up soon, on Tuesday, July 1, at 6 p.m. Please attend and bring a covered dish (preferably with food already in it!). I’ll have sodas, wine, and beer on hand. Also, please bring a lawn chair. I have just a few available.” If you plan to join us at Becky’s, please RSVP to me so we can prepare. And also remember to send me your total by midnight on June 30th.

Bob and Erika Simons invited me to go canoeing on Newnans Lake with them this morning. All three of us needed Limpkin for our June Challenge lists, and Erika also needed Prothonotary Warbler. In addition we were hoping for Laughing Gulls, maybe a tern, and a Ruddy Duck that Chris Burney had seen out there early in the month. We launched the canoe from Owens-Illinois Park in Windsor and paddled along the shore to the northern end of the lake (beyond the Hatchet Creek outlet but not as far as Little Hatchet Creek and Gum Root Swamp) before heading back on a beeline due to developing storm clouds. We found our Limpkins easily enough – 14 of them, including three downy chicks – and Erika got her Prothonotaries – we had 7 total. Other sightings included an adult Purple Gallinule with its full-grown chick and at least one adult Bald Eagle. No gulls or terns, however. And most frustrating, I heard a Louisiana Waterthrush, tying the early record for the county – but I never saw it, so I can’t put it on my June Challenge list. But you can bet I’ll be looking for a Louisiana elsewhere during the week that remains in the Challenge.

Geoff Parks reports that at least one pair of American Robins appears to be nesting in his NE Gainesville neighborhood. If confirmed, this would be the first instance of breeding ever recorded in Alachua County. Geoff writes that June Challengers are welcome to visit, with some caveats: “The birds are spending most of their time on NE 6th Terrace about midway between the northernmost speed bump and NE 23rd Ave., especially around the white house on the west side of the road with the chain-link fence. The people who live there are friendly and had noticed the robins too. They aren’t against people coming to see the birds but they don’t want anyone knocking on the door or trespassing. It’s okay for people to park in my driveway (2024 NE 6th Terrace – yellow house near the speed bump) and walk up the street to see the birds, provided that they: 1) don’t knock on my door, since my wife works from home, and 2) don’t block in my Camry if it’s there. Alternatively, people could park and get something to eat at The Jones or David’s BBQ (at NE 23rd Avenue and 2nd Street) and then walk down, since it’s not far. Often, with some luck, a slow drive-by is all that is needed, since there’s often at least one bird foraging in a front yard or perched on the fence near the street. There may actually be more than just the pair in the neighborhood: the neighbors said they’d seen ‘3 or 4’ birds. I’m really hoping these birds will successfully fledge some young, which they seem to be very hard at work trying to do, so I hope folks will not distract them from their work by harassing them with endless playback – it’s hardly necessary in any event, since the birds are generally quite vocal and conspicuous.” I went over at lunchtime today, pulled up in front of the white house described by Geoff, and in slightly less than half an hour saw the male bird gathering food in the back yard and then flying off with it.

Belted Kingfisher is a hard bird to find during the summer months, but Craig Parenteau saw one on the 23rd, “along the main canal beside La Chua (where there is open water above the water control structure). Its plumage looked very fresh and dapper. Hope your June Challenge folks get to see it. There were also many King Rails, Purple Gallinules, and Least Bitterns – a real bonanza. Wish I could get confirmation of Least Bittern offspring, though.”

On the morning of the 23rd Mike Manetz had a second sighting of a Broad-winged Hawk in the same location as the first: “As I came south on County Road 235A and turned right on Peggy Road I could see a raptor perched very uncomfortably on the wires about where the third guard rail on the left would be. As I got a little closer I could see it was a Broad-winged. I pulled over to the right to get a photo but it flew across the street into the woods, where I think it’s probably nesting. If you post this please include that folks should stay off the Dollar General side of the road.”

