Tag: Blue-winged Warbler

Christmas Bird Count results

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Sunday’s Christmas Bird Count tallied a spectacular 157 species – though it’s possible that some of the undocumented rarities will be struck off the list by the regional editor and we’ll end up with a smaller number. The complete list of species and numbers is below.

There were an unusually high number of rarities reported, including two species new to the Gainesville Count, Wood Thrush and Wilson’s Plover. Neither was documented with a photograph, but on the day after the Count Andy Kratter was able to relocate the Wood Thrush that had first been discovered by Harry Jones at Kanapaha Gardens, and it may yet be photographed. Birders attempting to relocate Felicia Lee’s Wilson’s Plover for a photograph were unable to do so. Other good birds included:

– Two Snow Geese in a flock of Sandhill Cranes at the Kanapaha Prairie. John Martin photo here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thermalin/15424485194/
– A Canvasback at Sweetwater Wetlands Park (AKA the Sheetflow Restoration Wetlands). Matt O’Sullivan photo here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/118053703@N02/16036582521/
– A Greater Scaup at Sweetwater Wetlands Park.
– A Great White Heron at Sweetwater Wetlands Park. Matt O’Sullivan picture here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/118053703@N02/16038275472/
– A White-faced Ibis at Sweetwater Wetlands Park.
– Two Roseate Spoonbills, one at Sweetwater Wetlands Park, one flying over Bivens Arm. Matt O’Sullivan picture of the former bird here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/118053703@N02/16038533595/
– Three Purple Gallinules wintering along the La Chua Trail. Jonathan Mays photo here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmays/15416903544/
– The Whooping Crane that’s been present every day at the UF Beef Teaching Unit.
– A Spotted Sandpiper.
– Two Laughing Gulls on Newnans Lake.
– Two White-winged Doves in a yard near the Kanapaha Prairie.
– One hummingbird in the genus Archilochus, either a Ruby-throated or a Black-chinned.
– Two Least Flycatchers.
– Five Ash-throated Flycatchers at four separate spots on Paynes Prairie (not a single one of them open to the public!). Matt O’Sullivan pictures of two different birds here and here.
– A Blue-winged Warbler along Cones Dike, only the second for the Gainesville Count. Steve Collins photo here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/odephoto/15848141028/
– Two Yellow-breasted Chats.
– Five Dark-eyed Juncos along the Lake Trail at Lake Wauberg. Not found on the following day, though at least two parties went looking for them.
– Five Painted Buntings in two separate places, a new high for the Gainesville Count.
– Eight Pine Siskins were reported, by four teams.

Our Sandhill Crane count was on the low side, with only 2,555.

Limpkins infested Newnans Lake during most of 2013-14 – John Hintermister and I counted 39 there on February 20th – but only three showed up there on the Count, while 15 were seen at Sweetwater Wetlands Park. I’m not sure what that signifies, but it’s interesting.

Big misses included Northern Pintail, Northern Bobwhite, Common Loon, and Long-billed Dowitcher.

The Ichetucknee-Santa Fe-O’Leno CBC took place on the 16th. John Martin photographed a Winter Wren along the Santa Fe River – https://www.flickr.com/photos/thermalin/15859003848/ – and the county’s first Golden-crowned Kinglets of the winter were seen in the same area. A Vermilion Flycatcher and a Black-throated Green Warbler showed up in exactly the same locations where they were seen last year, the former at a rural area in Columbia County, the latter at River Rise.

The Melrose CBC is taking place as I write this, and we’re hoping to learn that the Pacific Loon has returned for its third winter.

I’m not sure you can see this link without a Dropbox account, but Wade Kincaid got a great photo of the Whooping Crane that’s been at the Beef Teaching Unit since the 7th: https://www.dropbox.com/s/oq8wybwrtkx4a7m/AP140042.jpg?dl=0 A couple of inquiring minds found a web page with background information on this individual bird (including baby pictures!): http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/crane/13/BandingCodes_1309.html

And here are the results:

