Tag: Kentucky Warbler

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.

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.

Migrant warblers and shorebirds

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Matt O’Sullivan was away in his native England for a couple of weeks, but when he got back into town he wasted no time in finding some good birds. At Bolen Bluff on the 5th he saw a Louisiana Waterthrush, 2 migrant Prothonotary Warblers, and the fall’s first Worm-eating Warbler. Returning two days later he relocated the Worm-eating and one of the Prothonotaries, but also spotted a Short-tailed Hawk (photo here). He commented, “I think the hawk wasn’t an adult. It appeared densely mottled with streaks that blended together on the underside. I don’t know if that suggests local breeding or if it’s a wandering juvenile or subadult.” Dalcio Dacol and Craig Walters walked Bolen Bluff on the 9th and found most of the warblers reported by Matt, plus a few more: Worm-eating, Prothonotary, Black-and-white, Yellow, and the fall’s first Ovenbird.

Dalcio had found the season’s second Kentucky Warbler while walking San Felasco’s Moonshine Creek Trail (south of Millhopper Road) on the 5th. Deena Mickelson saw his report and went looking for it on the 6th. She found it “exactly where Dalcio had reported it, at the beginning of the Moonshine Creek Trail, right after I’d gone downhill, but just before the first bridge was in view” (photo here). She also saw 3 Black-and-white Warblers.

Debbie Segal saw a nice mix of sandpipers at Paynes Prairie on the 7th: 3 Spotted, 5 Solitary, 2 Least, 2 Semipalmated, a Pectoral, and a Lesser Yellowlegs. She also saw a single Laughing Gull and a trio of Yellow Warblers.

Swallow migration gets underway in August. Adam Kent reported a Purple Martin and 5 Barn Swallows over his SE Gainesville home on the 9th, but small numbers of southbound Barn Swallows have been reported by several other birders over the past two weeks. Usually the largest numbers of Barn Swallows pass through during the last week of the month; that’s also your best chance of seeing Bank and Cliff Swallows.

Take a minute to watch any Swallow-tailed or Mississippi Kites you see. Their numbers are starting to dwindle as they begin their migration, and we won’t see them again until next spring.

If you’re over 50, you might as well turn in your binoculars: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140805-aging-birders-breeding-bird-survey-volunteers-science/ (“Some surveys—such as the BBS—require volunteers to record information on all the birds they can detect in a brief three-minute window, which might be challenging for some older people if they have a lot of information coming at them rapidly, Farmer said.”) Um, sorry? What? There were an awful lot of words in that sentence…

Wow, everybody’s going to Cuba! In addition to Halifax River Audubon Society, which I mentioned in the last email, Joni Ellis notified me that she’s got two slots still open on a Cuba trip: “Cost will be ~ $3,000 including airfare from Tampa, visa, health insurance, all lodging, meals and transportation. Just bring beer money!” (Itinerary and details here.) And Rob Norton, who has compiled the West Indies seasonal report for American Birds/North American Birds for thirty years or so, writes, “The Ocean Society and Holbrook Travel will be sponsoring Christmas Bird Counts (4) in Cuba this season. I have worked with local ornithologists and guides to establish these areas as an historic opportunity to participate in that country’s official CBCs. Dates are Dec 13-22, details at holbrook.travel/tofcuba.”

Oh. THAT migration.

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Thoreau called it “the royal month of August,” and he was right. The stupendous clouds, the heat, the lushness of the greenery – and of course the birds. June and July begin migration with a trickle, but August opens up the floodgates. Shorebirds peak this month, and warblers, swallows, flycatchers, and other passerines will be on the move.

Speaking of warblers, Frank and Irina Goodwin saw two Yellow Warblers at La Chua on the 30th, the very day I sent out the last birding report – in which I complained that no one had seen any Yellow Warblers. On the 31st, John Hintermister found a very early Kentucky Warbler along the nature trail at Poe Springs Park, while Samuel Ewing had a Louisiana Waterthrush at Loblolly. And today Barbara Woodmansee hosted an American Redstart in the backyard water feature that she and her husband had just finished building; that’s only the second of the fall. Four days, four migrant warblers. That’s more like it.

On June 21st, the summer solstice, we enjoyed 14 hours and 3 minutes of daylight. Today we’ll have 30 minutes less. Birds are still singing, but only occasionally. I still hear Northern Cardinals every day, but Great Crested Flycatchers, Brown Thrashers, and Carolina Chickadees, though still around, aren’t singing much.

I watched a very enjoyable online documentary this morning called “Counting on Birds,” in which the host goes along on Christmas Bird Counts in New Hampshire, Maine, and Ecuador, as well as the “Cuba Bird Survey.” I most enjoyed the the first twenty minutes, which take place in New Hampshire. The host does get the history of the Christmas Bird Count a little bit wrong. It didn’t “start out as a killing game.” The “side hunts” that Frank Chapman cited when he proposed the Christmas census in Bird-Lore magazine had mostly faded into the past by 1900, so there was no need for him to put an end to them, as the host declares he did. You can read Chapman’s original CBC proposal – its brevity so out of proportion to its significance – here. And you can watch “Counting on Birds” here: http://video.nhptv.org/video/2365128454/

Speaking of the Cuba Bird Survey, Daytona Beach’s Halifax River Audubon Society will be participating this year, from December 1-12. The trip will cost about $5,000 with air fare. For more details click here (download it for better graphics).

