Tag Archives: Song Sparrow

Christmas Bird Count results

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From: Rex Rowan [rexrowan@gmail.com]
Subject: Alachua County birding report

Hey, make a note if you’re planning to join the January 5th field trip to Alligator Lake: the driving directions on the Alachua Audubon web site are wrong. Here’s what they should say: “From I-75 take US-90 east through Lake City and turn south on Old Country Club Road (also known as SE Avalon Avenue or County Road 133). Entrance to parking area is 1.5 miles south on the right side of the road.” Thanks to Tom Camarata for pointing out the mistakes to me.

We’ve got some gifted photographers around here, and some of you may be interested in the 2013 Wildlife and Nature Photography Contest being held by Audubon of Martin County. They’ve put together a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcd38dEvbAs

Speaking of photographers, Adam Zions found and photographed some uncommon birds in the conservation lands north of Newnans Lake on the 30th. He started at Gum Root Park, where he saw two Henslow’s Sparrows in the big field, then drove a couple of miles east on State Road 26 to the Hatchet Creek Tract, where he found a Red-breasted Nuthatch (not to mention a Brown-headed Nuthatch, which is resident at Hatchet Creek but can be hard to find).

I haven’t heard of any definite sightings of the Groove-billed Ani recently, though visiting Tennessee birder David Kirschke and his daughter thought they heard it on the 27th, “about half way between the Sweetwater Overlook turn off and the next bend in the trail.” If you see it, please let me know. The last positive sightings were by Lloyd Davis and Adam Zions on the 23rd, when Adam got a picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/76166204@N08/8302688762/in/photostream

Mike Manetz found a big flock of ducks off the crew team parking lot on the 18th, and Andy Kratter saw them in the same place on the 23rd: “300+ Ring-necked, 25 or so Lesser Scaup, 8 Redhead, 5 Canvasbacks, and a bunch of American Coots. Four Red-breasted Mergansers were quite far offshore, as were 2 Horned Grebes.” I found most of the same birds still present in the late afternoon of the 24th, but by the 30th they’d dispersed and their place had been taken by Ruddy Ducks and Bonaparte’s Gulls, plus one hunting decoy.

Here finally are the results of the December 16th Gainesville CBC:

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck  207
Muscovy Duck  90
Wood Duck  821
Gadwall  34
American Wigeon  6
Mallard  29
Mottled Duck  89
Blue-winged Teal  81
Northern Shoveler  14
Northern Pintail  64
Green-winged Teal  1
Canvasback  5
Ring-necked Duck  252
Lesser Scaup  312
Black Scoter  6
Bufflehead  4
Common Goldeneye  1
Hooded Merganser  125
Red-breasted Merganser  4
Ruddy Duck  500
Northern Bobwhite  13
Wild Turkey  46
Common Loon  3
Pied-billed Grebe  74
Wood Stork  28
Double-crested Cormorant  772
Anhinga  187
American White Pelican  137
American Bittern  12
Great Blue Heron  134
Great Egret  206
Snowy Egret  177
Little Blue Heron  163
Tricolored Heron  77
Cattle Egret  211
Green Heron  17
Black-crowned Night-Heron  79
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  1
White Ibis  2,013
Glossy Ibis  528
Roseate Spoonbill  1
Black Vulture  343
Turkey Vulture  1,144
Osprey  8
Bald Eagle  82
Northern Harrier  42
Sharp-shinned Hawk  12
Cooper’s Hawk  12
Red-shouldered Hawk  164
Red-tailed Hawk  64
King Rail  2
Virginia Rail  5
Sora  252
Common Gallinule  82
American Coot  883
Limpkin  6
Sandhill Crane  3,009
Killdeer  247
Spotted Sandpiper  1
Greater Yellowlegs  54
Lesser Yellowlegs  55
Least Sandpiper  2
Wilson’s Snipe  398
American Woodcock  7
Bonaparte’s Gull  30
Laughing Gull  1
Ring-billed Gull  330
Herring Gull  2
Forster’s Tern  30
Rock Pigeon  70
Eurasian Collared-Dove  9
Mourning Dove  495
Common Ground-Dove  7
Groove-billed Ani  1
Barn Owl  5
Eastern Screech-Owl  16
Great Horned Owl  55
Barred Owl  64
Eastern Whip-poor-will  2
Selasphorus, sp. (probably Rufous Hummingbird)  1
Belted Kingfisher  38
Red-headed Woodpecker  32
Red-bellied Woodpecker  284
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker  61
Downy Woodpecker  118
Northern Flicker  38
Pileated Woodpecker  129
American Kestrel  56
Merlin  3
Least Flycatcher  4
Eastern Phoebe  580
Vermilion Flycatcher  1
Ash-throated Flycatcher  10
Loggerhead Shrike  38
White-eyed Vireo  203
Blue-headed Vireo  44
Blue Jay  276
American Crow  621
Fish Crow  297
crow, sp.  45
Tree Swallow  6
Carolina Chickadee  204
Tufted Titmouse  248
Red-breasted Nuthatch  4
Brown-headed Nuthatch  4
House Wren  236
Winter Wren  1
Sedge Wren  52
Marsh Wren  129
Carolina Wren  420
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  387
Ruby-crowned Kinglet  405
Eastern Bluebird  173
Hermit Thrush  27
American Robin  2,583
Gray Catbird  205
Northern Mockingbird  180
Brown Thrasher  15
European Starling  43
American Pipit  124
Sprague’s Pipit  2
Cedar Waxwing  54
Ovenbird  2
Northern Waterthrush  6
Black-and-white Warbler  69
Orange-crowned Warbler  105
Common Yellowthroat  292
Northern Parula  3
Palm Warbler  830
Pine Warbler  204
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1,910
Yellow-throated Warbler  28
Prairie Warbler  8
Wilson’s Warbler  2
Yellow-breasted Chat  2
Eastern Towhee  187
Chipping Sparrow  488
Field Sparrow  20
Vesper Sparrow  57
Savannah Sparrow  515
Grasshopper Sparrow  20
Henslow’s Sparrow  2
Le Conte’s Sparrow  6
Fox Sparrow  4
Song Sparrow  74
Lincoln’s Sparrow  6
Swamp Sparrow  455
White-throated Sparrow  62
White-crowned Sparrow  35
Summer Tanager  4
Northern Cardinal  832
Indigo Bunting  2
Painted Bunting  1
Red-winged Blackbird  9,915
Eastern Meadowlark  382
Common Grackle  585
Boat-tailed Grackle  727
Brown-headed Cowbird  12,798
Baltimore Oriole  29
House Finch  72
American Goldfinch  372
House Sparrow  11