Also on the morning of the 23rd, Bob and Erika Simons and I went looking for June Challenge birds at the southeastern end of the county. At Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve we found a Bachman’s Sparrow singing near the parking corral, and a Common Yellowthroat and a trio of Brown-headed Nuthatches on the back side of the White Loop. We couldn’t locate an Eastern Wood-Pewee. We drove on to Lake Lochloosa and scanned unsuccessfully for Bald Eagles and Laughing Gulls from the covered pier at the boat launch. Bob suggested that we drive to the metal fishing pier at the Lochloosa Conservation Area, and there we found an adult Bald Eagle perched on a tree overlooking the lakeshore.

Barbara Woodmansee and her husband walked out La Chua on the 22nd: “We were able to make it all the way out to the tower at the end of La Chua, where a real live adult Yellow-crowned Night-Heron was waiting for me (yay) under the tower. We did have thick mud up to the edges of our boot tops, but it was worth it. I counted 20 Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, which we saw fly into the bare trees across the lake near the pavilion to roost. It was so pretty out there with a nice breeze and a purple sky from a storm that never came in.”

Barbara and I spotted an interesting Blue Grosbeak at the beginning of Sweetwater Dike on the 21st. The patches of blue and brown made me think that it was a year-old male, but it appeared to be delivering nesting material to a brushy area on the edge of the dike where an adult male Blue Grosbeak was already perched. Why would the adult not chase the young male off? Why would the young male be carrying nesting material? I wonder whether Blue Grosbeaks ever practice cooperative breeding: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/14492738644/

I was at La Chua on two evenings last week, and both times saw a flying bird that resembled (to my eye) a Bobolink. Dalcio Dacol may have seen it too, as part of what sounds like a productive morning’s birding on the 20th: “This morning, around 8:50 AM at La Chua Trail, I was walking along the boardwalk and just before I got to the shelter on the smaller sink I caught a glimpse of a bird taking off to my left. I turned around and was able to get a view as the bird was flying away from me. I did not see the head, the bird was straw colored, close to the size of a Red-winged Blackbird but of slimmer built and flew with the bobbing almost finch-like pattern typical of Bobolinks. If it were April I wouldn’t have hesitated in calling it a female Bobolink. I had the impression that the bird was on that scrub along the boardwalk. It didn’t fly too high but it continued flying in along the trail and eventually crossed over the water channel that brings water to the large sink. I rushed to the channel bank across from the area where the bird landed but was unable to locate the bird. Other than that I had 6 Glossy Ibis at the observation platform and two Yellow-crowned Night Herons, one adult and one immature plus the usual birds. I have never seen so many King Rails, Least Bitterns and Purple Gallinules in a single spring season as I have seen this year.”

I’ve mentioned organized birding tours a couple of times but only a few people have shown interest. I’m going to try again, with a more exotic locale. Former FWC herpetologist and long-time Alachua Audubon membership chair Paul Moler recently sent me an email: “As you know, for the last 7 years I’ve been participating in annual biodiversity surveys in various parts of southern Vietnam. One of the participants in 2012 and again this year was a gentleman who leads birding tours, both through tour agencies and independently. He is both very knowledgeable and a very pleasant fellow. Over the course of this year’s outing we had some discussions about tour costs. Total costs and area coverage would, of course, depend upon duration of the tour, but a 10-day tour would cost something less than $2000 (likely closer to $1500), food, local transportation, and lodging inclusive. Air fare currently would be roughly $1800 from Gainesville, $1500 from Jacksonville, and $1300 from Orlando. Travel would take a couple of days each way, so a 10-day tour would take about 14-15 days total travel time.” Paul emphasizes that he has no financial interest in this company. Let me know if you’d like more information about a guided birding trip to this part of the world.

How recently have you driven across Paynes Prairie on US-441? Right now the pickerelweed is in bloom, creating huge swaths of vivid purple, highlighted here and there by the bright yellow of an American lotus. The light seems to be ideal – the purple especially intense – at about 11 a.m.

I don’t know if anyone noticed, but the county closed the Levy Lake Loop for maintenance the day after I told you about Chris Cattau’s sighting of a probable American Bittern out there.

