Tag Archives: Short-tailed Hawk

Short-tailed Hawk at Possum Creek Park

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From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

After seeing three Burrowing Owls at Watermelon Pond this morning (with 50 of my closest friends), Matt O’Sullivan and I drove up to the Newberry cemetery in hopes of seeing Northern Flicker, Eastern Wood-Pewee, and White-winged Dove. The doves were cooperative, but no one had seen a pewee there recently. The flickers had been seen in the past few days, so we stuck around for about an hour, hoping they’d show up, but eventually we decided to leave. We passed Bob Carroll standing by the cemetery fence – he’d just added Common Ground-Dove to his June Challenge list and gave us a thumbs-up – and headed toward home. At about that time, Bob heard a flicker call, so he played a tape and four flickers (!) flew into trees right above his head. He could still see my car, and he waved at us, but we didn’t see him. All that’s necessary for a good bird to show up is for me to leave.

Or for me not to be there in the first place. Bob just called about five minutes ago to tell me that a Short-tailed Hawk was soaring over Possum Creek Park on the corner of NW 43rd Street and NW 53rd Avenue. Someone – Maralee Joos? – mentioned that they’d seen an all-dark hawk on the ground near the corner of 53rd and NW 34th Street in the past week. Maybe they’re nesting around there. Anyway, if you need Short-tailed for your June Challenge list – and most of us do – that’s the place to hang out.

Urgent bluebird situation! plus a couple of rare hawks

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From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

Florida Wildlife Care is caring for a solitary Eastern Bluebird chick described as “five minutes to fledging.” Do any of you know of a Gainesville-area bluebird box with young nearly ready to fledge, into which this chick can be placed? Please let me know as soon as possible.

People have been seeing a Monk Parakeet in the general vicinity of NW 43rd Street and NW 53rd Avenue. He escaped from captivity last June and his former owners either couldn’t recapture him or didn’t make the effort. His name is Rio. Keep an eye out for him if you’re in the vicinity of Hunter’s Crossing. Alas, as an escaped cage bird he is uncountable. Alachua County is still waiting for its first countable Monk Parakeets. The closest we came was in March-May 2005, when a pair of Monks built a nest on the tower at Waldo Road and NE 31st Avenue and then abandoned it and disappeared.

An FWC biologist named Tiffany Black has reported a Zone-tailed Hawk about five miles inland from Cedar Key. She saw it on the 12th and 13th but not since then. She describes herself as an experienced birder who has seen Zone-tailed Hawks in Texas, has worked with the Hawk Migration Association of North America, and has seen several Short-tailed Hawks (the obvious species with which Zone-tailed might be confused in Florida) in the area without mistaking them for Zone-tailed Hawks. She describes the bird in question as dark bodied with long two-toned wings and a two-inch white stripe across its tail. She writes, “I live at 7850 SW 126th Terrace, Cedar Key, FL, 32625. I am OK with people parking in the yard and looking around. They can come on the porch if they want. I don’t mind; I am a birder so I know the drill. :) Scott is my boyfriend and should be here. Now, to clarify, we did NOT see it [on the 14th], and the views from the Cedar Key Scrub State Reserve might afford better views.” She means the section of the Reserve that is along State Road 24, about three and a half miles after the junction with County Road 345.

However, speaking of Short-tailed Hawks, Ignacio Rodriguez and Cristobal Pizarro found one at La Chua on the 6th, and John Hintermister and Felicia Lee saw the same bird (presumably) on the 11th and had it in view for several minutes as it soared over Alachua Sink. John wrote, “This was a dark morph bird. I saw a dark morph in the same spot last spring on 05/08/2013. The body,head and neck and the underwing coverts were black. The flight feathers and the tail were light gray. The tail had a dark terminal band. The secondaries and inner primaries were dark tipped and the outer primaries were dark.”

A couple of interesting bird-related stories from the New York Times: the clash of tradition with new technology in the World Series of Birding here, and a brief note about the discovery that radio signals can throw migrating birds off track, here.

Two weeks from this Sunday is June 1st. Seems to me that something happens then, but I can’t quite call it to mind….

Remember that bluebird!

Cave Swallow at Hague Dairy!

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From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

I’m not sure when he called, but when I got home a few minutes ago I found a message from John Hintermister saying there was a Cave Swallow, “maybe two,” along NW 59th Drive, the field at the eastern edge of the Hague Dairy. This would be the third county record.