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 212
Snow Goose 2
Muscovy Duck 291
Wood Duck 149
Gadwall 108
American Wigeon 2
Mallard 7
Mottled Duck 66
Blue-winged Teal 395
Northern Shoveler 53
Green-winged Teal 232
Canvasback 1
Redhead 1
Ring-necked Duck 795
Greater Scaup 1
Lesser Scaup 50
Bufflehead 11
Hooded Merganser 198
Ruddy Duck 57
Wild Turkey 26
Pied-billed Grebe 204
Horned Grebe 1
Wood Stork 75
Double-crested Cormorant 1,022
Anhinga 202
American White Pelican 40
American Bittern 9
Great Blue Heron (including 1 Great White Heron) 149
Great Egret 176
Snowy Egret 205
Little Blue Heron 263
Tricolored Heron 45
Cattle Egret 58
Green Heron 37
Black-crowned Night-Heron 71
White Ibis 1,811
Glossy Ibis 159
White-faced Ibis 1
Roseate Spoonbill 2
Black Vulture 407
Turkey Vulture 844
Osprey 3
Northern Harrier 40
Sharp-shinned Hawk 8
Cooper’s Hawk 8
Accipiter, sp. 1
Bald Eagle 58
Red-shouldered Hawk 175
Red-tailed Hawk 41
King Rail 28
Virginia Rail 11
Sora 54
Purple Gallinule 3
Common Gallinule 280
American Coot 2,446
Limpkin 18
Sandhill Crane 2,555
Whooping Crane 1
Wilson’s Plover 1
Killdeer 459
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Greater Yellowlegs 29
Lesser Yellowlegs 1
Least Sandpiper 25
Wilson’s Snipe 189
American Woodcock 22
Bonaparte’s Gull 21
Laughing Gull 2
Ring-billed Gull 534
Herring Gull 18
Forster’s Tern 24
Rock Pigeon 58
Eurasian Collared-Dove 6
White-winged Dove 2
Mourning Dove 223
Common Ground-Dove 6
Barn Owl 1
Eastern Screech-Owl 10
Great Horned Owl 37
Barred Owl 43
Eastern Whip-poor-will 3
Archilochus, sp. 1
Belted Kingfisher 44
Red-headed Woodpecker 14
Red-bellied Woodpecker 274
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 78
Downy Woodpecker 115
Northern Flicker 43
Pileated Woodpecker 143
American Kestrel 44
Merlin 2
Least Flycatcher 2
Eastern Phoebe 410
Vermilion Flycatcher 1
Ash-throated Flycatcher 5
Loggerhead Shrike 20
White-eyed Vireo 124
Blue-headed Vireo 88
Blue Jay 399
American Crow 664
Fish Crow 109
crow, sp. 125
Tree Swallow 141
Carolina Chickadee 298
Tufted Titmouse 388
Brown-headed Nuthatch 3
House Wren 234
Sedge Wren 66
Marsh Wren 64
Carolina Wren 412
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 457
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 560
Eastern Bluebird 149
Hermit Thrush 63
Wood Thrush 1
American Robin 1,121
Gray Catbird 147
Northern Mockingbird 174
Brown Thrasher 27
European Starling 57
American Pipit 3
Cedar Waxwing 7
Ovenbird 9
Northern Waterthrush 3
Blue-winged Warbler 1
Black-and-white Warbler 99
Orange-crowned Warbler 105
Common Yellowthroat 285
Northern Parula 5
Palm Warbler 856
Pine Warbler 130
Yellow-rumped Warbler 2,438
Yellow-throated Warbler 41
Prairie Warbler 6
Yellow-breasted Chat 2
Eastern Towhee 90
Chipping Sparrow 655
Field Sparrow 8
Vesper Sparrow 28
Savannah Sparrow 229
Grasshopper Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 45
Lincoln’s Sparrow 2
Swamp Sparrow 596
White-throated Sparrow 40
White-crowned Sparrow 5
Dark-eyed Junco 5
Northern Cardinal 656
Painted Bunting 5
Red-winged Blackbird 2,753
Eastern Meadowlark 396
Common Grackle 338
Boat-tailed Grackle 984
Brown-headed Cowbird 38
Baltimore Oriole 27
House Finch 56
Pine Siskin 8
American Goldfinch 351
House Sparrow 114

Winter is coming

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

We’re going to try something new for field trips: carpooling via the Audubon web site. First go to the field trip schedule: https://alachuaaudubon.org/classes-field-trips/ Click on a field trip, and the information bar will expand. Click on the button that says, “Read more.” Try it on the O’Leno trip; you’ll end up here: https://alachuaaudubon.org/event/oleno-state-park-3/?instance_id=349 Scroll down the page a bit, and you’ll see a gray box that says, “Leave a reply.” If you need a ride, or you’re willing to provide a ride, use the “Leave a reply” box to say so. Don’t wait till the last minute. I know how you can be.

What may turn out to be Alachua County’s sixth-ever Black-headed Grosbeak had a fatal collision with a window at UF’s Bartram Hall on the 9th (photo here). It was an immature bird, and Black-headed Grosbeaks of that age can be difficult to distinguish from Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. Andy Kratter will be prepping the specimen in the next week or so, and should be able to determine its identity then. Meanwhile, watch your feeders!

The arrival of Bay-breasted Warblers and Black-throated Green Warblers during the second week of October normally signals the last wave of neotropical migrants. This year the first Bay-breasted was extraordinarily early: Barbara Shea saw one at Sparrow Alley on September 21st, by thirteen days a new record. From the description it was in breeding plumage – they normally molt into winter plumage on the nesting grounds, before heading south – but that may be connected with its early arrival here. Jonathan Mays saw another relatively early Bay-breasted in his SE Gainesville yard on the 5th, and on the more typical date of October 9th Matt O’Sullivan saw one at Bolen Bluff and Dean and Samuel Ewing saw one in their NW Gainesville yard. Chris Burney spotted the only Black-throated Green that’s been reported this fall, on the 4th at Prairie Creek Preserve.

Jerry Krummrich had a nice day on Bellamy Road on the 3rd: “Was drawn to my favorite trail today and it was kinda birdy. Trail was wet but walkable and always interesting habitat changes from flooded woods to wildflowers in sandhills in a 50 yard stretch. Best bird was a Swainson’s Warbler along the trail with flooded woods in background. He was repeating call notes I was unfamiliar with – unlike Ovenbird, clearer and less frequent, less agitated attitude. He was cooperative and hopped up on limbs about 10 feet away/5 feet off ground. Had 11 warblers total including Blue-winged and Golden-winged in same tree, a dozen Ovenbirds, 1 Redstart and a Magnolia. Had a Merlin and a Cooper’s over scrub open woods. Several Empidonax and Veerys.” I asked Jerry where along Bellamy Road he was, and he replied, “I was referring to the Interpretive Trailhead, a portion of O’Leno SP located/accessed off 441 just south of main entrance road to O’Leno. You turn on Bellamy here (is a sign on highway), drive east and enter parking area trailhead. Trail connects to Sweetwater Branch Trail. I enjoy birding here because of habitat diversity – sandhill, scrub, and floodplain – it’s the area on top of the underground Santa Fe River which turns into a meandering slough during rainy periods – lots of tree species. Trail also connects to marked horse trails – lots of edges. Yes – sorry – it’s in Columbia County.” So now you’ve got a new birding spot to check out, or just a pretty place to take a walk.

