Tag: Prothonotary Warbler

The calendar, she does not lie

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Adam Kent and Ryan Butryn put their kayaks into Lake Santa Fe on the 20th and went looking for the Pacific Loon. They failed to find it, but they did see the county’s second-ever Black Scoters, two of them. Adam got a photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/13319108903/

The 20th was first day of spring, and the birds have responded accordingly:

On the 20th Linda Hensley had the first Prothonotary Warbler of the spring eating grape jelly in her NW Gainesville yard.

The first Red-eyed Vireo of the spring was photographed by Matt O’Sullivan at Loblolly Woods on the 20th: http://www.flickr.com/photos/118053703@N02/13291391555/

The season’s first Broad-winged Hawk was seen by Phil Laipis on the 21st, circling (the hawk, not Phil) over Newberry Road near the Oaks Mall.

John Hintermister saw the spring’s first Summer Tanager at his place north of Gainesville on the 21st.

Great Crested Flycatcher is sort of problematic. White-eyed Vireos can imitate their call, and may – I emphasize “may” – at times produce a single “wheep” that can be mistaken for a Great Crested. A series of “wheep” calls is perhaps more likely to be a Great Crested, but I always encourage birders who hear one before March 25th to track down the source of the call and make an attempt to see the bird and confirm its identity. Andy Kratter both heard and saw a Great Crested on the 21st while doing his loon watch at Pine Grove Cemetery. (White-eyed Vireos are good mimics in general. This morning Andy wrote, “Thought I had my first-of-the-season Hooded Warbler today, but it was a White-eyed Vireo.”)

Samuel and Benjamin Ewing saw the spring’s first Hooded Warbler at Loblolly Woods on the 22nd, and Dalcio Dacol saw another at San Felasco Hammock the same day.

One Least Bittern wintered near Paynes Prairie’s Cones Dike Trail, but the spring’s first arrival was one that I saw – with Lauren Day, Larry Korhnak, and biking-birding-blogger Dorian Anderson – at Kanapaha Prairie on the 22nd.

Some spring birds jumped the gun:

Tina Greenberg heard the spring’s first Chuck-will’s-widow singing outside her west Gainesville window on March 6th. I would have suspected a Whip-poor-will at that date, but she made a recording on the following night, and it was indeed a Chuck.

Prairie Warblers are a relatively early spring migrant, usually beginning their passage through the area in mid-March. Adam Zions saw two along Cones Dike on the 15th, and there have been five sightings reported to eBird since then.

Jonathan Mays saw two Chimney Swifts over the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail on the 18th, tying the early record for Alachua County.

Samuel Ewing notes that Carolina Wrens fledged their first brood at his place on the 20th, and that Northern Cardinals and Eastern Bluebirds have both produced eggs.

A few early migrants have been arriving at Cedar Key. Sally Chisholm photographed a Hooded Warbler at the museum on March 18th: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QhNvKVXL8070W_WADbs9YtMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite  On the same day Pat Burns reported, “I saw 18 Hooded Warblers and heard the chink of others. Also noted: 7 Yellow-throated Warblers, 15 Black-and-white, 12 Northern Parula, 12 Palm, and 1 Common Yellowthroat. Blue-gray Gnatcatchers were numerous. There were flocks of White-eyed Vireos, 5 Yellow-throated Vireos, and one Red-eyed Vireo. A few Barn Swallows were present. Late in the day twelve Spotted Sandpipers landed on a dock behind Nature’s Landing.” It’s not always that good, however (or maybe it’s just that we’re not Pat Burns!): Ron Robinson, Matt O’Sullivan, and I spent the day there on the 20th, but apart from a couple of Hooded Warblers (one at the cemetery, one at Black Point Swamp on the road to Shell Mound) and dozens of American Avocets we didn’t see much worth reporting.

Frank and Irina Goodwin found a locally-rare Hairy Woodpecker at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve on the 22nd, “in a grove of tall turkey oaks just to the south of the trail that leads to the campsite. In other words, on the north end of the preserve, if you’re walking west along the graded road (toward the campsite), it was among the turkey oaks just beyond the junction where the red-blazed trail turns sharply left and the campsite road continues west.” They also heard a Bachman’s Sparrow singing.

At least one of two Canvasbacks that have been hanging out among the Ring-necked Ducks at the end of the La Chua Trail was still present on the 22nd. John Martin got a long-distance shot: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thermalin/13337661935/

Marvin Smith and Brad Bergstrom found two White-faced Ibises at Alligator Lake in Lake City on the 19th. Marvin got a photo: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/RxXKJr153b1poJwwbf_kJ9MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite

Felicia Lee told me about this eye-opening New York Times article on outdoor cats and their effects on public health not to mention wildlife: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/22/opinion/sunday/the-evil-of-the-outdoor-cat.html?emc=eta1&_r=0

Various comings and goings; plus a new owl!