The Ewing family just returned from a sixteen-state summer vacation during which, Samuel informs me, he got 48 life birds. He posted a very nice gallery of photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/121511542@N02/

We’re beginning to fill in the field trip schedule on the Alachua Audubon web site. We’re up to early November at this point, so feel free to take a look and start putting anything that interests you on your calendar: https://alachuaaudubon.org/classes-field-trips/

Preliminary results of the fall migration count

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

First day of fall! Now the nights start getting longer and the days start getting shorter and the birds start getting more abundant!

I haven’t received all the results from Saturday’s fall migration count, but I can tell you that every single White-eyed Vireo presently in existence showed up in Alachua County to be tallied. My team got 60; the NW County team reported 116. The two best birds of the day were a Black-billed Cuckoo seen by the Levy Lake team, and a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher seen by the Bolen Bluff team. The cuckoo was about three miles out, beyond the point where the right (north) fork of the loop trail turns south. The flycatcher was not quite so far away: taking the left fork of the Bolen Bluff Trail, walk until you’re about 75 yards shy of the open grassy area where the two forks come together. The bird was there, on the wooded slope below the trail. Several of us went looking for it this morning, but although we found four calling Acadian Flycatchers in the general area, plus two other silent Empidonax flycatchers, none of them matched Andy Kratter’s description of the bird (“yellow underparts, brightest on the throat, shortish tailed, big headed, relatively short primary extension, quite different from the elongate slender cresty look of the other Acadian we saw today”). Other highlights of the count included two Merlins at O’Leno State Park and one at Paynes Prairie, two Alder Flycatchers, a Broad-winged Hawk, and a Yellow-breasted Chat at La Chua, American Bitterns at Newnans Lake and La Chua, Golden-winged Warblers at Gum Root Swamp and San Felasco Progress Center, a Tree Swallow and a Bachman’s Sparrow on the south side of the Prairie, and a Bobolink and a first-of-the-season House Wren in the rural northwestern part of the county. At least 24 species of warblers were found. Once I’ve compiled the reports, I’ll post the final results.

Mike Manetz and I birded the nature trail at Poe Springs Park on Friday. We saw no tanagers or cuckoos, and found only eight warbler species, but they included one Kentucky, one “Brewster’s” (a Blue-winged x Golden-winged hybrid, so not really a species), and a nice male Canada. All three were within a few yards of each other along the first part of the trail, where it overlooks a dry cypress swamp.  However I didn’t see any of them listed on Mike’s migration-count results.

Thanks to all of you who helped me keep track of the kites’ departure this year. The last Mississippi Kites of the season were three seen over the La Chua Trail on September 2nd by Dean, Benjamin, and Samuel Ewing, and the last Swallow-tailed was one seen over US-301 near Island Grove on September 1st by Travis Blunden. Both species will spend the winter in Brazil and return to the area next March (Swallow-tailed) and April (Mississippi).

Adam Zions reminds us that birds aren’t the only things you can see in trees. He was birding Bolen Bluff on the 20th and came across this bobcat loafing in a live oak.

On the other hand, Jonathan Mays reminds us that we should occasionally look down.

Adam Kent asked me to post the following announcement on behalf of the Florida Ornithological Society:
For the first time ever, expert sea-watchers reveal how to identify waterbirds at a distance! To hear more about this fascinating challenge, come to the Florida Ornithological Society (FOS) meeting this October 12th hear author Cameron Cox talk about his groundbreaking Peterson Reference Guide to Seawatching: Eastern Waterbirds in Flight. While hawk watching has been popular for years, similar bird ID techniques are also useful to identify waterbirds, sometimes at very long distances. Not just for people who bird on the coast, this presentation will help you identify waterbirds in any context, even flying over your own backyard!
What: FOS Fall meeting
When: October 11-13, 2013
Where: Hilton St. Petersburg – Carillon Park
Click here for more info about the meeting.

Students at the University of Florida are helping Alachua Audubon with its next backyard-birding tour by designing and distributing a survey about the yard tour (which they call a “birding event”) and social media. It would help Alachua Audubon if you were to take the survey, which is only twelve questions long and should take only one or two minutes. The designers of the survey write, “We are working on increasing the involvement and participation of the Alachua County Audubon Society. We have constructed this survey to gather your feedback on specific concerns we have that will aid us in our final recommendation. All of your information will be kept confidential and this survey is taken anonymously. We appreciate your feedback. Please take two minutes out of your day and complete this survey to help us better serve you”: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WWNFTVV

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