I was wrong about the location of the Swainson’s Warbler found by Ben Ewing on the evening of the 7th. Scott Robinson, Lloyd Davis, Will Sexton, and I showed up at the south end of NW 25th Terrace, and spent about twenty minutes birding back and forth along the boardwalk. Then Ben Ewing rolled up on his bike. “Hi, Ben!” we said, “Thanks for discovering this great bird. But we can’t find it!” And Ben said, “That’s because you’re on the wrong boardwalk.”
So we followed the boardwalk down to the sidewalk on NW 8th Avenue and went west about 200 yards. There we turned north onto another boardwalk, and after 75 yards or so we saw a plastic bottle jammed into the fence below the railing on the left side, and a wide piece of tape. And on the ground just below the tape – put there by Dean and Sam Ewing – was the Swainson’s Warbler, walking around turning over dead leaves as Swainson’s tend to do. All of us got excellent looks. It was a county lifer for Lloyd and Scott, and a lifer-lifer for Will.
Maybe it’ll be there tomorrow. Or maybe not. This was the 29th Swainson’s Warbler for Alachua County. Of those, 10 have been in spring (3 April-30 April, with one doubtful record from 10 May 1980), 2 have been in summer, and 17 have been in fall (8 August-21 October, about half of those between 10 September-30 September). I called Mike Manetz to tell him about the bird, and he said – with a confidence I’ll never possess – “I’ll get it in fall.” And he might. He saw two last fall. But prior to 2016, the three last fall sightings came in August 2010, August 2009, and October 2004. So I ran out to have a look, just to be on the safe side.
Lloyd Davis photographed a Cliff Swallow at Sweetwater Wetlands Park on the 7th, sitting on a fence among Tree Swallows of various plumages: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/33773783841/in/dateposted-public/
(By the way, if you go to Sweetwater, watch out for Killdeer nests along the trail and alert the rangers if you find one so they can rope it off.)
Peter Polshek found a Northern Waterthrush at San Felasco on the 4th, on the trails south of Millhopper Road.
Grace Kiltie spotted two Blue Grosbeaks, the first of the spring, at her SW Gainesville feeder on the 2nd.
As I got out of my car in the La Chua parking lot on the 31st, I heard a towhee calling “tweet” repeatedly from the wild plums just before the bike trail. I didn’t remember ever seeing a towhee in that area before, and wondering if it was a migrant red-eyed towhee I hurried down to see it. As I neared the plum, I heard a little preliminary “chk” before each “tweet” and realized that I was listening, not to a towhee, but to a White-eyed Vireo. He’d done the call 8-10 times without breaking into a vireo song. I found him and watched him for a few minutes, but he didn’t do it again, so I walked on. I got as far as the composting toilet when he started again. I immediately turned back, counting his tweets as I went. There were 14 total, but I was only close enough to hear the preliminary “chk” during the last two. I watched him for another five minutes as he foraged around, but he never made another tweet, and he never, during all the time I was in earshot, gave a typical song.
Writing a humorous song is not easy. Except, apparently, for Mike Manetz (author of the famed “Newnans Lake limericks”), because this is a very funny song: https://soundcloud.com/manetzma/i-like-eggs-talkin-chicken-blues
The Alachua Audubon Society will have its annual picnic on Wednesday, April 12th. All are invited. It will be held at Bubba and Ingrid Scales’s house at 3002 SW 1st Way, Gainesville, located in the Colclough Hills neighborhood between south Main Street and Williston Road (look for the AAS signs). Bring some food to share and a drink of choice, and enjoy visiting with Alachua Audubon members and the Board of Directors. This will be a fun gathering and an opportunity to share our more recent spring migration observations.
And make plans to attend the Florida Ornithological Society meeting on the weekend of April 21-23. Adam Kent writes, “It’s going to be a very fun event with keynote speakers Dr. Marianne Korosy from Audubon Florida and Dr. John Fitzpatrick from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology talking about citizen science. There will be other speakers on Saturday afternoon, a citizen science panel, and lots of excellent field trips to great spring migration birding sites sites. Plus, there’s no way you can beat the registration or banquet prices!” More information here: http://www.fosbirds.org/sites/default/files/spring_2017_registration.pdf