You are what you eat

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

People are always asking me, “What’s your favorite bird?” This is the one day in the year when I can answer that question without a moment’s hesitation: my favorite bird is the one in the oven.

The UF Beef Unit goose found on the 27th and identified by Samuel Ewing as a Ross’s Goose appears to be … just what Samuel said it was, a Ross’s Goose. John Hintermister went to look at it on the 27th and Rob Norton saw it on the 28th (this morning), and both agree that it’s a Ross’s and that it shows no signs of being a hybrid. John Martin got a nice video of the bird on the 27th.

Speaking of waterfowl, Adam Zions counted 177 Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks at the Red Lobster Pond on the 23rd. They seem to congregate there in big numbers during the cold months – more than 500 a couple of years ago!

Mike Manetz had a Selasphorus hummingbird in his NW Gainesville yard on the 23rd. Several Ruby-throateds are still hanging around as well; Ron Robinson has two of them at his place in west Gainesville. He’s been in touch with Fred Dietrich, a hummingbird bander in Tallahassee, so if you’ve got a hummingbird in your yard and you’d like it identified and banded, let me know and I’ll pass the information along.

Upon hearing that John Killian had found a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher on the 22nd, Kathy Malone grabbed her camera and ran right out to see it and take a few pictures, and it’s good that she did – when she returned on the following day it was gone. But one of her pictures was a definite keeper.

Pat Burns has had some good luck at Cedar Key lately. On the 27th she wrote to one of the listservs, “A Western Kingbird has been present since 11/17/13 in the vicinity of a cell tower on the right side of CR-347 approximately 4.2 miles north of SR- 24. I saw 8 Red Knots, 87 Marbled Godwits,7 Black Scoters plus hundreds of shorebirds, gulls & terns from the beach, Sanspit Park & the pier in downtown Cedar Key.”

I’ve linked to this video a couple of times before. It’s primitive and perhaps a bit juvenile, but I think it communicates the fun and cameraderie of birding very well in its two minutes. I especially enjoy the bit, from 0:31 to 0:36, in which a birder fails to produce a promised rarity for his friends and pays the price: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u-IONrDmUY

Hope that never happens to you. Happy Thanksgiving from the Alachua County birding report!

Weekend update

Posted on by Rex Rowan

In case you haven’t heard the news, Florida’s second-ever Townsend’s Solitaire was at Honeymoon Island today. It was found around 9:00 this morning and was still being seen as late as 3:30. Watch eBird or the state listservs for updates.

The Alachua Audubon field trip to the Hague Dairy on the 2nd started out well, with two Bronzed Cowbirds directly across the driveway from the office. But then things took a turn for the worse, and we went for a good two hours, maybe three, without seeing much of interest. The dairy grounds had recently been mowed, leaving little in the way of tall grasses, weeds, or brush to shelter birds, and that probably had a lot to do with it. Anyway, at about 11:30 we started around the lagoon, and at that point our luck took a screeching turn for the better. On a floating mat of scum (more vivid words are available but not family friendly) we spotted four Killdeer, two Least Sandpipers, and a late Pectoral Sandpiper. A family group of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks was paddling in a scum-free zone nearby. Dan Maico spotted a Merlin sitting on top of a snag at the west end of the lagoon, and it allowed us a very close approach and extended ogling. A flock of five American Pipits flew over. As we approached the little wetland that borders the lagoon on the north, Dan spied the best bird of the day, a young male Dickcissel, one of only about twenty ever recorded in the county. It was a shy bird, and it ducked out of sight shortly after it was found. Although it came out into the open a couple more times, it didn’t stay in view for long and not everyone got a look at it. But as we stood around waiting for it, we did see a female Painted Bunting mixed in with a handful of late-migrant Indigo Buntings. It was our last good sighting of the day, though we spent a few minutes trying unsuccessfully to locate a Yellow-headed Blackbird that Mike Manetz had seen while we were occupied in discovering the Dickcissel.

