We’ve got two new eBird hotspots in town. One is the newly-opened Depot Park, at the corner of Main Street and Depot Avenue. The other is the cluster of ponds near Dick’s Sporting Goods, which are now officially designated the “Butler Plaza Retention Ponds.” Please use these hotspots when you eBird these locations – use the “Find it on a map” function the first time, after that it will be on your personal list of sites – and if you’ve got any old checklists that should be assigned to these hotspots, please edit them and change the location to the new name (again, using the “Find it on a map” function). The use of a personal name for a birding site prevents your observations from being aggregated with others that are reported to the hotspot.
That said, the Butler Plaza Retention Ponds aren’t very birdy right now. Bob Carroll found them dry on the 2nd: “There were no shorebirds anywhere.” And when I drove by this morning after my wife’s orthopedic appointment at Shands, the ponds were all full of water several inches deep and although there were a few waders around the edges I didn’t see shorebirds of any sort.
Craig Walters and Jerry Pruitt both alerted me to the presence of six Roseate Spoonbills in a flooded field along County Road 346A on the morning of the 3rd, about half a mile west of Williston Road.
Dale Henderson reported the first Yellow Warblers from Cedar Key on the 30th: “I’ve been hearing Yellow Warblers for the last 4 or 5 days (I thought!), but finally had two close ones this morning. I’m always happy when I see them.” Alachua County’s first for the season was reported on the 1st by Alison Salas, who also reported two Bank Swallows, which were by nine days the county’s earliest ever. On the 3rd Caroline Poli reported a Cliff Swallow – “Seen well, square tail and buff upper rump patch” – which was also by nine days the county’s earliest ever. (Hey Cliff Swallow, if a Bank Swallow jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?) Debbie Segal found 4 Yellow Warblers at La Chua on the 4th, plus an American Redstart, 10 Prairie Warblers, and a handful of shorebirds, among them a Semipalmated Plover.
If it’s too hot for you to venture outside, you can at least look out this virtual window in west Texas, about 80 miles north of Big Bend National Park, and watch half a dozen hummingbird species at very close range (thanks, Bubba!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pco9UhX3K4w
Dan Ward, a well-known and well-beloved botany professor at the University of Florida, died on the 30th. The obituary mentions that, suitably for a botanist, he named one of his four children Forrest and another Sylvia (Silva is the Latin for forest): http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/gainesville/obituary.aspx?pid=180846639
Here’s a good cause. Alex Lamoreaux writes, “We are a small volunteer group of American and Honduran biologists, geographers, students, researchers, and guides and we plan to spend 17 days this December in Honduras leading a research expedition to the eastern portion of the country. We will work with local conservation pioneers and preserves to survey and promote the wide diversity of bird life in this very special region.” Help if you can: https://www.gofundme.com/28jkvzj8