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Early sparrows seem to be the rule this fall. I previously reported Samuel Ewing’s October 2nd Savannah Sparrow, an early record. On September 28th Matthew Bruce reported a Chipping Sparrow in juvenile plumage from Chapmans Pond. That’s extremely early, but there are five earlier reports (!), the earliest another juvenile bird that Andy Kratter saw on August 31, 2003. As Andy wrote on one of the listservs at the time, “Like many sparrows, juvenile Spizella sparrows have a protracted molt of their underparts, retaining the streaking past their fall migration.” A third sparrow species checked in on the morning of the 6th: Mike Manetz showed me a White-crowned Sparrow foraging under the plum trees near the La Chua trailhead.

Samuel Ewing reported the fall’s first Wilson’s Warbler at Bolen Bluff on the 5th, “in the patch of sweetgums right where the trail leads into the prairie.”

Jennifer Donsky found a male Painted Bunting at Lake Alice on the 6th, on the southeast side of the boat ramp.

Mike Manetz and I walked La Chua’s Sparrow Alley on the morning of the 6th, looking for the Alder Flycatchers that had been present there since August 27th. We played a taped call in several spots, which had previously been effective in drawing the birds out, but we got no response. The last time an Alder was reported there was September 21st, and the last time one was reported anywhere was September 26th (at Cones Dike). So they’ve continued their migration and are probably in South America by now. Other Empidonax flycatchers are still being seen. Ted and Steven Goodman found two possible Yellow-bellied Flycatchers at San Felasco Hammock’s Creek Sink Trail on the 5th, at the first sinkhole after you leave the Moonshine Creek Trail near the bridge. However the birds were silent, and as Jonathan Mays puts it, “A silent empid is a worthless empid.” One fall day back in the 1990s there were two Empidonax flycatchers with yellow bellies at Bolen Bluff, in the open area where the two trails come together on the Prairie rim. Several of us spent at least half an hour staring at them – John Hintermister, Mike Manetz, Barbara Muschlitz, me, a couple other experienced birders – and we agreed that they were powerfully yellow on the underparts and that consequently we were going to add Yellow-bellied Flycatcher to our respective life lists. As we packed up our telescopes one of the birds finally called … and it was an Acadian. Kenn Kaufman points out that fall Acadians “can have a conspicuous yellow wash on the underparts, including the throat” (Field Guide to Advanced Birding). Which is one reason why the flycatcher that Bob Carroll and I saw in Becky Enneis’s back yard this weekend, dull yellow from the throat to the undertail coverts, with an olive wash on the sides of the breast – but absolutely silent – was just an Empidonax flycatcher.

Barbara Shea led Saturday’s field trip, and sent this report: “We had 21 people sign up this morning at the Powers Park meeting place. At Powers we were tripping over the ‘rare and secretive’ Limpkin, sighting four of them. One stood on the railing and watched us watching him from about 10 feet away. At Palm Point, highlights were a late Prothonotary Warbler, at least one person saw a Worm-eating, 7 warblers total. There was  a hard to see but eventually ID’d Scarlet Tanager, seen as we lingered over a intermittently cooperative Yellow Warbler that everybody got to see for once. There was a mystery Accipiter, but the circling Peregine Falcon, just over the tree tops at times, made up for that – and was a good ending bird and a hopeful segue to tomorrow’s trip to the east coast.” But according to trip leader Adam Kent, the trip to the Guana River area was “a little slow migrant-wise but my wife Gina did manage to pick out 2 Peregrines a mile away or more and we saw a bunch of cooperative Black-throated Blue Warblers. Although it was overall slow it’s always a fun place to go birding.”

Two worthwhile talks this week: Mike Manetz will describe “Birding Highlights in Costa Rica” on Thursday evening at the Tower Road Library; and Paul Moler will discuss “Frogs of Florida” on Tuesday evening at Alachua Conservation Trust HQ. But you already knew about these events, didn’t you, because you have your finger on the pulse of Gainesville!

Field trips this weekend: San Felasco on Saturday, Bolen Bluff on Sunday. These could be very good. Details here.