We’ve gained two minutes of daylight since the solstice! Two minutes! Yes! And the first Purple Martins should be back within three weeks, maybe four. So it’s nearly spring. Watch your feeders for Pine Siskins and Purple Finches, which tend to show up after January 1st.

The management and staff of the Alachua County Birding Report, Inc., TM, LLC, LOL, ROTFLMAO, would like to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a Happy New Year.

Bronzed Cowbird at Hague Dairy, Red-breasted Nuthatches persisting

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When I go birding with Mike Manetz and Jonathan Mays, I feel like a not-too-smart seven year old who just can’t keep up – who can’t see anything they’re looking at, can’t hear anything they’re hearing, and who needs to have each bird pointed out to him. The words most often out of my mouth on these trips are, “Um … where are you seeing this? Could you point, please?”

That’s the way it was this morning, at the Tuscawilla Prairie. We arrived at 6:30 and stood under a starry sky as mosquitoes feasted on us, waiting for the first dim light that would send the American Woodcocks flying off the Prairie, back to the woodland thickets where they’d spend the daylight hours. At 7:00 Jonathan called Mike’s attention to a woodcock flying over – Mike’s 250th bird in Alachua County in 2012. Another one flew over five minutes later, which only Jonathan saw. I missed them both.

But it was a great morning. The mosquitoes dispersed after the sun came up, and we were left with blue skies and temperatures in the high 60s. We splashed around the trails in our rubber boots and saw 54 species of birds. A few migrant and summer species were still around – an American Redstart, a Blue Grosbeak, a Summer Tanager, a couple of dozen Indigo Buntings, fifteen or twenty Barn Swallows – but the winter birds had taken possession of the place: House, Marsh, and Sedge Wrens, Swamp, Savannah, and Song Sparrows, Palm and Orange-crowned Warblers, Eastern Phoebes, and our first American Robin of the fall (though Anne Kendall had one in her NW Gainesville yard on the 19th). There was one nice surprise. Jonathan heard a soft chuck-chuck sound that he recognized as a Yellow-breasted Chat, and we coaxed the bird into view for a few seconds. I think that’s the first chat I’ve ever seen outside of nesting season.

Here’s a picture from this morning’s trip: http://www.flickr.com/photos/74215662@N04/8117478536/in/photostream

Mike found a good bird at the Hague Dairy on the 22nd: “There were about 450 cowbirds at the dairy this morning, and among them a Bronzed. I spent three hours squinting into the sun and chasing this flock back and forth between barns, behind the barns, and around to the driveway and back again. When they all flew and landed on a roof in horrible light I was about to give up. I turned around and saw about 20 cowbirds on a wire behind me in good light and there he was … larger than the other cowbirds around him, all black, including head, with much larger bill than the Brown-headeds. The eye showed dirty reddish. I watched it for about three minutes before it flew off to join the larger flock.” John Hintermister couldn’t find it this morning, but it may still be around.

Greg Hart of Alachua had a Red-breasted Nuthatch in his yard on the 21st, and the two in John Killian’s yard have been present now for four days.

Another irruptive species, Pine Siskin, may be headed this way too. New York birder Shaibal Mitra did a count of siskins flying over Long Island on the 20th and tallied 20,275 of them in five and a half hours. (Thanks to Pat Burns for forwarding that report.)

An adult male Rufous Hummingbird visited Bob Wallace’s farm south of Alachua on the 21st.

I was late in learning about the deaths of two distinguished members of Gainesville’s birding community. Dr. John William “Bill” Hardy was the Curator of Birds at the Florida Museum of Natural History from 1973 to 1995. He was also the founder of ARA Records, which produced the first collection of Florida bird vocalizations, “Sounds of Florida’s Birds.” That’s how I learned bird songs in the late 1980s, by popping the cassette version into the tape player whenever I had a sink full of dishes to wash. Here’s Hardy’s obituary: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/gainesville/obituary.aspx?n=john-william-hardy&pid=160278607&fhid=6683#fbLoggedOut

Dr. Frank Mead was a founding member of the Alachua Audubon Society, and was the organization’s official photographer for many years. In March 1955, five years before Alachua Audubon came into existence, he photographed the county’s first-ever Black-headed Grosbeak, which showed up a few blocks east of the UF campus. Here’s Frank’s obituary: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/gainesville/obituary.aspx?n=frank-waldreth-mead&pid=160454312&fhid=6683#fbLoggedOut