Early November is the expected arrival time for waterfowl. Northern Pintail, Gadwall, Ruddy Ducks, and Green-winged Teal have recently been reported at Paynes Prairie, joining the Blue-winged Teal that have been there since August. A different sort of waterfowl was spied by Andy Kratter on the morning of the 31st: “Just had a very early and locally very rare Red-throated Loon fly over my place in Gainesville, and strangely it was heading west to east. Good looks at thin neck, small bill held above horizontal, small feet, head held below body. Just plain weird.” I think this is only about the fifth record for the county.

Samuel Ewing saw the fall’s first American Robins flying over his NW Gainesville home on the 2nd. Although they don’t normally descend on our yards until January and February, we see the first flocks of southbound robins going high overhead in late October or early November, so these are right on time. Geoff Parks saw an even earlier one on October 13th, but he speculated that it was the same one that visited his yard on July 29th. The nearest known breeding population of robins is in Tallahassee, but we’ve had a number of midsummer sightings over the years, and I can’t help but wonder….

I haven’t heard of a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher sighting since Nathan Langwald photographed it on the 28th. Is it still there? Or did it just stay for a week and then move on south?

Migrants and summer birds aren’t entirely gone, though their days are numbered. At dusk on the 26th Adam and Gina Kent tallied 740 Chimney Swifts going into a chimney downtown, and got an impressive video, while Jonathan Mays saw 29 over La Chua on the 2nd. Adam and Gina saw yet another swift, as well as two Tennessee Warblers, at their SE Gainesville home on the 3rd. A very late Bobolink was seen by several birders at La Chua on the 1st. And the Hague Dairy field trip found one or two Northern Waterthrushes and an American Redstart.

Migrant shorebirds at the Hague Dairy

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

It feels like late summer, but the season is barely a month old. The birds’ breeding activity continues, but on a smaller scale, and more quietly. Purple Martins and Northern Rough-winged Swallows appear to have gone south for the winter, and Common Grackles aren’t so common any more. A lot of the birds are molting; if you look carefully at crows and Mississippi Kites as they fly over, you’ll see notches and gaps in their wings and tails where old feathers have fallen out and new ones are growing in. And the fall migrants are starting to show up in numbers.

On the 27th Mike Manetz wrote, “I checked the dairy this morning. The field north of the lagoon is fairly well flooded. Waders were in double digits … Snowies, Little Blues, White and Glossy Ibis, over a dozen Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks and a couple of Mottleds. Also present were Four Pectoral, four Least, and two each of Spotted and Solitary Sandpipers. This area will probably be our best shorebird viewing spot this fall. There was also a fairly large blackbird concentration for this time of year, with maybe a few hundred birds, including about 50 Brown-headed Cowbirds. House Sparrows must have had a successful breeding year, I counted 65, but there were probably more than that.” John Hintermister and I stopped in for about an hour and a half that evening and saw many of the same birds, but our count of Brown-headed Cowbirds was much higher; John estimated 400+, which is extraordinary for this time of year. Our shorebird counts were Killdeer 4, Spotted Sandpiper 3, Solitary Sandpiper 9, Semipalmated Sandpiper 1, Least Sandpiper 4, Pectoral Sandpiper 4.

On the morning of the 28th Mike visited Palm Point: “The lake is pretty high, coming within an average of ten feet from the road, closer in some places. Saw six warbler species, including a Louisiana Waterthrush, an American Redstart, and 4 Prairie Warblers.”

I walked out La Chua on the morning of the 27th with Jacksonville bird photographer Phil Graham. We had a pretty good day, given the time of year, finding 50 bird species. We saw family groups of Orchard Orioles and Blue Grosbeaks, a handful of singing Indigo Buntings, several Purple Gallinules, a Least Bittern, and a few migrants – seven or more Prairie Warblers, a Black-and-white Warbler, and a flyover Yellow Warbler, the first of the fall. The water is extremely high everywhere, though there’s no danger yet of the trail being flooded. As wet as it is, I expected to see many water birds, but the numbers were pretty low. Also few in number were the normally-abundant Boat-tailed Grackles, which for some mysterious reason have been uncommon on the Prairie all summer.