Mike Manetz and I spent a couple of hours birding at the Powers Park fishing pier on the 9th. We saw no Ospreys, which is normal for October, but no Limpkins either, which was very surprising given their abundance at Newnans over the past couple of years. We did, however, see a Peregrine Falcon come cruising along the southern shore of the lake at treetop level, veer out into the open at the mouth of the boat channel to give us a nice close-range look, and then head in the direction of Paynes Prairie. Samuel Ewing didn’t have to go to Powers Park to see a Peregrine; he photographed one flying over his yard on the 11th: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/15322086547/in/photostream/

The Alachua Audubon field trip to O’Leno on the 11th had only middling success. Warblers were sparse, and overall we didn’t see many birds of any sort. However we came across two fruiting tupelo trees that attracted thrushes of three species (Wood, Swainson’s, Gray-cheeked) and tanagers of two species (Scarlet, Summer). The day was beautiful, the trail was beautiful, and the mosquitoes were few. On the way home Mike and I spent a few minutes at the Hague Dairy because it’s getting to be time for Yellow-headed Blackbirds. They often travel with big flocks of Brown-headed Cowbirds, but today cowbird flocks appeared to be nonexistent.

Ron Robinson photographed the fall’s first Wilson’s Warbler at his backyard bird bath on the 7th: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/15287033897/

As the migration of neotropical species draws to a close, the winter birds are starting to show up. The first Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, two of them, were seen by Matt Bruce at Palm Point on the 4th. The first Blue-headed Vireo was seen by John Hintermister at Bolen Bluff on the 5th. The first American Goldfinch – a very early bird – was seen by Andy Kratter in his SE Gainesville yard on the 6th, and it was Andy who saw the first Ruby-crowned Kinglet at Bolen Bluff on the 7th. The first Yellow-rumped Warbler (!), another early bird, was seen by Mike Manetz at Palm Point on the 9th. And I saw the winter’s first sparrow, a Savannah, at the Hague Dairy on the 11th.

Speaking of winter, Ron Pittaway’s annual Winter Finch Forecast has been posted on the eBird web site: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/wf1415/

When we visit the Cedar Key cemetery, we always park in the shady grove of sand pines at the north end. Until this week there was a thick border of palmettos and scrubby vegetation growing along the driveway. Now it looks like this. Migratory birds have one less bit of shelter on this island, which has become too popular for its own good. If you’d like to protest this action, and say a few words on behalf of the birds (and remind those in power that birders often visit Cedar Key, and spend money there), write the Cedar Key Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 610, Cedar Key, FL 32625 AND Mayor Dale Register, P.O. Box 339 Cedar Key, FL 32625.

Remember: carpooling via the Alachua Audubon web site!

Don’t look behind you, Summer, those are Fall’s footsteps you hear!

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Up to four fall-migrant Alder Flycatchers have been sighted along Sparrow Alley recently, mostly around “the dip.” That’s the low area in the trail about a hundred yards past the powerlines – the low area that often turns into a puddle of water, though it’s currently dry. Here’s a picture of Andy Kratter and Matt O’Sullivan birding just on the far side of the dip on the 5th – https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/14974401200/in/photostream/ – and here’s a slightly different view just to give you some visual context – https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/14974314939/in/photostream/ – and I’m showing you these photos because that’s where you need to go, because that’s where most of the Alders are sighted. That’s where Mike Manetz found one on the 31st, where John Hintermister, Phil Laipis, and Matt O’Sullivan found four on the 2nd (Matt got a photo), and where a visiting Central Florida birder saw two on the 3rd. On the 5th, Andy and Matt and I saw two probable Alders in the horse pasture immediately north of the dip, but I never got a very good look or heard any vocalizations, so I just wrote them off as “Empidonax sp.” It was my third unsuccessful attempt to see an Alder Flycatcher in the past week – or rather, to hear one. In each case I saw at least one Empidonax flycatcher, but I never heard the characteristic “pip!” that identifies it as an Alder (click here, and scroll down till you get to “Calls,” then click on the first one, the “Pip call”). Maybe I haven’t mentioned this yet, but Alder Flycatcher is normally a very rare bird in Alachua County. In 2012 we had two, and last year we had several at La Chua, Cones Dike, and Levy Lake from late August to late September, but we shouldn’t assume that they’ll always be this common. Enjoy their presence while you can. (That is, if you can get them to say “pip.”)

Samuel Ewing photographed the fall’s first Veery in his yard on the 3rd: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/14941925498/ Veeries normally arrive in numbers during the first week of September. They seem to especially favor the deep deciduous woods of San Felasco Hammock, but like most migrants they can show up just about anywhere. Samuel has also seen and (before dawn) heard Bobolinks flying over his NW Gainesville home, one as early as the 29th, probably the earliest-ever for Alachua County, and he saw seven or eight fly over on the 4th.

