Fall migrants are moving through in modest numbers. Black-and-white Warblers have been reported a couple of times, two birds by Jennifer Donsky at San Felasco on the 15th and two more by John Hintermister at Gum Root Swamp on the 16th. Louisiana Waterthrushes, reported earlier in the month, are still being seen, one by Felicia Lee and Elizabeth Martin at Loblolly on the 17th and one by Ben Ewing along the Hogtown Creek Greenway on the 18th. A couple of shorebirds too: I found a Solitary Sandpiper behind the new Walmart in Butlerzilla on the 17th, and on the 18th Danny Rohan spotted a Lesser Yellowlegs at Sweetwater Wetlands Park. No one has yet reported a Prairie Warbler, a Yellow Warbler, or an American Redstart, but they should show up within the next week or two if they’re not here already.
Mike Manetz and I went out this morning and spent a couple of hours standing by the side of County Road 1471 in the spot where I’m pretty sure I saw a couple of Hairy Woodpeckers in late June. No Hairies showed up, but we did see or hear every other species of summering woodpecker in Alachua County as well as Eastern Kingbirds, Eastern Meadowlarks, Common Ground-Doves, a Loggerhead Shrike, and a Swallow-tailed Kite. And Mike, hearing the call of a Brown-headed Nuthatch, used his smartphone to lure a family group of five nuthatches into the top of a pecan tree directly across the road. Otherwise we had no luck at all – as Margaret Morse Nice once put it, “nothing gained but health and enjoyment of nature.”
Speaking of Margaret Morse Nice, recent reading has impressed on me the really astonishing advances in bird identification, identification of all wild plants and animals in fact, since her day. I put up a short blog post about it: http://fieldguide.blogs.gainesville.com/851/how-times-have-changed/
Jonathan Mays sent me a link to an exquisite 20-minute film about a nature photographer’s search for an endangered bumblebee. Watch the first ninety seconds, and if you can turn it off after that you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din: http://www.rustypatched.com/the-film