Phil and I ran into out-of-towners Marthe Fethe and Nancy Deehan on the platform at La Chua. They’d read my description of Watermelon Pond in the last birding report and told me they planned to visit that afternoon. Later I got an email from Nancy: “It is truly the beautiful, serene place you described.” See? Would I steer you wrong? Check it out yourself. Send me a picture.

Golden-fronted Woodpeckers, native to Texas and Mexico, are occasionally reported by puzzled Florida birders. They always turn out to be Red-bellied Woodpeckers with a pigmentary condition called xanthochroism in which red is replaced with yellow. Glenn Price recently got a terrific video of one of these oddities at his feeder, showing its golden crown and yellow belly. In a Golden-fronted Woodpecker the central tail feathers are black, and in a Red-bellied, like this bird, they’re white with black barring: http://www.raptorcaptor.com/Nature/Video/30733856_xKjqcT#!i=2656753589&k=xrKTvQX&lb=1&s=A

The State of Tennessee is considering a hunting season on Sandhill Cranes, including migrants en route to Florida. Please consider sending a brief email to register your opinion. If there’s sufficient public outcry, we may be able to prevent this from happening. Here’s a fact sheet that includes contact information for the proper officials.

In my last birding report I mentioned that Save Loblolly Woods has a Facebook page. They also have a web site, for those like me who are struggling grimly along without Facebook: http://saveloblollywoods.org/

Barn Owl? We got yer Barn Owl right here

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

I hadn’t heard of anyone staking out the US-441 observation platform for Barn Owls this month, so at 7:30 Wednesday evening Ron Robinson and I met there to see what would fly by as the sun went down. There wasn’t much to look at – a couple of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, half a dozen Sandhill Cranes (including a couple of full-grown juveniles), a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, a bunch of Red-winged Blackbirds – and as it got darker and darker I was afraid we were going to be skunked. But at 8:50 we spotted a Barn Owl flying around, and at 8:55 a Black-crowned Night-Heron popped up from the willows south of the platform. Both were new June Challenge birds for us.

Ron and Greg Hart and I visited a bunch of birding spots on Tuesday morning. We started at the Newberry cemetery, which I’d never visited before. The Eastern Wood-Pewee was singing as we opened the car door, and within thirty seconds we had it in view. Northern Flicker and White-winged Dove were almost as easy to find. Then we headed east to north Gainesville, where Ron had found a family of Pied-billed Grebes on Monday. He was driving past a retention pond at the intersection of NE 35th Avenue and NE 4th Street (which, despite the “NE,” is actually a block west of Main Street) when he spotted the birds in the water, an adult and eight almost-grown chicks. From there we went all the way to the southeastern end of the county, to see if anything unusual was at River Styx or Lake Lochloosa. We got a Prothonotary Warbler at River Styx and a Bald Eagle at Lochloosa, but nothing else of note. Then it was back to Gainesville, to check Lake Alice for a Belted Kingfisher that Frank and Irina Goodwin had seen there on Sunday. We waited for fifteen minutes, and though we saw a Swallow-tailed Kite we never saw the kingfisher (which doesn’t mean it’s not there). Our last stop was Possum Creek Park, where we found a juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-Heron in a shady recess of a buttonbush thicket.

Frank Goodwin and I splashed into Gum Root Swamp on Monday morning in search of Prothonotary Warbler, Yellow-throated Vireo, and Barred Owl. The vireos, a pair of them, were right there in the parking lot. The Barred Owl was perched over the creek just beyond the first bridge. But to get to the warbler we had to get our feet wet – all the way up to mid-thigh. It turned out to be a really lovely experience. The mosquitoes had been bothering us in the uplands, but when we entered the water we left them behind. The air was cool. And our surroundings were green and beautiful. When we got out to the edge of the lake we found our Prothonotary, who sang unceasingly and came close enough for Frank to get a picture. And there were a couple of surprises. We discovered the hot-pink egg clusters of the exotic Island Apple Snail in Hatchet Creek for the first time ever and, not coincidentally, discovered their chief predator shortly thereafter – a bird that’s becoming fairly common at Newnans Lake because of the snails’ exploding population. And when I idly kicked at a knot on a rotten cypress tree lying on the ground, I uncovered the one and only Rough Earthsnake I’ve seen in my life. Sure, it’s small and nondescript, but it was the most exciting moment of the day for me. I submitted Frank’s photo to the museum’s herpetology department as an “image voucher,” because – and this will give you some idea how uncommonly they’re found – they have only one specimen collected since 1970.