But what about the warblers, you ask, what about the warblers? Blue-winged Warblers seem fairly common so far this fall; eBird shows at least eight, maybe more, since August 25th, most recently along Sparrow Alley, at Bolen Bluff, and along San Felasco’s Moonshine Creek Trail. No Blackburnians or Golden-wingeds yet. About half a dozen Kentucky Warblers have been reported since July 31st, the most recent at Ring Park and the Moonshine Creek Trail. Two Ceruleans have been reported, as mentioned in previous birding reports, but none since the 24th; normally their passage extends through September, rarely into October. The first Chestnut-sided Warblers were seen on the 3rd, one by Charlene Leonard along Sparrow Alley and one by Matt O’Sullivan at Loblolly Woods. Finally, Jonathan Mays saw the county’s earliest-ever Palm Warbler near Prairie Creek on the 4th. His eBird writeup reads, “Early; observed at least one and possibly a second just east of the fishing bridge. Heard chip then saw two similar-sized birds working at eye level through vegetation. One was viewed well, including yellow vent, dingy breast and sides, and pumping tail.” This beat the existing early record by four days.

On the 5th Geoff Parks saw a Short-tailed Hawk over Green Acres Park, tucked away in the neighborhood across Newberry Road from the Royal Park Theater. He wrote, “All-dark smallish buteo with faintly barred tail; flight feathers slightly lighter in color than rest of underwings, with faint barring; lightish patch at base of primaries was noticeably the palest portion of the underwing. Circled over just above the treetops, giving good views.” How many Short-tailed Hawks does that make this year? Looking over the thirteen observations reported to eBird since January 1st, I think there have been a minimum of five birds. When you consider the history of the species in Alachua County, that’s a little bit mind-boggling. The county’s first record was a bird shot in 1927. The second wasn’t reported until 1993, one of five sightings in the 1990s. There were seven more between 2000 and 2005. And now they’re seen a few times each year, usually between late February and mid-October, and there’s circumstantial evidence to suggest that they’re nesting here. Quite a change.

The feral cat issue raised its head again in the August 20th Gainesville Sun. You can remind yourself of what free-roaming cats are capable of by watching National Geographic’s “The Secret Life of Cats” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkWuLoHdF2s Warning: Do not read the comments unless you want your opinion of humanity to descend to a point from which it will never be lifted again.

Lake County is holding its third annual Wings and Wildflowers Festival in a month. You can see a list of their field trips, speakers, and events at http://wingsandwildflowers.com/

Have you looked at our birders’ photo gallery lately? Why not? We’re all so pretty! https://alachuaaudubon.org/meet-the-birders/ (Click photos to enlarge.) All Alachua County birders should send me a picture so I can add it to the gallery.

Alder Flycatchers, Lawrence’s Warbler at Sparrow Alley

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Mike Manetz walked Sparrow Alley this morning after Jennifer Donsky told him that she’d found an Alder Flycatcher there. Mike relocated Jennifer’s bird and saw a second one as well. The first was south of the trail near the watery dip beyond the powerlines, and the second was in a small grove of persimmons just a couple hundred feet in from the trail’s beginning, where an Alder lingered for nearly a month at this time last year. Both were identified by their “pip!” call notes. If last weekend’s Barr Hammock bird was also an Alder, that makes three in the county at once. It’s bizarre: we never had an Alder Flycatcher here until 2010, and now they’re so abundant that the county will soon commence spraying empidonacide to control them….(No, not really.) Mike also saw two Blue-winged Warblers on his walk, and even more surprising than the Alders, a Lawrence’s Warbler, a hybrid of Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warbler that has been recorded in Alachua County only three times before, most recently in 1990. Here’s what a Lawrence’s looks like: https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7419/9124553719_b120308131_z.jpg

Debbie Segal made arrangements with GRU to offer a special Sheet Flow Restoration Project field trip for Alachua Audubon volunteers on the 30th. It was a very productive morning, and the group saw some nice things: a flock of four Roseate Spoonbills, a Great White Heron wandering from the Florida Keys, a mixed flock of Barn and Bank Swallows swarming over one of the cells, and eleven species of shorebirds, including some uncommon species – Pectoral and Stilt Sandpipers and Semipalmated Plover – and some that are locally quite rare – Western Sandpiper and Short-billed Dowitcher. Hopefully the Sheet Flow Restoration Project will continue to attract birds once the vegetation has stabilized in all three cells.

One hundred years ago tomorrow, September 1, 1914, the last Passenger Pigeon in the world, a 29-year-old female named Martha, tumbled from her perch in the Cincinnati Zoo, and the most abundant bird in the history of Planet Earth went extinct. John Fitzpatrick of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has written about the event, and what it means to us today, in a New York Times editorial. But the closest we’ll ever come to seeing a live Passenger Pigeon is reading John James Audubon’s 1831 description of a flock settling in to feed: “As soon as the Pigeons discover a sufficiency of food to entice them to alight, they fly round in circles, reviewing the country below. During their evolutions, on such occasions, the dense mass which they form exhibits a beautiful appearance, as it changes its direction, now displaying a glistening sheet of azure, when the backs of the birds come simultaneously into view, and anon, suddenly presenting a mass of rich deep purple. Then they pass lower, over the woods, and for a moment are lost among the foliage, but again emerge, and are seen gliding aloft. They now alight, but the next moment, as if suddenly alarmed, they take to wing, producing by the flappings of their wings a noise like the roar of distant thunder, and sweep through the forests to see if danger is near. Hunger, however, soon brings them to the ground. When alighted, they are seen industriously throwing up the withered leaves in quest of the fallen mast. The rear ranks are continually rising, passing over the main-body, and alighting in front, in such rapid succession, that the whole flock seems still on wing.”

