If you’re still in New Year’s Resolution mode, here are four links that may improve your birding and, incidentally, make it much more fun. I’d suggest you bookmark them now and read them later, one at a time:
Paul Lehman, former editor of Birding magazine, on going off the beaten path: http://aba.org/birding/2014-MAR-APR/Lehman.pdf
A profile of Guy McCaskie, the California birder who pretty much invented the way we bird now – mainly, in fact, by going off the beaten path. Don’t be put off by the overwritten first paragraph, the rest of it is good: https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nab/v046n02/p00204-p00213.pdf
Van Remsen’s invaluable essay “On Taking Field Notes”: https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nab/v031n05/p00946-p00953.pdf
I can waste a lot of time reading these mini-biographies of influential California birders, including the above-referenced Lehman, McCaskie, and Remsen (plus Ryan Terrill’s father Scott). They increase my resolve to be a better birder: http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/CAwhoswho.html
The possible Curlew Sandpiper at La Chua has not been relocated. Ryan Terrill went back out on the 7th, as did Craig Bateman and I, and I was out there on the 8th with Lloyd Davis, Chris Burney, John Killian, and Colleen Cowdery, but none of us saw the bird in question.
Colleen Cowdery got a nice photo of the Dickcissel at La Chua on January 8th: https://www.flickr.com/photos/150798766@N07/32061473412/ I think the secret is being there early. Then follow the boardwalk out past the roofed shelter that overlooks Little Alachua Sink and continue until just before the boardwalk starts to bend left toward the main Alachua Sink. Watch the weeds to your right for sparrow activity. Be patient. The bird isn’t always there, but that area is your best bet. Dick Bartlett found it again on the morning of the 11th.
Austin Gregg noted what appears to be a dark-morph (i.e., Western) Red-tailed Hawk at Levy Lake Loop on the 8th. It was dark on the upper breast and wing linings, but it had the identifying red tail. Hopefully it will stick around and someone will get documentary photos.
Phil Laipis emailed a report on this past weekend’s field trip to St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge: “Eleven hardy birders made the Saturday trek to St. Marks NWR for the annual trip. John Hintermister and I left Friday in much better weather, and birded St. George Island. Saturday dawned COLD, near freezing, foggy with some mist, and very windy, but turned sunny and cold by 10 am or so, warming up to about 45, although still very windy in the open. Sunday, only 4 really hardcore (mentally unsound?) birders joined John and me on Bottoms Road (even colder, and still windy) and Alligator Point for some more birding. My trip list for Sat and Sun was 88 species, with Friday adding another 15. Highlights for the trip were Golden-crowned Kinglet, Brown Creeper, Vermilion Flycatcher, all three scoters (Black, Surf, and White-winged), Red-throated Loon, and great looks at a Virgina Rail, with another seen pretty well in the predawn darkness. Major disappointments were sparrows, which did not seem to like the cold wind very much, and the Saturday absence of Mallards and American Black Ducks seen on Friday.” Alachua Audubon’s next field trip will be to Circle B Bar Reserve in Lakeland on the 14th. Details here: https://alachuaaudubon.org/classes-field-trips/
In March 1996 I started amassing the information for a big historical tome on the birds of Alachua County. Twenty-one years later I’m still amassing. Meanwhile Ron Smith has just brought out the second edition of his book on the birds of Pinellas County: http://www.stpeteaudubon.org/birds-of-pinellas-county-by-ron-smith I’d better get the Alachua County book finished, unless I want to feel like Samuel Johnson with his dictionary: “I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please, have sunk into the grave….”
Put it on your calendar: Alachua Audubon will host a program meeting next Tuesday: “Treatment Wetlands Produce Cleaner Water, More Birds by Bob Knight and Debbie Segal. Tuesday, January 17th at Tower Road Library (not Millhopper Library). Social at 6:30 pm, program at 7:00 pm. Some of the best birding hotspots in Florida are man-made treatment wetlands that were designed to strip nutrients and pollutants from storm water and municipal wastewater. The use of treatment wetlands is a proven technology that cost-effectively cleanses nutrient-laden water, and one of the many ancillary benefits of treatment wetlands is their high biological productivity that translates into more birds. Learn how these man-made features cleanse Florida’s waters, attract birds, enhance environmental education, contribute to Florida’s public use facilities, and generate ecotourism dollars.”
Very belatedly, here are the results from the December 18th Christmas Bird Count. We set a new record, with 167 species. There were two that had never before been recorded in the Count’s 59-year history, Common Tern and Clay-colored Sparrow, both documented with photos. Record high counts included Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, Mottled Duck, Royal Tern, Snowy Egret, Barred Owl, Sedge Wren, and Chipping Sparrow.