On Tuesday, Becky Enneis found Black-bellied Whisting-Ducks and an American Coot at Home Depot Pond, off Tower Road just south of Newberry Road. And as long as you’re in that neighborhood, don’t forget the Graylag Geese at Red Lobster Pond. And once you’ve seen them, head over to the Duck Pond for the Black Swans. The geese and swans aren’t really countable, but they belong on your June Challenge list. Why? Because, just because. I’ll tell you when you’re older.

Danny Shehee writes, “I was birding around the wetland area at Magnolia Park just beyond the open field. I met a young woman looking for her Quaker Parrot [Monk Parakeet] named Rio, he`s a small parrot. She said he would come if he heard his name called. Her name is Lilia and her number is 352-870-2711. I thought the birding community might just happen to see him.”

Your weekend: places to go, birds to see

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Anne Kendall got a hot tip a couple of days ago: “I ran into Howard Adams and Barbara Mollison on the La Chua Trail on Wednesday and they told me they had found Eastern Wood-Pewee, Northern Flicker, and White-winged Dove in the Newberry Cemetery, so I went out there this morning and easily got all three – I’ve been to Northeast Park five times looking for the flicker with no luck, so was happy to get it in Newberry.” All three can be tough to get in June, so this is very helpful information. To get to the cemetery, take Newberry Road west to, you guessed it, Newberry, turn left onto US-41/27, go 0.5 mile to SW 15th Avenue, turn right, and go 0.6 mile to the T, where you turn left into the cemetery.

Samuel Ewing found a Greater Yellowlegs at Powers Park today. I think that’s only the third June record for the county. Here’s a link to Samuel’s eBird checklist, which is illustrated with a few nice photos: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S14418030

Mike Manetz told me on Wednesday that he was going to try for the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron at Possum Creek Park, and asked if I was interested. I picked him up and we headed to the park, which is on NW 53rd Avenue just east of NW 43rd Street – opposite Trinity United Methodist Church. We parked at the west end of the property, near the skate park, and then walked southeast across the open field to the gate at the back corner, where a trail leads down a wooded slope to Possum Creek and a little pond grown with buttonbush, home to a heron rookery (mostly Little Blue Herons, with one or two pairs of Green Herons and Snowy Egrets). Adam Zions was there ahead of us, and we spent two hours standing around, waiting for the Yellow-crowned to show itself. Glenn Israel arrived at 8:10, but his wife was waiting for him in the parking lot, so he left at about 8:15 – approximately sixty seconds before the Yellow-crowned flew in from the north and landed in the buttonbush thicket. A minute later it emerged, flew across the pond, and landed in a dead tree just a few yards to our right. Be sure not to mention this to Glenn.

I still haven’t seen a Black-crowned Night-Heron in June, but Anne Kendall tells me she saw one at River Styx, along with a Prothonotary Warbler.

Mike Manetz saw a Broad-winged Hawk in the neighborhood of Ring Park on the 11th.

Conrad Burkholder birded La Chua on the 13th and found a couple of lingering rarities: a pair of Blue-winged Teal and one or maybe two Great White Herons. However he saw no Roseate Spoonbills or Whooping Cranes.

If you’re still looking for Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, Jonathan Colburn found a pair in town, at the Shands UF helicopter pad.

One last little bit of June Challenge business. Phil Laipis has used Excel to create a self-counting June Challenge checklist. Just enter the date you saw it – enter anything, really, the numeral “1” will suffice – and the checklist will tally your birds for you. There are also spaces to record where you saw it first, and whether you’ve seen it again.