Blue bird bonanza

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

On the 21st Dean Ewing wrote, “If people want to see a blue bonanza, just go over to Mildred’s Big City Food (south of University Avenue, just west of 34th Street) and walk over to Hogtown Creek. I saw lots of Indigo Buntings and Blue Grosbeaks there this morning while riding my bike. Samuel, Benjamin, and I just returned from there and counted at least a dozen Blue Grosbeaks and 50 Indigo Buntings feeding on the long grasses along the creek. Amazing sight.” Samuel got a photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/13961686364/ (By the way, that may be worth checking for Bobolink flocks in the near future.)

It’s that time of the year: I’m starting to hear baby birds calling around my neighborhood. A pair of cardinals are feeding at least one fledgling, and I can hear the whining of a young mockingbird begging for food across the street. Yesterday at San Felasco Hammock I checked on a Hooded Warbler nest that I found on the 10th. When I’d first discovered it, the female had been putting the finishing touches on a perfect little cup about five feet high in a sapling laurel oak. When I looked in yesterday, it appeared to have been abandoned – until I approached, flushing the female off the nest. I took a peek inside – four eggs, none of them cowbird eggs – and made a rapid retreat so she could get back to hatching them.

Speaking of nests, the intrepid husband-and-wife team of Jonathan Mays and Ellen Robertson found Limpkin and Turkey Vulture nests while kayaking Prairie Creek on the 20th. I thought that Limpkins nested on the ground in marsh vegetation, but they can also nest in trees, and that’s what Jonathan found: “a nice stick-built nest six feet or so above the water in the crook of an overhanging hardwood.” He posted a photo here. And then Ellen spotted a vulture nest in an atypical situation. Jonathan writes, “I’ve only seen them nest in cave entrances and rock shelters before, but this one was about 25 feet up in a bald cypress. I think the nest itself was an old Osprey nest. Stick built but the sticks were old and the bowl of the nest was mostly gone so that it resembled more of a platform. My first thought was the vulture was eating an old egg of another bird but I raised my glasses and there were at least two white downy vultures in view. And let me tell you, baby vultures are cute!”

If you haven’t looked at Jonathan’s photos lately, you’re missing some great stuff, especially if you have an interest in reptiles and amphibians as well as birds: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jmays/

And speaking of photos, Glenn Price got some gorgeous pictures of the birds we saw on Sunday’s Cedar Key field trip: http://raptorcaptor.smugmug.com/Nature/Recent/ (In order: Gray-cheeked Thrush, Scarlet Tanager, Great Crested Flycatcher, Merlin, Summer Tanager, another Scarlet Tanager, Cape May Warbler, Orchard Oriole, Blackpoll Warbler, Prothonotary Warbler, and Black-throated Green Warbler.)

The field trip went pretty well. Our first stop was the trestle trail, and as soon as we got out of our cars around the corner from the trailhead we were deluged with birds. It was simultaneously exhilarating and frustrating, because there were too many to keep track of, flying here, flying there, one amazing bird distracting us from another – Yellow Warbler, Cape May Warbler, Blue-winged Warbler, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, little flocks of Indigo Buntings down in the grass of someone’s front yard, Blue Grosbeaks and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks around a feeder in somebody else’s back yard. I thought that I was about to have the best Cedar Key experience of my life. But the trestle trail itself was almost birdless, and when we left the neighborhood of the trestle trail for other hotspots like the cemetery and the museum, we found conditions more subdued. Which is not to say there weren’t any birds around. We saw plenty, some of them at very close range, especially at the loquat trees near the museum (as you may have noticed from Glenn’s photos). The variety of warblers didn’t approach the 25 we saw on Wednesday, but it was somewhere north of 15, and late in the day (after I left, of course) John Hintermister found a Bay-breasted, a rare bird in spring migration.

(By the way, in a previous report I passed along the information that the Cedar Key airfield had been fenced due to drone flights. That’s not true. Dale Henderson wrote, “I asked the police chief about the drones at the airstrip. As I thought, there is no truth to that story. When the county sought reauthorization for the strip, they had to secure the strip with the fence. Without it there would have been no government funds! That’s usually at the bottom of these weird changes. The original fence was to be much higher, but they agreed to the shorter one. There may be silver linings for the birds – less access means less disturbance – but not for the birders. I think it’s also been problematic for the alligator that comes and goes from the cattail swamp. He made a passageway under the fence. We could try that!”)

Locally, this year’s spring migration has been unusually good, but if it follows the normal pattern it will drop off pretty quickly after April 30th. So get out if you can and enjoy it while it lasts. Where to go? La Chua was overrun with Indigo Buntings, Blue Grosbeaks, Prairie Warblers, and swallows of several species on the 21st, and at least three Yellow-breasted Chats were singing along Sparrow Alley this morning. I recorded twelve species of warblers (including six Black-throated Blues, four Worm-eatings, Black-throated Green, and Blackpoll), plus Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Yellow-billed Cuckoo, along the Moonshine Creek Trail at San Felasco Hammock (Millhopper Road entrance) on the afternoon of the 21st. So those might be your best bets, though any patch of woodland (Loblolly Woods, Bolen Bluff, and Lake Alice come to mind) could hold some interesting birds. Wear boots if you go to La Chua, because it’s pretty wet out there. Frank Goodwin wrote that he and his wife Irina “dog-paddled” out to the observation platform on the 21st, but they had their reward: a Stilt Sandpiper fueling up at Alachua Lake during its long flight to the Arctic: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/13968214152/

Get out there, enjoy this beautiful spring, and tell me what you see.

A lively migration; plus, a new Facebook page for Alachua County birders!