In other news, Mike Manetz had a Short-tailed Hawk fly over his NW Gainesville yard at about 5:00.

No time for further pleasantries, I’m off to the dairy! Time’s a-wasting!

Right before your eyes

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From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

Debbie Segal writes, “The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) plans to herbicide approximately 1,500 acres (over two square miles) of native wetland vegetation in Orange Lake in order to improve lake access and boating safety. Alachua Audubon and Audubon of Florida are objecting to FWC’s proposed herbicide application plan due to its wide-spread destruction of wildlife habitat, its apparent disregard for wading bird rookery islands, its potential for creating an ‘oxygen demand’ that could kill invertebrates and fish, and its lack of a monitoring plan, plus the likelihood of only temporary benefits for the intended users. Due to Alachua Audubon’s and Audubon of Florida’s objections, FWC has reissued a request for comments from stakeholders, which is attached. Alachua Audubon is responding to this request for comments by sending a letter, which is also attached. If you would like to have your voice heard regarding FWC’s plan for large-scale herbiciding (to be applied by helicopter), please take a moment and send an email to FWC. This action is time-sensitive, your comments must be received by this Friday, October 18th. Email them to Ryan.Hamm@myfwc.com ”

Right before your very eyes, ladies and gentlemen, summer is turning into winter. Here’s a little quiz to see if you’ve been paying attention:

1. When did you last hear a cardinal sing?

2. When did you last see a Great Crested Flycatcher?

3. When did you last see a Ruby-throated Hummingbird?

4. When did you last see a Mississippi Kite? A Swallow-tailed Kite?

According to my records, Northern Cardinals stopped their daily singing in mid-July. Great Crested Flycatchers have been gone since mid-September. A few Ruby-throated Hummingbirds may still be around, but they’re thinning out fast. And as I mentioned in a previous report, Mississippi Kites and Swallow-tailed Kites were last seen on September 2nd and September 1st, respectively.

But summer’s departure is only half of it. The other half is winter’s arrival. Eastern Phoebes, Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Blue-headed Vireos, Baltimore Orioles, House Wrens, Gray Catbirds, and Palm Warblers have all checked in. Savannah Sparrows are increasing on the Prairie. A pair of Bald Eagles has taken to perching in a tall pine along the northern part of Lakeshore Drive, near a nest site. Migratory Northern Flickers are arriving, and are already far more abundant than the locally-nesting flickers. And today Samuel Ewing made it official: “This morning (Oct. 14th) I saw a Yellow-rumped Warbler fly over our yard. It was calling, giving away what it was. Maybe the first of fall for Alachua County.”

The Ewing’s yard was the site of another first earlier this week. On the 11th Benjamin Ewing glanced out the window and spied a Song Sparrow. He called his father Dean, who got a picture. This was the earliest Song Sparrow ever recorded in Alachua County, exceeding by a week the previous record, a bird I saw along the La Chua Trail on 18 October 1995.

The female Vermilion Flycatcher that spent last winter around the La Chua Trail observation platform has returned. John Killian discovered her there on the 10th and got a couple of photos.

As mentioned in the last birding report, Ted and Steven Goodman found two Yellow-headed Blackbirds at the Hague Dairy on the 13th. Dean, Benjamin, and Samuel Ewing read the report and drove to the dairy, where they found and photographed both of the Yellow-headed Blackbirds – and then found a Bronzed Cowbird! This afternoon Adam Zions drove up to Hague and found only one Yellow-headed Blackbird – but two Bronzed Cowbirds.

Bob Wallace had two Philadelphia Vireos at his Alachua farm on the morning of the 13th. The Bolen Bluff field trip on the same morning went fairly well, with a dozen warbler species, but missed out on glamor birds. Trip leader Jonathan Mays wrote, “Unfortunately no Bay-breasted or Black-throated Greens, but the group had close encounters with a male Black-throated Blue and Hooded plus three cooperative Tennessee’s foraging together and two Magnolias. Also caught a neonate Ribbon Snake and had a Black Racer above our heads in a tree. Enjoyable morning and a good group.” John Hintermister and I separately birded Bolen Bluff on the 14th. We both saw lots and lots of American Redstarts, and we both saw about a dozen species, but neither of us found a Bay-breasted Warbler. John did see a single Black-throated Green.