It’s Friday afternoon, a good time for a virtual vacation to Maine courtesy of Jonathan Mays, who just returned from leading field trips for the Acadia Birding Festival:

Yikes: http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/05/10/killer-gulls

Hairy Woodpecker at LEAFS

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

This morning I was finishing a walk at John Winn’s lovely LEAFS property in Waldo when I saw a Downy Woodpecker with an unusually large bill. That’s what I figured it was, anyway. It was moving the same direction as I was, though, and kept catching my eye. It struck me that the bird itself seemed larger than a Downy. So I followed it until I could get a look at its white outer tail feathers. No black bars. It seemed to have less, or smaller, white spotting than a Downy. And it was keeping to tree trunks and large branches. Finally, I noted the two clinching details. First, it had a black mark curving downward onto the side of its breast from the shoulder. And second, it (finally) called, a rattling sound all on one note, not descending like a Downy’s. This is the second Hairy Woodpecker sighting in the county this spring, the other involving a pair of birds seen by several birders on the western edge of Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve’s “Red Loop” in late March. Directions to LEAFS: From Gainesville go north on SR-24 to Waldo. Once inside the city limits turn right on Cole Street (Shell station on corner) to US-301. Turn right onto 301 and go 2.5 miles to CR-1469. Turn left onto 1469 and then immediately left again onto CR-1471 and go 0.4 mile to the parking area on the right. The Hairy was near the parking area, but it probably moves around quite a bit.

I also saw a noisy family group of Brown-headed Nuthatches at LEAFS this morning.

Adam Zions is covering San Felasco Hammock for the Breeding Bird Atlas, and he went out there on Sunday: “Along the Creek Sink Trail south of Millhopper Road there were Hooded Warblers present, along with plenty of Red-eyed Vireos which were allowing good looks. North of Millhopper Road there were even more Hooded Warblers to be seen, along with Yellow-throated Vireos. Along the sandhill portion of the trail, I had some Eastern Wood-Pewees and nesting Red-headed Woodpeckers (in the NW corner of the trail system, the portion north of the Sandhill Cutoff Trail; it’s a long walk back there for them).” Alan Shapiro found Eastern Wood-Pewees along the White Loop at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve in late May, which is not quite so extended a journey.

Andy Kratter had an American Kestrel in Evergreen Cemetery this morning, an unexpected location for a bird that normally nests only on the outskirts of the county, mainly along the ridge running from High Springs to Archer. Ria Leonard suggested another spot, an occupied kestrel house on NW 56th Avenue east of County Road 241, “about a mile up the road on the left hand side, right after you see the two big wood pillars designed as an entrance on the road with cut out horses on the top of them.”

Andy also reported Northern Rough-winged Swallows on the south side of the big Depot Park site, where he found the Western Kingbirds last year. I drove over there this afternoon and waited around till the swallows showed up. I also saw a Killdeer and a couple of Common Gallinules. I was hoping for a Pied-billed Grebe but didn’t see one in the pond (admittedly there’s a lot of shoreline vegetation obstructing the view).

Ria Leonard writes, “If anyone is having trouble finding Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks (which I was until this morning, since they weren’t at Red Lobster or at Hague Dairy on Saturday), I just saw one fly into its nest hole on a large oak tree across from the Santa Fe College Downtown Campus (west side of road) on SW 6th Street.” And sometimes the birds come to you. Bill Enneis of Alachua writes, “I was standing out on my back porch when I noticed something walking through the far back yard. Upon further investigation with binoculars, it was a pair of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, one in the lead, about 6-8 striped ducklings in the middle, and one in the rear. I could not believe my eyes. Where they came from and where they were headed, I dunno. They slowly waddled into the thick underbrush and trees and disappeared. I went out a few minutes later to see if I could find them, but they were gone, hunkered down somewhere or gone somewhere else.”