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

I’ve been emailing these birding reports out for something like fifteen years. But email is giving way to more rapid (and concise!) methods of communication like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. It’s possible now to post a brief message or photo to one of these sites while you’re standing in the woods looking at a bird, so that the communication of your discovery follows instantly on the discovery itself. Bob Wallace has been asking me for years to ditch the birding report and set up a listserv. His concern was that a birder would find a rare bird and email me about it, but that I’d be out on Paynes Prairie and wouldn’t see the email until I got home; and thanks to the delay in reporting, the bird would fly away before Bob got to add it to his life list. He was right, of course. It could happen. But, I thought, not often enough to worry about it. Plus I enjoyed writing the birding reports, and I also felt that it was helpful (especially for beginners) to have someone filtering and interpreting all the information: this is rare, this is early, this is an unusually high number.

On Saturday morning Bob wrote again, this time urging me to start a Facebook page for Alachua County birders: “Since virtually everyone now has a FB presence, and since it is almost instantaneous since everyone has it on their phone, it sure would better for rapid dissemination of sightings and information to have everyone post their sightings to FB. Sure there would be some junk, and bad IDs, but like the Florida Birding FB page, the rarities show up there now long before they make it to the email lists.” True enough. But as someone whose favorite book title is Neil Postman’s Building a Bridge to the 18th Century, I’m not the one to do it. Bob threatened to set up the Facebook page if I didn’t. I didn’t, and he did. Here it is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/561382673923139/

You have to join the group, if you want to read the posts, and of course you have to be on Facebook to begin with.

Since I’m not on Facebook, I won’t see what’s posted there. So please continue to notify me of any interesting sightings – as well as posting them to Facebook, of course. If that turns out to be too onerous for the majority of birders, and my supply of birding news dries up, then the Alachua County birding report will ride gracefully into the sunset, not the first project to be rendered obsolete by new technology and not the last.

At this late date it occurs to me that the birding report may actually have inhibited the development of a local birding community. Perhaps direct exchange with other local birders – instead of communicating through me – will create a greater camaraderie. It’ll be interesting to see if it works out that way. Anyway, good luck to Bob and the Alachua County Birding Facebook page.

Now where were we?

Mornings have been beautiful lately, and people have been reporting good numbers of birds. This may turn out to be a great fall migration. On the 3rd Mike Manetz walked the Bolen Bluff Trail and found eleven warbler species, including a Golden-winged Warbler, two Kentucky Warblers, and 34 (!) Yellow Warblers. That number was bested by Jonathan Mays and Adam Zions on the 7th: they had 41 (!!!) Yellow Warblers and eleven additional warbler species, including one Kentucky.

I hadn’t heard of anyone seeing an Alder Flycatcher since the 3rd, and had actually discouraged a birder from driving up from Orlando because I thought he’d be wasting his time, but today Lloyd Davis relocated one of the birds lingering at Sparrow Alley. He also checked Sweetwater Dike to see if the male Painted Bunting was still at the bend in the trail just before the lone cypress, and it was.

Before sunrise on the morning of the 4th, Mike Manetz walked out the door of his NW Gainesville home and listened for the calls of passing migrants: “Heard several Bobolinks going over. Also one Veery. At first light 5 Common Nighthawks went streaming by. Multiple warblers were chipping in the yard.” Later that morning Bob Wallace walked his property in Alachua and found evidence of the same migratory movement: a Veery, 20 Red-eyed Vireos, and six warbler species including two Worm-eating Warblers. Likewise on the morning of the 6th Samuel Ewing got up early and conducted a pre-dawn migrant count at his NW Gainesville home. He heard at least two Bobolinks and 15+ Veeries. A little later that morning Jerry Krummrich saw evidence of the same flight at Alligator Lake in Lake City: “The trails in the woods were full of Veeries this morning as well as many Red-eyed Vireos, sometimes as many as 7-8 per tree.” On the same morning John Hintermister, Steve Nesbitt, and Jim Brady walked three miles at San Felasco Hammock (north side of Millhopper Road) and saw similar numbers of Red-eyed Vireos – their final count was 126 (“may be the largest number of Red-eyed Vireos I have ever seen in one place in one day,” noted John) – as well as four Veeries and eight warbler species, including two Blue-wingeds.

The migration of Common Nighthawks peaks in early September. On the 7th, writes Scott Bishop, “I took an out of town guest to see the bat house at Lake Alice. About fifteen minutes before sunset a flock of about a dozen Common Nighthawks appeared in a feeding frenzy over the bat house field. They continued all through the bat exodus.”

You’d expect Europeans to spend all their time sitting around in cafes being sophisticated and urbane and making jokes about Americans, but instead a huge number of them seem to prefer snuffing birds, including lots of little ones like buntings, flycatchers, and redstarts. The Committee Against Bird Slaughter is fighting the good fight by dismantling traps, taking down perching sticks that have been daubed with glue, and exposing illegal hunters, but they face a lot of resistance. If you’ve got a strong stomach, here’s their web site: http://www.komitee.de/en/homepage

The entire Alachua Audubon 2013-14 field trip schedule is now online in printable form: https://alachuaaudubon.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/AAS-Yearbook-2013-2014.pdf

You know how you’re always wishing there was a seed and suet sale going on somewhere? Hey, you’re in luck! Wild Birds Unlimited is having one right now: http://gainesville.wbu.com/

More birds than you can shake a stick at, if you were inclined to shake a stick at birds

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

I’m in the process of posting the new Alachua Audubon field trip schedule on line. It’s rather slow going, because I have to create an individual page for each trip, but I like the new web site’s format. If you look at the Classes & Field Trips page, you’ll see the next ten events listed – https://alachuaaudubon.org/classes-field-trips/ – with the date, destination (or program location), and meeting time. If you click on the “+” sign associated with a given field trip, you’ll get a description of the trip; and if you then click on “Read more,” you’ll see a map of the meeting location as well as contact information for the trip leader in case you have a question.