The last two reports are especially unusual:

Ignacio Rodriguez saw two very intriguing birds at Bolen Bluff after the field trip on Sunday: “I spotted two birds that really resembled the Green-tailed Towhee. Rufous crown, light green shoulders and tail, gray above, and red eyes, but I don’t remember if I saw a white throat. They were foraging along the edge of the trail, then perched briefly, then flew again underneath the vegetation.” I asked where he saw them, and he said that you go down the slope onto the Prairie basin, walk until the tall trees on either side give way to grasses, and then walk another hundred yards. Please let me know if you see these birds, and get a picture if you can. There’s only one previous record in Alachua County, and only about a dozen ever seen anywhere in Florida.

Wanda Garfield reported seeing three light-morph Short-tailed Hawks over the course of four or five hours on Saturday morning. She saw one at the recycling station on CR-47 in Gilchrist County, the second in High Springs, and the third over I-75 near Santa Fe College. “The birds I saw were dark black on top/wing areas and very pure white on the breast area. I couldn’t see any barring, spots, etc. I have seen Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks. So what do you think? Am I crazy or what?” Short-tailed Hawks do migrate at this time of year, but they’re rare this far north, and dark morphs greatly outnumber white morphs. Nothing else really fits that description, though.

Field trips this weekend: our first-ever field trip to the Levy Lake Loop with Adam Zions on Saturday at 8 a.m., and a trip to Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge with John Hintermister on Sunday, meeting at 6:30 a.m. Details here.

Again, please take the next two minutes to send a simple email to Ryan.Hamm@myfwc.com expressing your opinion on the herbicide plan for Orange Lake. Debbie says that twenty or thirty emails could make a world of difference.

The Alder Flycatcher abides; plus Short-tailed Hawk and a plethora of other sightings (that’s right, a plethora).

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From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

The Crane gave the wrong dates for the Florida Native Plant Sale at Morningside Nature Center. The sale covers two days, only the second of which is open to the general public: Friday, September 27th, 4:30-6:30 p.m. is exclusively for members of the Florida Native Plant Society and Friends of Nature Parks (BUT! you can join when you get there), while Saturday, September 28th, 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. is open to everyone.

Today’s Alachua Audubon field trip to San Felasco Hammock went well, according to trip leader Steve Hofstetter: “We had a beautiful morning with 28 people coming out and enjoying the park. We did the Moonshine Creek Trail and split up into two groups around the loop. There were lots of vireos (22 White-eyed, 14 Red-eyed, 2 Yellow-throated), Veeries (8), Ovenbirds (11), and Northern Parulas (19), but other than that the diversity of species was low. My group did get a great view of a Chestnut-sided Warbler and the other group heard a Louisiana Waterthrush.” Remember that there’s a field trip to Barr Hammock tomorrow (Sunday the 15th). Michael Drummond will lead.

Jonathan Mays and I took a leisurely walk around San Felasco’s Cellon Creek Loop on the 13th. We found 60 species of birds, including 11 warbler species, but they weren’t our best finds; a pair of Cliff Swallows twice circled past us at low altitude while we were scanning Lee Pond, and as we were watching a couple of Red-tailed Hawks soaring up on a thermal, a dark-morph Short-tailed Hawk dived into our field of view and made a couple passes at the Red-taileds. That’s only the second Short-tailed ever recorded at San Felasco. The first was seen by John DeLuca almost exactly six years ago, on September 15, 2007.

On the 12th Lloyd Davis relocated and photographed the Alder Flycatcher that’s been hanging around Sparrow Alley since August 27th.

Samuel Ewing found the season’s first Blackburnian Warbler in his NW Gainesville yard on the 10th. For those of you keeping score at home, I think that’s the 20th warbler species recorded in Alachua County this fall; several others have been reported in the four days since then. Samuel got another seasonal first this morning, when he found a Swainson’s Thrush in his yard: “The thrush landed in a tree and when I put my binocs up I realized it wasn’t a Veery. I’ve been seeing Veeries almost everyday and this wasn’t like one. It had larger, much darker spots on the breast. I also could clearly see the buffy lores. It flew off before I could get a picture. I got excellent looks at Veeries a few minutes later and they were much different. This wasn’t near as reddish either.” And Lloyd Davis got yet another first-of-the-fall when he found three Wilson’s Snipe along the Cones Dike Trail on the 13th.