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 2,510
Greater White-fronted Goose 4
Wood Duck 198
Gadwall 9
American Wigeon 3
Mallard 32
Mottled Duck 1,196
Blue-winged Teal 1,040
Northern Shoveler 111
Northern Pintail 29
Green-winged Teal 1,150
Ring-necked Duck 511
Lesser Scaup 3
Bufflehead 7
Common Goldeneye 1
Hooded Merganser 168
Ruddy Duck 15
Northern Bobwhite 3
Wild Turkey 61
Pied-billed Grebe 112
Rock Pigeon 53
Eurasian Collared-Dove 17
Common Ground-Dove 8
Mourning Dove 634
White-winged Dove 3
Vaux’s Swift 5
Whip-poor-will 4
Selasphorus, sp. (Rufous or Allen’s Hummingbird) 1
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 3
King Rail 12
Virginia Rail 2
Sora 52
Common Gallinule 352
American Coot 864
Limpkin 52
Sandhill Crane 7,965
Whooping Crane 1
Killdeer 501
Stilt Sandpiper 2
Dunlin 1
Least Sandpiper 15
Long-billed Dowitcher 38
Wilson’s Snipe 262
American Woodcock 7
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Greater Yellowlegs 68
Lesser Yellowlegs 18
Bonaparte’s Gull 7
Laughing Gull 1
Ring-billed Gull 124
Herring Gull 1
Royal Tern 2
Forster’s Tern 5
Common Tern 1 (outstanding photos in Daniel Young’s eBird checklist: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S33135640 )
Common Loon 3
Wood Stork 86
Double-crested Cormorant 323
Anhinga 230
American White Pelican 82
Least Bittern 2
American Bittern 9
Great Blue Heron 178
Great Egret 150
Snowy Egret 393
Little Blue Heron 224
Tricolored Heron 41
Cattle Egret 149
Green Heron 7
Black-crowned Night-Heron 25
White Ibis 1,394
Glossy Ibis 728
Black Vulture 311
Turkey Vulture 1,316
Osprey 1
Bald Eagle 63
Northern Harrier 47
Sharp-shinned Hawk 7
Cooper’s Hawk 17
Accipiter, sp. (Cooper’s or Sharp-shinned, couldn’t tell which) 5
Red-shouldered Hawk 168
Red-tailed Hawk 37
Barn Owl 5
Eastern Screech-Owl 14
Great Horned Owl 40
Barred Owl 65
Belted Kingfisher 29
Red-headed Woodpecker 29
Red-bellied Woodpecker 316
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 59
Downy Woodpecker 124
Northern Flicker 109
Pileated Woodpecker 138
American Kestrel 47
Merlin 2
Peregrine Falcon 2
Eastern Phoebe 462
Vermilion Flycatcher 2
Ash-throated Flycatcher 1
Least Flycatcher 1
Loggerhead Shrike 22
White-eyed Vireo 85
Blue-headed Vireo 60
Blue Jay 212
American Crow 630
Fish Crow 84
crow, sp. 64
Tree Swallow 9
Carolina Chickadee 267
Tufted Titmouse 363
Brown-headed Nuthatch 6
House Wren 243
Sedge Wren 101
Marsh Wren 21
Carolina Wren 409
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 474
Golden-crowned Kinglet 7
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 615
Eastern Bluebird 318
Hermit Thrush 62
American Robin 4,853
Gray Catbird 172
Brown Thrasher 18
Northern Mockingbird 127
European Starling 51
Cedar Waxwing 30
House Sparrow 22
American Pipit 79
House Finch 105
American Goldfinch 681
Ovenbird 11
Northern Waterthrush 2
Black-and-white Warbler 97
Orange-crowned Warbler 85
Nashville Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 167
American Redstart 3
Northern Parula 6
Palm Warbler 754
Pine Warbler 119
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1,195
Yellow-throated Warbler 41
Prairie Warbler 4
Wilson’s Warbler 2
Eastern Towhee 117
Field Sparrow 3
Chipping Sparrow 994
Clay-colored Sparrow 1
Vesper Sparrow 46
Savannah Sparrow 190
Grasshopper Sparrow 3
Henslow’s Sparrow 2
Fox Sparrow 4
Song Sparrow 23
Lincoln’s Sparrow 3
Swamp Sparrow 302
White-throated Sparrow 5
White-crowned Sparrow 4
Northern Cardinal 754
Summer Tanager 1
Painted Bunting 1
Red-winged Blackbird 9,501
Eastern Meadowlark 271
Rusty Blackbird 1
Common Grackle 867
Boat-tailed Grackle 4,234
Brown-headed Cowbird 780
Baltimore Oriole 46