However, this is an instance of the reality not quite living up to the ideal, because the map doesn’t invariably agree with the coordinates I enter for it. For instance, the coordinates to the Levy Lake Loop parking area, as provided by Google Earth, take you to a Marion County prison when entered into the web site. Or at least they did before I got a different set of coordinates. And sometimes WordPress (the web site software) simply won’t accept the address. The meeting place for our Barr Hammock field trip is the Valero gas station at 101 NW Highway 441, Micanopy, FL 32667, but no matter how many times I try to enter it, WordPress deletes the street address and reduces it to “U.S. 441, Micanopy, 32667, USA,” and places the marker about a mile and a half south of the Valero station. WordPress gets it right more often than wrong, but … please use the written directions to the meeting place. Here’s an example of what it looks like when everything works properly: https://alachuaaudubon.org/ai1ec_event/road-to-nowhere-hagens-cove/?instance_id=127 (Well, everything works right on our site. The link to Hagens Cove misspells Steinhatchee twice.)

If you’ve got Labor Day off, you might want to spend part of it birding. The migrants are moving through in big numbers, and San Felasco Hammock sounds like the place to be. More on that presently.

On the 27th, responding to Mike Manetz’s report of two Alder Flycatchers at the La Chua Trail, Jonathan Mays and Adam Zions visited La Chua and found three Alder Flycatchers. Two were where Mike had seen them, along Sparrow Alley near the barn, and the third was along Sweetwater Dike. Adam made a short video in which a hidden Alder can be heard calling repeatedly. Dalcio Dacol relocated the Sweetwater Dike bird on the 30th, just where La Chua meets Sweetwater, and on the 1st John Martin relocated and photographed the two birds at Sparrow Alley. At least these are presumed to be the same birds discovered on the 27th; neither Dalcio nor John heard them calling.

On the 28th, Bob Simons, Dotty Robbins, and Jim Swarr went looking for the Alders along Sparrow Alley and saw a dark-morph Short-tailed Hawk, no doubt the same one spotted there by Glenn Israel on the 24th.

(If you decide to look for the Alders and/or the Short-tailed, and then to walk the rest of the way out La Chua, be aware that the approach to the observation tower is under a few inches of water. Thanks to Jonathan Mays for the photo.)

On the 29th Mike Manetz and Tina Greenberg found the fall’s first Golden-winged Warbler along Lakeshore Drive near Palm Point.

There was a big influx of migrants on the 31st. Jonathan and Ellen Mays found the season’s first Chestnut-sided Warbler along the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail, then went home and found an extraordinarily early Scarlet Tanager. Mike Manetz went to San Felasco’s Progress Park entrance (off US-441 near Alachua) and tallied twelve warbler species – the best of which were 5 Ovenbirds, a Blue-winged, and a Kentucky – and then picked a Bank Swallow out of a flock of Barn Swallows and Chimney Swifts.

The next day, Jonathan and Ellen Mays and Adam Zions walked San Felasco’s Moonshine Creek and Creek Sink Trails (i.e., the whole system south of Millhopper Road), and they also tallied twelve warbler species, including 12 Ovenbirds, 3 Worm-eating Warblers, a Louisiana Waterthrush, a Chestnut-sided, a Kentucky, and not one but two Golden-wingeds, a male and a female.

I looked at the 12 warbler species seen by Mike and the 12 seen by Jonathan, Ellen, and Adam, and it looks like there are a total of seventeen species of warblers fluttering around out there. So grab your binoculars! Go get ’em! Besides, it’s time for the first Veery to show up, and someone needs to find the first one, it might as well be you, right?

Swallow-tailed and (especially) Mississippi Kites are still being reported. Greg Stephens had one Swallow-tailed and three Mississippis circling over his Jonesville yard simultaneously on the 31st. Please keep those reports coming!

Second-grade students taught by local birder Sharon Kuchinski are finalists in the Rachel Carson Sense of Wonder Contest, and they need your votes in order to win. You can see their entry, and cast your vote, here: http://www.expressionsacademy.org/about/spotlight-items/213-sense-of-wonder-contest

Alder Flycatchers at Levy Lake!

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

John Hintermister had read that Alder and Willow Flycatchers were being seen near the Everglades, and on the 21st he sent out an email to several local birders: “If they are getting these birds at Lucky Hammock I would think we should have them on Cones Dike. Want to go one day this week?” The field trip was arranged for Saturday the 24th. John, Mike Manetz, Ron Robinson, Phil Laipis, and Jonathan Mays went along. It was not a great success. Mike was “90% sure” that he heard two Alders calling, but none of the party could get a look at the birds.

A little bit frustrated, Mike suggested another trip on the following day, this one to Barr Hammock’s Levy Lake, since it provided similar habitat: a partly wooded dike trail adjoining a marsh. Adam Zions and I joined him for this one. Pulling into the parking lot at 7 a.m., we found the right (north) fork of the trail blocked by a sign that said, “Trail closed for maintenance.” Our thinking was: Since public monies are being expended on this so-called maintenance, citizen oversight is certainly called for. We looked around but didn’t see anyone else out there, so that heavy responsibility fell on our shoulders. Reluctantly we acquiesced to our civic duty and walked past the sign and down the trail. (The maintenance involved cutting back the willows along the western portion of the trail, reducing the waterthrush habitat and leaving the dike’s edges looking rather chewed up.)