Adam Kent pointed out four Bobolinks to me at the Levy Lake loop trail this morning. Migrating Bobolinks have been heard since the 4th by birders listening for their distinctive calls passing overhead at night, but I think these were the first to have been seen.

On the 10th I was surprised to find a Great White Heron at Watermelon Pond not far south of the county park.

Also on the 10th, Dave Steadman, Curator of Birds at the museum, wrote, “This morning I saw a female Selasphorus in my yard at close range (10 ft). The bird was gone by the time I grabbed my binocs, but I’m confident to call it a female ‘Rufous/Allen’s.’  If anyone is interested, birders are welcome to stop by [send me an email if you want his address]. The fire bushes in the front yard have been getting lots of attention from a male and female Ruby-throated for many weeks, but today is the only time that I’ve seen a Selasphorus.”

If you’re lucky enough to have a sugarberry tree in your yard, watch for the signs of Asian woolly hackberry aphid. Warblers love them. Ron Robinson has an infested tree in his back yard, and over the last week he’s seen several warbler species feasting on the aphids, including Prairie, Chestnut-sided, and Blackburnian.

Sharon Kuchinski’s second-graders and their “Song of the Whooping Crane” dance merited an article in the Gainesville Sun on September 10th. The dance was created as an entry for the Rachel Carson Sense of Wonder Contest. They need your vote in order to win the contest, however. You can vote here.

If you’ve always wanted to spend your days at Archbold Biological Station, living the romantic life of a research assistant and working with Red-cockaded Woodpeckers and Florida Grasshopper Sparrows – and who are you kidding, of course you have – here’s your chance.

More birds than you can shake a stick at, if you were inclined to shake a stick at birds

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From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

I’m in the process of posting the new Alachua Audubon field trip schedule on line. It’s rather slow going, because I have to create an individual page for each trip, but I like the new web site’s format. If you look at the Classes & Field Trips page, you’ll see the next ten events listed – http://www.alachuaaudubon.org/classes-field-trips/ – with the date, destination (or program location), and meeting time. If you click on the “+” sign associated with a given field trip, you’ll get a description of the trip; and if you then click on “Read more,” you’ll see a map of the meeting location as well as contact information for the trip leader in case you have a question.

However, this is an instance of the reality not quite living up to the ideal, because the map doesn’t invariably agree with the coordinates I enter for it. For instance, the coordinates to the Levy Lake Loop parking area, as provided by Google Earth, take you to a Marion County prison when entered into the web site. Or at least they did before I got a different set of coordinates. And sometimes WordPress (the web site software) simply won’t accept the address. The meeting place for our Barr Hammock field trip is the Valero gas station at 101 NW Highway 441, Micanopy, FL 32667, but no matter how many times I try to enter it, WordPress deletes the street address and reduces it to “U.S. 441, Micanopy, 32667, USA,” and places the marker about a mile and a half south of the Valero station. WordPress gets it right more often than wrong, but … please use the written directions to the meeting place. Here’s an example of what it looks like when everything works properly: http://www.alachuaaudubon.org/ai1ec_event/road-to-nowhere-hagens-cove/?instance_id=127 (Well, everything works right on our site. The link to Hagens Cove misspells Steinhatchee twice.)

If you’ve got Labor Day off, you might want to spend part of it birding. The migrants are moving through in big numbers, and San Felasco Hammock sounds like the place to be. More on that presently.

On the 27th, responding to Mike Manetz’s report of two Alder Flycatchers at the La Chua Trail, Jonathan Mays and Adam Zions visited La Chua and found three Alder Flycatchers. Two were where Mike had seen them, along Sparrow Alley near the barn, and the third was along Sweetwater Dike. Adam made a short video in which a hidden Alder can be heard calling repeatedly. Dalcio Dacol relocated the Sweetwater Dike bird on the 30th, just where La Chua meets Sweetwater, and on the 1st John Martin relocated and photographed the two birds at Sparrow Alley. At least these are presumed to be the same birds discovered on the 27th; neither Dalcio nor John heard them calling.