If any of you womenfolk use Lush cosmetics, you may be interested to know that the company’s founder, Mark Constantine, is a major figure in European birding: http://soundapproach.co.uk/news/bath-bombs-birdsong  (From The Sound Approach’s web site: “Since 2000, Mark Constantine, Magnus Robb and Arnoud van den Berg have been building a major new collection of bird sound recordings. Our collection now exceeds 50,000 recordings of more than 1,000 species, with a particular focus on the Western Palaearctic Region, making this one of the largest privately-owned archives of bird sound recordings in the world. The Sound Approach aim to popularise birdsong and raise standards in the use of sounds in bird identification. Subjects of particular interest include ageing and sexing birds by their sounds, and recognising hidden biodiversity, ‘new species’, through bird sounds. Besides those of the three main recordists, The Sound Approach collection has also received major contributions from Dick Forsman and Killian Mullarney.”) Earlier this year one of the recordists from The Sound Approach discovered a new species of owl in Oman: http://soundapproach.co.uk/news/sound-approach-team-discover-new-species-owl-science

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

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

No news is bad news

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

The Kirtland’s Warbler seems to have been a one-day wonder. Gary Davis wrote, “I was at San Felasco from 7:30 to 3:00 birding with Lloyd Davis, John Murphy, Bob Wallace, and others. I did not see the bird and as far as I know nobody else saw it during that time. Birding was slow all day, with no notable sightings.” Stuart Muller was philosophical: “If I could fly, I’d be back up in the air in this weather too. Lovely moment though.”

Mike Manetz walked out La Chua today. He found a Least Bittern in the canal – just where they were last year – and saw three Roseate Spoonbills at the observation platform, though they flew off as he watched. Jonathan Mays, on a different part of the Prairie, saw a spoonbill too – perhaps one of the same three – and got a photo.

Jonathan also got this photo of a singing male Prothonotary Warbler at Palm Point on the 2nd, which I’m linking here just because the color is so glorious, and to remind you that they’re resident all summer just a few miles east of Gainesville, so you should go marvel at them.

The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology is sponsoring a Young Birders’ Network. Here’s the YBN page on eBird and here’s the Facebook page.

Speaking of eBird, a team composed of eBird project leaders just set a new North American Big Day record of 294 species, besting the old record by an astounding 30 species. The story is here. Matt Hafner, Alachua County Birder Emeritus (even though he actually lived in Marion County), gets a mention. Matt may be the best birder I’ve ever met, and I’ve met John Hintermister and Mike Manetz, so that’s saying something.

Wild Birds Unlimited is sponsoring a showing of “Birders: The Central Park Effect” at The Hipp on May 21st. For details and a link to the trailer, go here.

Florida’s 2013 legislative session is over. For environmental highlights, go here, but I can tell you that the feral cat bill died a richly-deserved death in committee.

Sumer is icumen in. I heard my first cicadas of the season tuning up in the back yard this afternoon.

And speaking of poetry, one of our local birders, Adrienne Daniel, was inspired by her backyard birds:

DELIGHTFUL FRIENDS!

You are enjoyment, you are a smile,
You invite me to stay a while.
There is an order in what you do
And that can be said by very few.
You are thankful for what you receive
Or so your actions make me believe.
The seasons dictate your fashion style
And some of you travel many a mile.
I don’t know just how you know
Unless you search high and low.
Maybe it is the pull of generations past
But I sure hope this will last and last.
I am so lucky you found my home
And some of you never roam
But those of you who can’t stay for long
Always favor me with a glorious song.
The notes linger in my mind for days
And you delight in so many ways.
You all are my sunshine every day
From my first coffee to the suns last ray
To all my feathered friends I drink a toast
And hope I have been a proper host.

Birds you can’t see

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

The biggest birding news this week is also the most frustrating. Since the 5th a Buff-bellied Hummingbird has been coming to a feeder south of Williston (in Levy County), but the homeowner hasn’t yet responded to requests to allow the birding public in to see it. She may refuse, or she may delay long enough that the bird leaves for its nesting grounds in Texas and Mexico. This is at least the second record for Levy County; one was in Cedar Key on 23-24 October 2000. Here’s a photo.

Pat Burns got a photo of a locally-rare Willet in the pond beside the Lowe’s in Alachua on the 5th. Willets are normally saltwater birds, and it’s pretty unusual to find one inland. Alas, when Mike Manetz went looking for it on the 6th, the bird had flown.

The Groove-billed Ani was seen again on the 6th by Larry Gridley, a birder from Albany, Georgia: “I got to Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park at 0800. I found it at 0935 in the blackberry thicket were it has been reported before. I stumbled up on it as it was sunning itself in a blackberry thicket on the edge of the trail. You can see his wings flared a little and neck feathers ruffled. After about 30 minutes  warming up it flew to a small tree then to some more blackberry thickets where it was chasing bugs.” Larry posted some photos of the ani here. He also saw two Yellow-breasted Chats in the same location. The ani was seen again on the 7th by Tallahassee birder Robert Bowman.