I mentioned that Bob Carroll was in Alaska, but in case you forgot: http://bobsgonebirding.blogspot.com/

I’m a bird lover, but this may be taking it a little too far: http://metro.co.uk/2011/06/08/the-goose-who-wears-a-pair-of-sandals-38149/

Cornell’s talking about that “Master Set” of bird sounds: http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=b35ddb671faf4a16c0ce32406&id=914e765df3&e=d90db1e9fa

The June Challenge – Day 5 update

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

This morning Anne Kendall found a Ring-billed Gull and five Laughing Gulls on the dock at Powers Park, putting the icing on a successful birding trip. She started at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve at 6 a.m., finding a Common Nighthawk and then spotting a Chuck-will’s-widow, always a tough bird to see. She then went on to the River Styx bridge on County Road 346, where she found a Prothonotary Warbler and a Black-crowned Night-Heron. Her next stop was the Windsor boat ramp, where she saw a Limpkin and a pair of Wood Ducks. And then on to Powers Park and the Ring-billed Gull. All of this in about two and a half hours. I think this is the county’s second June record for Ring-billed Gull. Anne sent me a few photos, and I’ve posted two.

Mike Manetz emailed this morning to ask if I wanted to go to Palm Point and find out whether Lloyd Davis’s Tree Swallow was still hanging around. I did, of course, and met him there at 7:15. No Tree Swallow, but the way you bird Palm Point is to stand there and wait for something to fly by, so that’s what we did. After about an hour we noticed a couple small whitish birds flying along the far shore, past the Windsor boat ramp. So we performed The Newnans Lake Shuffle, the little dance in which birders on the west side of the lake move to the east side, while the birds on the east side move to the west side. We never did get a decent look at them, but Mike saw them dive into the water, so they were terns, probably Forster’s Terns. We also saw a duck preening on the water which we couldn’t quite agree on, probably a Lesser Scaup. We didn’t see Anne’s Limpkin, but we did see a dozen or so Laughing Gulls, 15 American White Pelicans, three half-grown Wild Turkeys, a Least Bittern flying past the outlet of the boat channel, and an adult Bald Eagle.

Howard Adams and Barbara Mollison walked La Chua this morning. Many of the birds seen on Saturday are still around, including Roseate Spoonbills and Blue-winged Teal.

Also this morning, Barbara Shea went looking for June Challenge birds at San Felasco Hammock’s Millhopper Road entrance. Across the street from the parking lot she turned right and continued straight, and managed to find an Acadian Flycatcher. There was a Hooded Warbler in there too, but she couldn’t get it to show itself. She had a nice consolation prize, an Eastern Diamondback.

A couple people wrote to tell me that they’d checked the Red Lobster Pond on the 3rd but hadn’t found the Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks. So if you’re still looking for those, Debbie Segal has seen them at the Hague Dairy, and Anne Kendall at Powers Park.

This weekend Judy Bryan found a very late Cedar Waxwing, a single bird, at the south end of Lake Lochloosa.

Ron Robinson had an American Redstart visit his west Gainesville property on the 1st and 2nd.

We had a few cameras on our June 1st field trip. We twice saw a Fish Crow, identified by call, flying with an egg in its bill, pursued by Red-winged Blackbirds. I assumed it was making repeated depredations on the same Red-wing nest. But Miguel Palaviccini’s wonderful photo shows that the egg in the crow’s bill is round and unmarked, not like a Red-wing’s egg at all, as well as being too big for a Red-wing, and reveals that the crow had found the nest of a turtle. Further down the trail, in the canal leading up to the observation platform, a young King Rail hopped out of the weeds and remained in the open long enough for everyone to get a good look. John Martin got a nice video.

Looking at John’s YouTube collection, I find this footage of a singing Yellow-breasted Chat taken at La Chua in late April, and I’m reminded that, although we missed chats on the 1st, Adam Zions found one along Sparrow Alley on the morning of the 2nd. Barbara Mollison also saw one this morning.

The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology is putting out a massively comprehensive collection of North American bird sounds which they’re calling “The Master Set” and selling for $49.99. A selection of these, merely huge rather than ginormous, is called “The Essential Set” and it currently goes for $12.99. Read all about it: http://earbirding.com/blog/archives/4458