On the 28th, Bob Simons, Dotty Robbins, and Jim Swarr went looking for the Alders along Sparrow Alley and saw a dark-morph Short-tailed Hawk, no doubt the same one spotted there by Glenn Israel on the 24th.

(If you decide to look for the Alders and/or the Short-tailed, and then to walk the rest of the way out La Chua, be aware that the approach to the observation tower is under a few inches of water. Thanks to Jonathan Mays for the photo.)

On the 29th Mike Manetz and Tina Greenberg found the fall’s first Golden-winged Warbler along Lakeshore Drive near Palm Point.

There was a big influx of migrants on the 31st. Jonathan and Ellen Mays found the season’s first Chestnut-sided Warbler along the Gainesville-Hawthorne Trail, then went home and found an extraordinarily early Scarlet Tanager. Mike Manetz went to San Felasco’s Progress Park entrance (off US-441 near Alachua) and tallied twelve warbler species – the best of which were 5 Ovenbirds, a Blue-winged, and a Kentucky – and then picked a Bank Swallow out of a flock of Barn Swallows and Chimney Swifts.

The next day, Jonathan and Ellen Mays and Adam Zions walked San Felasco’s Moonshine Creek and Creek Sink Trails (i.e., the whole system south of Millhopper Road), and they also tallied twelve warbler species, including 12 Ovenbirds, 3 Worm-eating Warblers, a Louisiana Waterthrush, a Chestnut-sided, a Kentucky, and not one but two Golden-wingeds, a male and a female.

I looked at the 12 warbler species seen by Mike and the 12 seen by Jonathan, Ellen, and Adam, and it looks like there are a total of seventeen species of warblers fluttering around out there. So grab your binoculars! Go get ‘em! Besides, it’s time for the first Veery to show up, and someone needs to find the first one, it might as well be you, right?

Swallow-tailed and (especially) Mississippi Kites are still being reported. Greg Stephens had one Swallow-tailed and three Mississippis circling over his Jonesville yard simultaneously on the 31st. Please keep those reports coming!

Second-grade students taught by local birder Sharon Kuchinski are finalists in the Rachel Carson Sense of Wonder Contest, and they need your votes in order to win. You can see their entry, and cast your vote, here: http://www.expressionsacademy.org/about/spotlight-items/213-sense-of-wonder-contest

Alder Flycatchers at Levy Lake!

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From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

John Hintermister had read that Alder and Willow Flycatchers were being seen near the Everglades, and on the 21st he sent out an email to several local birders: “If they are getting these birds at Lucky Hammock I would think we should have them on Cones Dike. Want to go one day this week?” The field trip was arranged for Saturday the 24th. John, Mike Manetz, Ron Robinson, Phil Laipis, and Jonathan Mays went along. It was not a great success. Mike was “90% sure” that he heard two Alders calling, but none of the party could get a look at the birds.

A little bit frustrated, Mike suggested another trip on the following day, this one to Barr Hammock’s Levy Lake, since it provided similar habitat: a partly wooded dike trail adjoining a marsh. Adam Zions and I joined him for this one. Pulling into the parking lot at 7 a.m., we found the right (north) fork of the trail blocked by a sign that said, “Trail closed for maintenance.” Our thinking was: Since public monies are being expended on this so-called maintenance, citizen oversight is certainly called for. We looked around but didn’t see anyone else out there, so that heavy responsibility fell on our shoulders. Reluctantly we acquiesced to our civic duty and walked past the sign and down the trail. (The maintenance involved cutting back the willows along the western portion of the trail, reducing the waterthrush habitat and leaving the dike’s edges looking rather chewed up.)

Anyway, about a mile out, we found an Empidonax flycatcher working the edges of the willows. It was grayish-brownish-olive on the back, off-white below, with a pale yellow wash on the belly, and white wing-bars and tertial edges. The tail was rather broad. Suspecting that it was either an Alder or a Willow, we examined it through the scope, and it cooperated nicely by staying in sight. But with Empidonax flycatchers you really have to hear them vocalize if you want to identify them, and that’s exactly what this one did, several times producing a pip! call that’s diagnostic for Alder Flycatcher.

