Tag: Cliff Swallow

If a picture’s worth a thousand words, this is a very long birding report

Posted on by Rex Rowan

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

Samuel and Caleb Ewing had the best bird of the week on the 26th. Samuel writes, “Today Caleb and I walked to an area of Watermelon Pond that’s quite close to us. We got some Blue-winged and Green-winged Teal, 19 Long-billed Dowitchers, a Least Sandpiper, quite a few Tree and Barn Swallows, and one Cliff Swallow! While scanning swallows I spotted one with a squared-off tail and it soon came close enough to see the buffy rump, blue back, and white forehead. I was able to get some poor photos.” This is only the county’s second March sighting of a Cliff Swallow, and believe it or not it’s the first documented occurrence of the species in Alachua County history; no previous photo or specimen has ever been obtained. Here’s Samuel’s photo.

Speaking of photos, Greg Stephens got a great shot of a Peregrine Falcon at La Chua on the 21st. The Peregrine that’s been seen at the Prairie since early January was an immature bird, brown with a streaky breast, and this one’s an adult, so we’ve had two Peregrines at the Prairie in March.

Still speaking of photos – we’ve got an embarrassment of riches, so sue me – Kathy Malone got two spectacular pictures of a Le Conte’s Sparrow at Levy Prairie Loop on the 25th. This was her fourth attempt at photographing this bird, and the effort really paid off.

On the 25th Jonathan Mays saw two White-faced Ibis in non-breeding plumage from the La Chua observation platform. Since there’s also a breeding-plumage bird out there, it looks like we’ve got three White-faced Ibis at Paynes Prairie – at least. Jonathan also spotted three Whooping Cranes, one of whom flew in to provide a photo op.

The season’s first Chimney Swifts have arrived. Jonathan Mays and Ellen Robertson saw the spring’s first at La Chua Trail on the 23rd, Samuel Ewing saw four on the UF campus on the 25th, and on the following day Geoff Parks wrote, “I was downtown this morning at about 10:30 and there was a mass of what I’d estimate to be 90-100 flying around the vicinity of the Seagle building.”

The first Indigo Buntings have checked in as well, one at Keith Collingwood’s place in Melrose, and one at Ron Robinson’s at the west end of Gainesville, both on the 25th.

Ivor Kincaide reports that 50 Purple Martins showed up at the Alachua Conservation Trust’s martin house in Rochelle on the 26th.

The spring’s first major flight of Common Loons occurred on the morning of the 25th, when Andy Kratter counted 58 going over Pine Grove Cemetery between 8:11 and 8:48. Remember that March is the best time to look through migrating Commons for a Red-throated.

There have been no reports of Hooded Warblers in Alachua County yet, but they’re a March migrant, along with Prothonotary, Swainson’s, and Kentucky Warblers and Louisiana Waterthrush. Bob Carroll and friends saw a Hooded along the River Trail at Lower Suwannee NWR on the 21st, and Pat Burns saw three at Cedar Key on the 24th.

Want to know the names of a few common spring wildflowers? Well here you go: http://earthteachme.blogspot.com/2013/03/rain-day.html

Clay-colored Sparrows, more cold fronts, and a good book

Posted on by Rex Rowan

In 1989 two British birders published a 39-page booklet. This booklet was not a field guide, and not a natural history. It was a brief (39 pages) informal manual that explained *how* to look at a bird. It was entitled The New Approach to Identification and its authors, Peter Grant and Killian Mullarney, were among the best birders in the world. Grant, who died a year after The New Approach came out, was responsible for starting the gull craze in 1982 with his Gulls: A Guide to Identification, and Mullarney went on to become the senior author and illustrator of the Collins guide to the birds of Europe, considered to be the premier field guide in the world.

The New Approach went out of print years ago, but I bought myself a copy while it was still available. I’ve studied it many times, and I still regard it as an invaluable book, the best explanation of what you’re supposed to be looking for when you encounter a bird in the field. If you give it a serious perusal (only 39 pages!), I think you’ll be pleased at how much more you begin to see through your binoculars. As the authors put it, the New Approach “adds a great deal of extra interest to the identification of birds.” Phil Laipis was kind enough to make me a pdf of the booklet – with Killian Mullarney’s blessing – and you can find it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/83186272/New%20Approach/The%20New%20Approachv3.pdf

Phil made a second pdf in printable format and took it to Renaissance Printing. They printed it out, trimmed the pages, and put a spiral binding and transparent plastic covers on it, all for about ten dollars. The photos in the printed copy were nearly as sharp as those in the pdf. If you want to print yourself a copy, let me know, and I’ll send you a link to the printable file.

More sparrows are starting to show up. On the 11th, Frank Goodwin found and photographed the fall’s first Grasshopper Sparrow at La Chua Trail, probably the second-earliest in the county’s history: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/8088775324/in/photostream  On the 12th Frank was back at La Chua with Mike Manetz, and near the observation tower they found a Clay-colored Sparrow, a western species that’s a rare fall visitor here. The Clay-colored was still present on the 13th, and was seen by Jonathan Mays and by John Hintermister – and on the same day Geoff Parks saw a little bird feeding in a patch of Coral Foxtail grass in his NE Gainesville backyard that turned out to be another Clay-colored! Geoff managed to get a picture of the bird eating the seeds of the Coral Foxtail: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30736692@N00/8088774385/in/photostream  (“Everybody ought to be growing this stuff,” he comments.) Were there any other sparrows? Why yes, now that you mention it, there were! Mike and Frank saw the fall’s first Swamp Sparrow in addition to the Grasshopper and the Clay-colored on the 12th, and on the 13th John found a very early White-crowned, a sighting duplicated on the Bolen Bluff Trail on the same day by sharp-eyed Samuel Ewing – again, the fall’s first.

Other sightings worth your notice: Several people have mentioned to me that the La Chua Trail is overrun with Soras right now. John Hintermister estimated 125 along the trail on the 13th, so if you’d like to see one of these secretive little birds, you know where to go. On the 12th, Mike Manetz heard an American Pipit fly over the La Chua observation platform, by 19 days the earliest ever recorded in the county. And on the 13th Jonathan Mays saw a rather late Cliff Swallow at … let’s all say it together … La Chua.

I don’t think fall migration is over, but you couldn’t prove it by this weekend’s field trips. Saturday’s Bolen Bluff walk produced 51 species of birds, including 11 warbler species, but it was like pulling teeth to get them, and only a handful of the 30 original participants remained when we finally stumbled across a feeding flock. Sunday’s Powers Park / Palm Point field trip was somewhat livelier, but again the migrants just weren’t there in any numbers.

So it’s good news to hear that more cold fronts, followed by more birds, are headed this way. Bob Duncan of Pensacola writes, “Looking good for birding this week. Two cold fronts are forecast to pass through the northern Gulf Coast. Monday winds are shifting to NW 8-13 knots and to N Monday night 13-18 knots. So I think Tuesday should be good at the migrant traps. Another front is due Thursday night, winds Thursday SW 11-15 knots shifting to NW 15-20 knots Thursday night, so Friday looks promising. Some late Neotropical migrants should still be coming down and winter visitors, sparrows, etc., should really be on the move. This is a good time for drought-driven vagrants from the west to appear. Already a Say’s Phoebe, Ash-throated Flycatcher, and Groove-billed Ani have been found in the Pensacola area.” Two years ago a Groove-billed Ani showed up at Paynes Prairie on October 16th.