Burrowing Owl field trip details, June Challenge updates

Burrowing Owl Watermelon Pond 060916 Michael Drummond

 

You will *not* be able to get a picture of this quality on Saturday, June 18th, when we gather to see Watermelon Pond’s Burrowing Owls. The only way you can get a picture like this is by doing two things: (1.) securing a job as a county biologist, which allows you access to the property on which the Burrowing Owls live, and (2.) having the photographic gifts of Michael Drummond, which few possess.

However you will be able to SEE these Burrowing Owls from a distance and add them to your June Challenge list, or just take delight in their existence. We’ll meet at the gate to Watermelon Pond’s Metzger Tract at 7:30 a.m. – again, that’s on Saturday, June 18th. To get to the gate, go west from Gainesville on State Road 26 (Newberry Road) to the traffic light at the junction with US-41 in Newberry. At the traffic light turn left onto 41 and go 2.9 miles to SW 46th Avenue. Turn right onto 46th and go 1.2 miles to SW 250th Street (a dirt road). Turn left onto 250th and go 3.0 miles to the gate. There are gates on both sides of the road there, and you can park at either one (so long as you don’t block it), but we’ll be entering the one on the left. We’ll be walking about half a mile to the fenceline from which we’ll be able to observe the owls. If this is not clear to you, please let me know and I’ll send you a map.

John Middleton of Lafayette County, who is not (alas) doing The June Challenge, got a great June bird during a visit to Alachua County on the 9th. While sitting in a boat at the north end of Newnans Lake, photographing Ospreys, Bald Eagles, and various waders, he saw a rather seedy-looking gull fly over and got a few nice pictures of it. It turned out to be a yearling Herring Gull, the only Herring Gull ever recorded in Alachua County in June. Here’s one of John’s photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/27575810556/in/dateposted-public/

As mentioned in the last birding report, I spent four and a half hours at Palm Point on the morning of the 7th and saw storm-blown Sooty Terns, Black Terns, Forster’s Terns, and Laughing Gulls. Trina Anderson spent an hour at Palm Point that afternoon and saw a Caspian Tern, even got a photo. That evening Mike Manetz and I went back in hopes of finding the Caspian, but though two Sooty Terns were still present we never saw our target bird. That’s four or five hours I’ve put into seeing a Caspian Tern this month, with nothing to show for it.

Also on the 7th, Anne Kendall saw a bird that’s been hard for June Challengers to find: “There was a King Rail with three chicks at the Paynes Prairie boardwalk on 441. They were about 3/4 of the way out on the north side when I saw them but the chicks walked under the boardwalk while I watched.” (Anne also corrects her earlier advice about the Yellow-throated Vireo: “The Yellow-throated Vireo at the Campus USA Credit Union is SW 12th Street and 4th Avenue, not NW as I told you in my email.”)

I went to Sweetwater Wetlands Park this evening in hope of seeing the Ring-necked Duck. I went all the way to the far end of the property, where it’s been hanging out, but I couldn’t find it. Then I noticed a little Striped Crayfish Snake crossing the trail. It was moving slowly, and it seemed to me that it would be an easy target for a Red-shouldered Hawk or Cattle Egret. So I picked it up and walked it down to the water’s edge in the direction it had been going, and as I bent down to let it go the Ring-necked Duck flushed from the grass at the edge of the canal and swam out into the open. If not for that snake I’d never have seen it. Thanks, snake! A little bit west of that point, I heard a Common Yellowthroat and a Prothonotary Warbler singing, both of which I still need for the Challenge, but I wasn’t able to spish them out into the open. Farther on I ran into Bryan Eastman and Nina Bhattacharyya and we were in the midst of a conversation when a Wilson’s Snipe fluttered up from the drainage ditch between cells 1 and 2. We have only a few June records for that species.

I was lucky enough to find both an American Robin and a pair of Northern Flickers within a minute of each other on the afternoon of the 7th. The flickers were on the lawn at 2014 NE 7th Street and the robin was on the ground at 2101 NE 7th Street. On the 8th Jonathan Mays found two robins by parking his car at Northeast Park and then running up and down 6th Terrace, 7th Street, and 8th Street repeatedly until he located the birds on 7th Street. On the 9th Tina Greenberg found a robin in the same yard where I’d seen the flickers.

I got my 100th June Challenge bird on the 8th. Though not a rarity, it was in some ways the most unexpected thing on my list. It was a Eurasian Collared-Dove, and it was feeding on the ground in my next-door neighbor’s yard. I’ve never seen a collared-dove on this street in the entire 24 years that I’ve lived here. As of the 11th I’m up to 106. At least three or four people are ahead of me.

We spent hours staring at Newnans Lake on Tuesday the 7th, and passed some time wondering how big it was. So I’ve measured it using this web site. From Palm Point across the lake to the Windsor boat ramp is a little over 2 miles. From Powers Park looking northeast to the northern end of the lake is just under 4.5 miles. So birds that look like they’re on the far side of the lake are probably out in the middle. In fact, while most of us were at Palm Point, Debbie Segal phoned from the Windsor boat ramp and pretty much confirmed that. Birds that looked to us as though they were flying right past Debbie looked to Debbie as though they were flying right past us.

In case you’ve ever wondered, here are the sizes of Alachua County’s largest lakes (according to this web site): Orange Lake 12,550 acres (9th largest in the state), Newnans Lake 7,517 acres (16th largest), Lake Santa Fe 5,850 acres (18th), Lake Lochloosa 5,700 acres (20th), Little Orange Lake 576 acres (on the Alachua/Putnam line), Lake Alto 573 acres, Lake Wauberg 254 acres, Lake Alice 82 acres (including associated marsh). I don’t know the sizes of some others, including Prairie Lake, Sunshine Lake, and Burnetts Lake. Watermelon Pond is probably too variable to measure.

If you’re in the market for a new pair of binoculars and you’re willing to spend $350, Pete Dunne (in the April issue of BirdWatching magazine) recommends the Zeiss Terra (“a fine yet reasonably priced binocular that I strongly recommend”). I’ve never tried it myself, so I can’t vouch for it, but here’s some more information from Eagle Optics (and if you order before June 19th you get a $50 rebate!): http://www.eagleoptics.com/binoculars/zeiss/zeiss-terra-ed-8×42-binocular

There’s a new informational resource out there. It’s called County Rare Birds, and it allows you to look up the recent sightings that eBird’s filters have interpreted as rare for any county in the United States and Canada. In some cases these won’t really be rarities – Lloyd Davis reported a Mallard, for instance, but it’s a tame, retention-pond bird (that’s how eBird wants to treat Mallards now, don’t ask me why) – but in most cases they’re good birds. The best way to understand what the web site has to offer is to click on the link. Once you’re at the site, use the “Search Your Location” function in the left sidebar to find Alachua County. When the list of rarities comes up, you can click on the location to see a Google Map showing where each bird was seen (usually just a park location), and you can click on the eBird checklist for more details on the sighting. Here’s the link: http://countyrarebirds.com/