Continuing along the trail – there was a lot of continuing, it’s six miles long – we found numerous Indigo Buntings and Prairie and Yellow Warblers, plus a Northern Waterthrush, a Worm-eating Warbler, and the fall’s first Blue-winged Warbler. We’d progressed around to the south side of Levy Lake by about 11:30 when we came to the place where Jonathan Mays had found a Least Flycatcher last winter. It’s an easy place to find: about a mile and a half down the left (south) fork from the parking area, it’s the first place you’ll come to where a car could make a three-point turn. Mike thought this would be a good place to play an Alder Flycatcher tape. I thought to myself, “Really, Mike. Just because Jonathan Mays found a Least Flycatcher here last winter, that’s no reason to believe that we’ll find…” but I didn’t get to finish the thought, because an Empidonax flycatcher flew in to the tape. This one had buffy wing bars, which suggested that it could have been a different species, or perhaps just a different age. And it wasn’t the only one there. As we watched it, Mike pointed out a second one a few yards farther out, calling pip! … pip! So we had at least two Alders for the day, and one unidentified Empidonax.

One more note about our Levy Lake walk. White-eyed Vireos can mimic the calls of other birds. It’s not unusual for the introductory note of their typical song to sound like a Great Crested Flycatcher, an Eastern Towhee, or a Summer Tanager (sometimes the introductory note is the only sound they make, which can be confusing!). Today we heard White-eyed Vireos beginning their typical songs with notes that mimicked (1.) a Red-bellied Woodpecker, and (2.) a Least/Willow Flycatcher’s whit! call. Both were firsts for Mike, Adam, and me.

The La Chua Trail was the place to be on Saturday. Glenn Israel saw a Short-tailed Hawk: “Saw dark morph over horse barn. Circled up higher, then flew toward the southeast. Seen about 11:10 am. Had a good look; identical to photos of hawk seen at Hague dairy earlier this summer.” And Lloyd Davis saw a male Painted Bunting “along Sweetwater Dike where the trail starts to bend north near the lone cypress tree. I was watching a pair of Yellow Warblers in a willow on the west side of the trail, a couple Blue Grosbeaks flew out of the Willow and the Painted Bunting landed and preened above a Northern Cardinal for a couple of minutes or less.”

Becky Enneis read about The Warbler Guide in the last birding report: “I watched Scott Whittle’s videos, and then ordered a copy of the book from Amazon and it arrived today. I will start by studying the section on bird songs, flight and chip calls, and sonograms, all about which I know nothing. There are so many other things in it I haven’t seen in any other guide – the tail patterns, the color impressions, the tree icons showing preferred habitat, the migration time span bar, and the 45 degree and under views….We might not need any more ordinary bird books, but we need this bird book.” Bubba Scales tells me that Wild Birds Unlimited is sold out already, but I’m sure they’ve ordered more.

Perhaps your morale is sagging – weekend trickling away, grindstone awaiting your nose. Here’s something to buck you up, a tale of an Osprey nest site preserved at Cedar Key: http://pureflorida.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-tale-of-ospreys-power-companies.html

Short-billed Dowitcher at Hague Dairy … and nothing else

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From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

Neither the Short-tailed Hawk nor the Wilson’s Phalarope were seen at the Hague Dairy today. However Mike Manetz called this evening to tell me that he and John Hintermister were looking at a Short-billed Dowitcher in the flooded field north of the lagoon. That’s not a bird we see very often in Alachua County, though they’re common on both coasts.

I went out last night to see the phalarope. Dean Ewing and his sons Samuel and Benjamin showed up after I’d been there a while, and Samuel got photos of the phalarope and of a Semipalmated Plover (look left of the duck) that he found right under my nose after I’d scanned the field two or three times without seeing it.

I neglected to post a link to John Martin’s excellent photos of the Short-tailed Hawk, which he saw on the 3rd. I’m giving you the link to the entire first page of his Flickr site because there are so many beautiful photos on it. Don’t click on it if you have somewhere to be in ten minutes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thermalin/with/8919094836/

Wilson’s Phalarope, Short-tailed Hawk at Hague Dairy

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From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

Sue Killeen of St. Augustine learned of the Short-tailed Hawk at the Hague Dairy, and this morning she drove over to look for it. Not only did she find the hawk, she found a Wilson’s Phalarope among the other shorebirds in the flooded field north of the lagoon. The hawk has been there for at least eight days now, and I think everyone who’s gone looking for it has seen it.

