From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report
Chris Cattau, who found the Gray Catbird at Tumblin Creek Park a few days ago (still singing invisibly across SW 6th Street from the park’s parking lot at nine), reports that a Spotted Sandpiper is at Palm Point this morning. This ties the record for the latest migrant of any species ever reported in Alachua County. Here’s Chris’s photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/18519439452/in/dateposted-public/
This morning several of us converged on Sweetwater Wetlands Park to see if we could add anything to our June Challenge lists. We began by looking for Yellow-crowned Night-Heron in the trash basin. We saw a mystery bird in the trees facing the red bridge, and walked around to the bridge to get a better look. It was an immature Black-crowned Night-Heron, but I decided to set up my scope and take a look at it anyway. I extended the legs of the tripod, set it down, then looked into the lens to see where it was pointed so I could direct it at the Black-crowned – and right there in the lens was the Yellow-crowned! Dumb luck! About half a dozen of us had a look at the bird. We went on around to the south moat in hopes of some late shorebirds, but the water had risen and flooded the mud flats. However Ron Robinson pointed out a King Rail stalking along the edge of the cattails, which was a new June Challenge bird for all of us.
Andy Kratter had an American Redstart at his SE Gainesville home on the 5th, but it was gone this morning.
If you still need Blue-winged Teal, Linda Hensley saw one (plus an American Coot) at Chapmans Pond on the 5th.
Pied-billed Grebes have nested again in the retention pond at NE 4th Street and NE 35th Avenue. The address is misleading: NE 4th Street is a block WEST of Main.
It look me five days to finish it, but I finally put up a blog post about the first day of the June Challenge: http://fieldguide.blogs.gainesville.com/347/the-june-challenge/
A couple of months ago I ran into Susie Hetrick at Publix. Susie is the land manager for the Gladman Tract, the Watermelon Pond property that supports the county’s last known population of Burrowing Owls. I asked her if she’d been out to check on the owls lately. She said she had, but had seen only one, and a subsequent trip had found none at all. “I went home and got drunk,” she said, because she was managing the Gladman Tract specifically for Burrowing Owls. But she returned in late May and saw a single owl. Would I like to join her for a more thorough search to see if any owls remained on the property? I said I would, and on the morning of June 5th I met Susie and county biologist Michael Drummond at Watermelon Pond County Park. I climbed into the back seat of their truck and we drove up the road and through a gate. We crossed one pasture and then another, and as we ascended a slope toward a fence line that marked a third Susie said, “What is that bird on the fence post? It’s got a big head.” It was a Burrowing Owl, and as we went over the rise she said, “I see four!” Michael said, “I see three!” And they were looking in different directions! Reader, we found ten Burrowing Owls, and several of them were juveniles.
Which is all prefatory to this announcement: There will be a field trip to add Burrowing Owl to your June Challenge list, or just to see it, on the morning of Saturday, June 13th. There won’t be much opportunity for photography, because the owls are too far away and the county wants them to remain undisturbed, but you should be able to get very decent looks through the many spotting scopes that will be there. We’ll meet at Watermelon Pond County Park at 7:30. LET ME KNOW if you’re coming, because the county wants to know how many to prepare for.