Various comings and goings; plus a new owl!

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

Early sparrows seem to be the rule this fall. I previously reported Samuel Ewing’s October 2nd Savannah Sparrow, an early record. On September 28th Matthew Bruce reported a Chipping Sparrow in juvenile plumage from Chapmans Pond. That’s extremely early, but there are five earlier reports (!), the earliest another juvenile bird that Andy Kratter saw on August 31, 2003. As Andy wrote on one of the listservs at the time, “Like many sparrows, juvenile Spizella sparrows have a protracted molt of their underparts, retaining the streaking past their fall migration.” A third sparrow species checked in on the morning of the 6th: Mike Manetz showed me a White-crowned Sparrow foraging under the plum trees near the La Chua trailhead.

Samuel Ewing reported the fall’s first Wilson’s Warbler at Bolen Bluff on the 5th, “in the patch of sweetgums right where the trail leads into the prairie.”

Jennifer Donsky found a male Painted Bunting at Lake Alice on the 6th, on the southeast side of the boat ramp.

Mike Manetz and I walked La Chua’s Sparrow Alley on the morning of the 6th, looking for the Alder Flycatchers that had been present there since August 27th. We played a taped call in several spots, which had previously been effective in drawing the birds out, but we got no response. The last time an Alder was reported there was September 21st, and the last time one was reported anywhere was September 26th (at Cones Dike). So they’ve continued their migration and are probably in South America by now. Other Empidonax flycatchers are still being seen. Ted and Steven Goodman found two possible Yellow-bellied Flycatchers at San Felasco Hammock’s Creek Sink Trail on the 5th, at the first sinkhole after you leave the Moonshine Creek Trail near the bridge. However the birds were silent, and as Jonathan Mays puts it, “A silent empid is a worthless empid.” One fall day back in the 1990s there were two Empidonax flycatchers with yellow bellies at Bolen Bluff, in the open area where the two trails come together on the Prairie rim. Several of us spent at least half an hour staring at them – John Hintermister, Mike Manetz, Barbara Muschlitz, me, a couple other experienced birders – and we agreed that they were powerfully yellow on the underparts and that consequently we were going to add Yellow-bellied Flycatcher to our respective life lists. As we packed up our telescopes one of the birds finally called … and it was an Acadian. Kenn Kaufman points out that fall Acadians “can have a conspicuous yellow wash on the underparts, including the throat” (Field Guide to Advanced Birding). Which is one reason why the flycatcher that Bob Carroll and I saw in Becky Enneis’s back yard this weekend, dull yellow from the throat to the undertail coverts, with an olive wash on the sides of the breast – but absolutely silent – was just an Empidonax flycatcher.

Barbara Shea led Saturday’s field trip, and sent this report: “We had 21 people sign up this morning at the Powers Park meeting place. At Powers we were tripping over the ‘rare and secretive’ Limpkin, sighting four of them. One stood on the railing and watched us watching him from about 10 feet away. At Palm Point, highlights were a late Prothonotary Warbler, at least one person saw a Worm-eating, 7 warblers total. There was  a hard to see but eventually ID’d Scarlet Tanager, seen as we lingered over a intermittently cooperative Yellow Warbler that everybody got to see for once. There was a mystery Accipiter, but the circling Peregine Falcon, just over the tree tops at times, made up for that – and was a good ending bird and a hopeful segue to tomorrow’s trip to the east coast.” But according to trip leader Adam Kent, the trip to the Guana River area was “a little slow migrant-wise but my wife Gina did manage to pick out 2 Peregrines a mile away or more and we saw a bunch of cooperative Black-throated Blue Warblers. Although it was overall slow it’s always a fun place to go birding.”

Two worthwhile talks this week: Mike Manetz will describe “Birding Highlights in Costa Rica” on Thursday evening at the Tower Road Library; and Paul Moler will discuss “Frogs of Florida” on Tuesday evening at Alachua Conservation Trust HQ. But you already knew about these events, didn’t you, because you have your finger on the pulse of Gainesville!

Field trips this weekend: San Felasco on Saturday, Bolen Bluff on Sunday. These could be very good. Details here.