The American Ornithologists’ Union has just published the new Check-list Supplement. The taxonomic changes are minor this year. There’d been talk of lumping all three rosy-finches into a single species, but that proposal was rejected. There was one split: what used to be Sage Sparrow is now two species, Sagebrush Sparrow and Bell’s Sparrow. The Supplement isn’t on the AOU website for some reason, but Mike Retter summarizes the changes in the American Birding Association’s blog: http://blog.aba.org/2013/08/2013-aou-check-list-changes.html

A message from Alachua Audubon: Do you have bird feeders, baths, and plantings on your property? Do you attract a variety of bird species to your home? Would you like to share your knowledge, skills, and tricks at attracting feathered visitors? If so, contact Ron Robinson at gonebirden@cox.net for more information about the 2014 Alachua Audubon Backyard Birding Tour.

An anniversary

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From: Rex Rowan <rexrowan@gmail.com>
To: Alachua County birding report

We are now in what Thoreau rightly called “the royal month of August.”

Today is the 20th anniversary of the death of the greatest birder who ever lived, Ted Parker. If you want to know why he merits that title, here are Kenn Kaufman’s reminiscences of his good friend, written shortly after the plane crash that ended Parker’s life: http://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nab/v047n03/p00349-p00351.pdf  And here’s a more detailed memorial from Ornithological Monographs: http://si-pddr.si.edu/jspui/bitstream/10088/2020/1/Robbins_Remsen_Graves–Parker_memoriam–Ornithological_M.pdf  (If the link doesn’t work, just cut and paste “Robbins_Remsen_Graves–Parker_memoriam” into a search engine.)

The Short-tailed Hawk was still at the Hague Dairy on the 2nd, according to Mike Manetz: “Got it at about 9:30 this morning, soaring low with a few Turkey Vultures and a Mississippi Kite off the northwest corner of the lagoon.”

Geoff Parks saw an American Robin at his place in NE Gainesville on the 29th. There are a handful of midsummer records for Alachua County, but what they signify is anyone’s guess. It’s three months too early for migration. Could such individuals be nesting in the area? A few summers ago I saw a spot-breasted youngster at Lake Hampton, a little north of Waldo.

John Hintermister, Steve Nesbitt, and I took John’s boat out to Newnans Lake on the 30th and cruised all the way around, parallel to the shore, a little more than twelve miles. We’d hoped to discover Black Terns or Forster’s Terns, but we were disappointed. We couldn’t even relocate the Ruddy Ducks, Lesser Scaup, and Horned Grebe that John and I had seen on June 25th. We did find a Laughing Gull, a Spotted Sandpiper, 4 Yellow Warblers, 2 Purple Gallinules (adult and juvenile together), 8 Limpkins, and 8 summering American Coots. We also recorded large counts of Anhinga (72), Osprey (44), and Snowy Egret (76).

On the 31st, Mike Manetz walked Barr Hammock’s Levy Lake loop trail: “On the northern, more willow-lined loop I got five Prairie Warblers, but except for Common Yellowthroats and a couple of Northern Parulas, no other warblers. On the more wooded south part of the loop I hit a few little feeding flocks with mostly Northern Parulas, but also one Worm-eating Warbler (my first for the year) and one Black-and-white. No Yellows, American Redstarts, or waterthrushes. Yet. The place looks killer for a little later in the fall.”

Sonia Hernandez, a professor of forestry and natural resources at the University of Georgia, is asking birders to watch out for color-banded White Ibises: “We have a radio-telemetry and banding project with urban white ibises in Palm Beach County. We banded 45 individuals and radio-tagged 12 and my grad students are continuing that work with the goal to get at least 100 birds banded and 30 radio-tagged. We currently have a website where anyone can report a sighting of a banded bird and you can reach it by going to http://www.hernandezlab.uga.edu/ibis.html The site also has some general information about the project and we will be adding more information in the near future.”

Swallows migrate through during August. They can be confusing, so here’s a partly-helpful piece on telling them apart: http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/MTYswallows01.html

The Atlantic’s website includes this description of a visit to the Powdermill Bird Banding Station in Pennsylvania: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/surveilling-the-birds/277650/

We got three and a half inches of rain on the evening of the 31st. That pushed the total July rainfall to 16.61 inches, ten inches more than average and 0.2 inch more than the old Gainesville record set in 1909.