Cedar Key has been pretty lively over the past week or so. On the 6th John Hintermister saw a Scarlet Tanager, a Cape May Warbler, a Tennessee Warbler, seven Prothonotary Warblers, six Prairies, four Hoodeds, an American Redstart, a Louisiana Waterthrush, and seven (!) Red-breasted Nuthatches. On the 1st the Ewings found a Swainson’s Warbler at the museum, and on the 6th Pat Burns found two more at an undisclosed location.

John Killian found the spring’s first Worm-eating Warbler along the Moonshine Creek Trail at San Felasco on April 2nd, by one day the earliest ever recorded in the county. Felicia Lee, Barbara Shea, and Elizabeth Martin found another along Bolen Bluff on the 7th. Prairie Warblers and American Redstarts are being reported almost daily.

The first Hooded Warblers of the spring were reported by Caleb Gordon at Loblolly Woods on the 26th and by Ryan Butryn at the FWC Wildlife Lab (near the intersection of 441 and Williston Road) on the 27th. Several have been seen since then.

Northern Rough-winged Swallows usually show up during the second week in March. This year they were late, or we noticed them late: Lloyd Davis found the first of the spring at Cellon Creek Boulevard on the 22nd. Conrad Burkholder had a lovely experience in the same spot on the 30th: “The Northern Rough-winged Swallows were numerous, with about a dozen birds flying around some large parked truck trailers, very low to the ground. I stood still while the swallows swirled in the air around me. They were flying very acrobatically and low to the ground, about 2 to 10 feet. I observed some of the swallows going in and out of the underside of one of the trailers. I also observed them picking up what appeared to be nesting material. I believe they may be nesting in the underside of the trailers.”

Laughing Gulls are mostly a warm-weather phenomenon in Alachua County. This has always mystified me. Why would they come inland during spring and summer, when they should be staying close to their nests on the coast? Anyway, the first of the spring were seen on the 1st, when Samuel and Benjamin Ewing saw one flying over their neighborhood near Watermelon Pond and Andy Kratter saw three going over Pine Grove Cemetery.

There were three separate sightings of Mississippi Kites on March 29th, but there have been none reported to me (or to eBird) since then. Swallow-tailed Kites seem to be here in pretty good numbers, relatively speaking, and I’m told by a researcher that a pair is nesting within the Gainesville city limits.

There are plenty of winter birds still around. A few highlights: While doing a loon watch at Pine Grove Cemetery on the 7th, Andy Kratter saw an Eastern Phoebe, the latest ever recorded in Alachua County. Andy’s sighting broke a record that had stood since Frank Chapman saw one on April 4, 1887 – a span of 126 years! Mike Manetz heard a Whip-poor-will singing in his NW Gainesville neighborhood on the 1st. That’s not a record, but it’s pretty late nonetheless. Ryan Butryn saw a Wilson’s Warbler at the FWC Wildlife Lab on the 27th.

Birder and poet Sidney Wade invites the local birding community to join her as she reads from her sixth book of poetry, Straits & Narrows, at the downtown library on Thursday, April 11th, at 7:30 p.m. She assures me, “There will be bird poems.”

Mike Manetz writes, “Last year’s Alachua Audubon trip to Costa Rica was so much fun we decided to do it again! Thirty species of hummingbirds, twenty species of flycatchers, dozens of wrens and tanagers, plus toucans, antwrens, antvireos, woodcreepers, and all the rainforest flora and fauna you can absorb. If you have not experienced the excitement of birding in the tropics this is a great place to start! Please join us for a balanced look at some wonderful tropical birds and inspiring efforts to conserve the habitats the birds depend on. A portion of the proceeds of this trip will go to Alachua Audubon.” Thirty species of hummingbirds?! You can look over the itinerary, and some of the mind-boggling birds and scenery you can expect to see, at http://birdsandconservation.weebly.com/  Check it out, if only to see that classic photo at the bottom of the main page of Mike lounging in a hammock.

A few rare birds, a few spring arrivals, and a few birding blogs

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

It’s a rainy Saturday, a good time for this particular birding report.

The winter-plumage White-faced Ibis at the end of the La Chua Trail has been joined by a second, a bird in full breeding plumage found by Adam Zions on the 22nd.

The Western Tanager south of Alachua was seen as recently as the 21st, when John Hintermister got a photo.

