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/
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.