Anyway, about a mile out, we found an Empidonax flycatcher working the edges of the willows. It was grayish-brownish-olive on the back, off-white below, with a pale yellow wash on the belly, and white wing-bars and tertial edges. The tail was rather broad. Suspecting that it was either an Alder or a Willow, we examined it through the scope, and it cooperated nicely by staying in sight. But with Empidonax flycatchers you really have to hear them vocalize if you want to identify them, and that’s exactly what this one did, several times producing a pip! call that’s diagnostic for Alder Flycatcher.

Continuing along the trail – there was a lot of continuing, it’s six miles long – we found numerous Indigo Buntings and Prairie and Yellow Warblers, plus a Northern Waterthrush, a Worm-eating Warbler, and the fall’s first Blue-winged Warbler. We’d progressed around to the south side of Levy Lake by about 11:30 when we came to the place where Jonathan Mays had found a Least Flycatcher last winter. It’s an easy place to find: about a mile and a half down the left (south) fork from the parking area, it’s the first place you’ll come to where a car could make a three-point turn. Mike thought this would be a good place to play an Alder Flycatcher tape. I thought to myself, “Really, Mike. Just because Jonathan Mays found a Least Flycatcher here last winter, that’s no reason to believe that we’ll find…” but I didn’t get to finish the thought, because an Empidonax flycatcher flew in to the tape. This one had buffy wing bars, which suggested that it could have been a different species, or perhaps just a different age. And it wasn’t the only one there. As we watched it, Mike pointed out a second one a few yards farther out, calling pip! … pip! So we had at least two Alders for the day, and one unidentified Empidonax.

One more note about our Levy Lake walk. White-eyed Vireos can mimic the calls of other birds. It’s not unusual for the introductory note of their typical song to sound like a Great Crested Flycatcher, an Eastern Towhee, or a Summer Tanager (sometimes the introductory note is the only sound they make, which can be confusing!). Today we heard White-eyed Vireos beginning their typical songs with notes that mimicked (1.) a Red-bellied Woodpecker, and (2.) a Least/Willow Flycatcher’s whit! call. Both were firsts for Mike, Adam, and me.

The La Chua Trail was the place to be on Saturday. Glenn Israel saw a Short-tailed Hawk: “Saw dark morph over horse barn. Circled up higher, then flew toward the southeast. Seen about 11:10 am. Had a good look; identical to photos of hawk seen at Hague dairy earlier this summer.” And Lloyd Davis saw a male Painted Bunting “along Sweetwater Dike where the trail starts to bend north near the lone cypress tree. I was watching a pair of Yellow Warblers in a willow on the west side of the trail, a couple Blue Grosbeaks flew out of the Willow and the Painted Bunting landed and preened above a Northern Cardinal for a couple of minutes or less.”

Becky Enneis read about The Warbler Guide in the last birding report: “I watched Scott Whittle’s videos, and then ordered a copy of the book from Amazon and it arrived today. I will start by studying the section on bird songs, flight and chip calls, and sonograms, all about which I know nothing. There are so many other things in it I haven’t seen in any other guide – the tail patterns, the color impressions, the tree icons showing preferred habitat, the migration time span bar, and the 45 degree and under views….We might not need any more ordinary bird books, but we need this bird book.” Bubba Scales tells me that Wild Birds Unlimited is sold out already, but I’m sure they’ve ordered more.

Perhaps your morale is sagging – weekend trickling away, grindstone awaiting your nose. Here’s something to buck you up, a tale of an Osprey nest site preserved at Cedar Key: http://pureflorida.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-tale-of-ospreys-power-companies.html

Oh MIKI you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

It’s Friday, and we’ve got a beautiful Easter weekend ahead of us.

Those redoubtable Ewings (Benjamin, Caleb, Samuel, and father Dean) saw the season’s first Mississippi Kite (MIKI in banding terminology) at Watermelon Pond on the 29th and Samuel got a photo.

On the 27th Ryan Terrill and Jessica Oswald found a bird we rarely see in spring, a Blue-winged Warbler, at the little creek between Boulware Springs and the Sweetwater Overlook on the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail.

The number of lingering rarities at La Chua is dwindling: Keith Collingwood and John Killian both reported two White-faced Ibises there on the 29th. John got a great picture of a Whooping Crane on the same walk, while Matt and Erin Kalinowski saw two on the previous day – which reminds me that a pair nested on the Prairie two or three years ago.

On the other hand, nobody has reported the Groove-billed Ani since the 25th; has it gone home, or are we just tired of looking for it? No one has seen a Peregrine Falcon since the 21st or a Yellow-breasted Chat since the 13th. The last time anyone reported the Western Tanager in Alachua was the 23rd, when Becky Enneis got this nice photo.

John Hintermister and Barbara Shea got a brief glimpse of one of the pair of Hairy Woodpeckers along the Red Loop at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve on the 27th.

Shirley Lasseter reports that a wintering Rose-breasted Grosbeak is still coming to her NW Gainesville feeder. It’s been there for a month and a half. And Felicia Lee is still hosting a Red-breasted Nuthatch at her place in SW Gainesville.

Felicia’s husband Glenn Price recently went home to South Africa for a family celebration, and while he was there he got some great bird photos. I especially like the Blacksmith Lapwing (just click on the link and let the Recent Photos play through): http://www.raptorcaptor.com/gallery/2473574_QWPGc Remember that Glenn offers these pictures for sale.

A House committee approved the House’s feral cat bill, but now a Senate committee is going to look at a similar Senate bill. Please go to the link and register your opinion: http://fl.audubonaction.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=27641.0&printer_friendly=1