Mike Manetz found a locally-rare Hairy Woodpecker at Longleaf Flatwoods Reserve on the 7th, “at the far end of the Red Loop. It was foraging actively and calling in a nice stretch of longleaf pine / turkey-and-other oak with undulating terrain and open understory.” When he and John Hintermister went looking for it on the 20th they found a mated pair. John Martin went to see the birds on the 22nd and got a couple of photos.

Kathy Malone found one of the Le Conte’s Sparrows at Levy Prairie Loop on the 20th. Conrad Burkholder saw the Groove-billed Ani on Sparrow Alley on the 22nd.

Great Crested Flycatchers are here: Michael Meisenburg came across one in SE Gainesville on the 18th, Mike Manetz had one in his NW Gainesville yard on the 19th, and three arrived with the spring on the 20th – Jonathan Mays found one in SE Gainesville, and there were separate sightings by Caleb Gordon and Benjamin Ewing in NW Gainesville. Mornings will be noisier.

Visiting New York birder Andy Mason had the spring’s first Prothonotary Warbler at O’Leno State Park on the 20th.

Eastern Kingbirds arrived en masse on the 22nd: Lloyd Davis found one at Cellon Creek Boulevard, Bob Knight saw two near the Hague Dairy, and Samuel and Benjamin Ewing saw one near Watermelon Pond (and Samuel got a photo).

Gary Appelson told me how the committee vote on the feral cat bill turned out: “In case you are wondering: The feral cat bill passed unanimously despite impassioned statements from Audubon, some Gainesville folks, and several folks who have to endure living or working next to cat colonies. The bill was introduced by a freshman legislator, and there is a strong institutional tradition of catering to a first bill by a freshman legislator by passing it. The bill will likely not make it through all its required committees since we are already 20 days into the session, that is the good news. But the down side is once it passes its first committee it can be amended to other bills – so now Audubon’s lobby team and others need to be on their toes and watch for a wacko amendment.”

I’ve added a new category to the Links page on the Alachua Audubon web site: Birding and Local Nature-related Blogs. I chose three big-time birding blogs – David Sibley’s, Kenn (and wife Kimberly) Kaufman’s, and the American Birding Association’s – and four local ones, and just to introduce you, I’ve selected posts from each that I particularly like:

Earth Teach Me: Katherine Edison is a writer and photographer with a keen eye for the magic of day-to-day nature. The link (i.e., click on “Earth Teach Me”) goes to a post on a lovely little weed-slash-wildflower that most of us have in our yards but never knew the name of.

Bob’s Gone Birding: Most of us know Bob Carroll, the proprietor of the Florida County Listing web site and one of the nicest guys in Gainesville birding. The link goes to a post about his favorite activity, county listing – in this case, exploring the southern half of Levy County, which most of us merely drive through on the way to Cedar Key.

Florida Nature Adventures: Buford Pruitt is a freelance wildlife biologist and clearly a man born a century too late. In the linked post he explores the Sanchez Prairie, the big ravine that separates the southern half of San Felasco Hammock from the northern half. There’s one short geological paragraph that assumes a little too much knowledge on our part, but clearly the age of adventure and exploration lives on in Buford Pruitt! Plus, my vocabulary was increased by three words, reading this post.

Pure Florida: Raymond Powers teaches high school biology at Cedar Key and lives in the Gulf Hammock. He’s clearly living The Good Life, and his enjoyment of eating, growing things, fishing, and his three Labrador retrievers occupies as many blog posts as does his interest in nature. He’s curious, and he’s handy at making things, and the linked post demonstrates one reason I like him: how many of us would think to submerge a video camera (in waterproof housing) into a stream to see what’s swimming around down there? There’s not much to look at, as it turns out, but I like that spirit!

Sibley Guides: David Sibley authored one of the best guides to North American birds, and his blog contains lots of identification information that supplements what’s in the guide. In the linked post he figures out that you can tell male from female juncos just by posture. Not highly useful here in Gainesville, but it shows how a first-class birder’s mind works.

Birding with Kenn and Kimberly: Until David Sibley came along, Kenn Kaufman was the heir apparent to Roger Tory Peterson, and that reputation was not undeserved. He updates his blog less frequently than he should, but it’s always worth reading. The link goes to a post on what to do, and what to avoid, if you want to interest someone in birds and birding.

ABA Blog: The American Birding Association has a blog on its web site, with different posts authored by different contributors. There are rarity alerts, posts on books and optics, and posts on science. This link goes to a post by filmmaker Jeffrey Kimball, who describes the aims of his documentary “Birding: The Central Park Effect” (which, by the way, just became available on Netflix and Amazon).