If any of you womenfolk use Lush cosmetics, you may be interested to know that the company’s founder, Mark Constantine, is a major figure in European birding: http://soundapproach.co.uk/news/bath-bombs-birdsong  (From The Sound Approach’s web site: “Since 2000, Mark Constantine, Magnus Robb and Arnoud van den Berg have been building a major new collection of bird sound recordings. Our collection now exceeds 50,000 recordings of more than 1,000 species, with a particular focus on the Western Palaearctic Region, making this one of the largest privately-owned archives of bird sound recordings in the world. The Sound Approach aim to popularise birdsong and raise standards in the use of sounds in bird identification. Subjects of particular interest include ageing and sexing birds by their sounds, and recognising hidden biodiversity, ‘new species’, through bird sounds. Besides those of the three main recordists, The Sound Approach collection has also received major contributions from Dick Forsman and Killian Mullarney.”) Earlier this year one of the recordists from The Sound Approach discovered a new species of owl in Oman: http://soundapproach.co.uk/news/sound-approach-team-discover-new-species-owl-science

Preliminary results of the fall migration count

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

First day of fall! Now the nights start getting longer and the days start getting shorter and the birds start getting more abundant!

I haven’t received all the results from Saturday’s fall migration count, but I can tell you that every single White-eyed Vireo presently in existence showed up in Alachua County to be tallied. My team got 60; the NW County team reported 116. The two best birds of the day were a Black-billed Cuckoo seen by the Levy Lake team, and a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher seen by the Bolen Bluff team. The cuckoo was about three miles out, beyond the point where the right (north) fork of the loop trail turns south. The flycatcher was not quite so far away: taking the left fork of the Bolen Bluff Trail, walk until you’re about 75 yards shy of the open grassy area where the two forks come together. The bird was there, on the wooded slope below the trail. Several of us went looking for it this morning, but although we found four calling Acadian Flycatchers in the general area, plus two other silent Empidonax flycatchers, none of them matched Andy Kratter’s description of the bird (“yellow underparts, brightest on the throat, shortish tailed, big headed, relatively short primary extension, quite different from the elongate slender cresty look of the other Acadian we saw today”). Other highlights of the count included two Merlins at O’Leno State Park and one at Paynes Prairie, two Alder Flycatchers, a Broad-winged Hawk, and a Yellow-breasted Chat at La Chua, American Bitterns at Newnans Lake and La Chua, Golden-winged Warblers at Gum Root Swamp and San Felasco Progress Center, a Tree Swallow and a Bachman’s Sparrow on the south side of the Prairie, and a Bobolink and a first-of-the-season House Wren in the rural northwestern part of the county. At least 24 species of warblers were found. Once I’ve compiled the reports, I’ll post the final results.

Mike Manetz and I birded the nature trail at Poe Springs Park on Friday. We saw no tanagers or cuckoos, and found only eight warbler species, but they included one Kentucky, one “Brewster’s” (a Blue-winged x Golden-winged hybrid, so not really a species), and a nice male Canada. All three were within a few yards of each other along the first part of the trail, where it overlooks a dry cypress swamp.  However I didn’t see any of them listed on Mike’s migration-count results.

Thanks to all of you who helped me keep track of the kites’ departure this year. The last Mississippi Kites of the season were three seen over the La Chua Trail on September 2nd by Dean, Benjamin, and Samuel Ewing, and the last Swallow-tailed was one seen over US-301 near Island Grove on September 1st by Travis Blunden. Both species will spend the winter in Brazil and return to the area next March (Swallow-tailed) and April (Mississippi).

Adam Zions reminds us that birds aren’t the only things you can see in trees. He was birding Bolen Bluff on the 20th and came across this bobcat loafing in a live oak.

On the other hand, Jonathan Mays reminds us that we should occasionally look down.

Adam Kent asked me to post the following announcement on behalf of the Florida Ornithological Society:
For the first time ever, expert sea-watchers reveal how to identify waterbirds at a distance! To hear more about this fascinating challenge, come to the Florida Ornithological Society (FOS) meeting this October 12th hear author Cameron Cox talk about his groundbreaking Peterson Reference Guide to Seawatching: Eastern Waterbirds in Flight. While hawk watching has been popular for years, similar bird ID techniques are also useful to identify waterbirds, sometimes at very long distances. Not just for people who bird on the coast, this presentation will help you identify waterbirds in any context, even flying over your own backyard!
What: FOS Fall meeting
When: October 11-13, 2013
Where: Hilton St. Petersburg – Carillon Park
Click here for more info about the meeting.

Students at the University of Florida are helping Alachua Audubon with its next backyard-birding tour by designing and distributing a survey about the yard tour (which they call a “birding event”) and social media. It would help Alachua Audubon if you were to take the survey, which is only twelve questions long and should take only one or two minutes. The designers of the survey write, “We are working on increasing the involvement and participation of the Alachua County Audubon Society. We have constructed this survey to gather your feedback on specific concerns we have that will aid us in our final recommendation. All of your information will be kept confidential and this survey is taken anonymously. We appreciate your feedback. Please take two minutes out of your day and complete this survey to help us better serve you”: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WWNFTVV