Florida, part 2: more birds

Thanks to the wonders of technology, we got continually notified as our flight home was delayed again and again, so we were able to travel more around the Ft. Lauderdale area. We spent a little time on a narrow strip of beach near a small park (Hugh Taylor Birch State Park), where Adam had frequently gone when he lived nearby. There were Sanderlings dashing in and out of the crashing waves, and Brown Pelicans cruising stately on the high wind.

The Sanderlings were another life bird for me--like the Blue-Winged Teal, I'm sure I've seen them before, but they weren't on my list. Cute little guys.

Anyway, I also got great looks at a lot of birds I had seen before, so I'm going to share a few pictures. This Belted Kingfisher was hovering pretty high over Green Cay. I guess she was grabbing insects from the air? This is one of my better bird-in-flight photos.

Most of the familiar birds we saw were at Green Cay. This Green Heron hinted along a marsh edge only twenty feet or so from the boardwalk.

Soras are usually hard to spot (except the one who was stuck in the Loch in Central Park last Fall). This one was pretty confiding.

Snowy Egrets are usually shyer than this, too. I wonder what about Green Cay made these birds all so confiding?

My first Painted Bunting was the famous Prespect Park (Brooklyn) bird earlier in the winter. In south Florida, they're feeder birds.

There's a feeder off the path between the parking lot and the nature center, which the Buntings liked. I saw my first female painted bunting there. While not as gaudy as the males, they are quite pretty birds. I think they are the only all-green birds in the U.S.

This very friendly Boat-Tailed Grackle hung around the Greek restaurant we stopped at the first day, begging food and singing. The waiter told us the bird would steal sugar packets from the tables.

There were Boat-Tailed Grackles all over Green Cay. Here's a nice close shot of a female.

We saw various warblers, as well. Besides this Palm Warbler (one of several), Yellow-Rumped Warblers were thick in the reeds. There were a few Black-and_White Warblers as well, and along the path from the parking lot I spotted a Prairie Warbler.

And in the last minutes of our second trip to Green Cay, we spotted this Nashville Warbler near the parking lot, a local rarity that had been frequently sighted there this winter.

This Red-Shouldered Hawk was one of two hawk species we spotted in Florida (the other were a juvenile and an adult Marsh Harrier). This Red-Shouldered is quite pale, which apparently is a common color morph in south Florida.

Here's a nice close-up of a Pied-Billed Grebe to round things out. I'll have one more Florida post in a couple of days.

Florida, part one: Life Birds, Green Cay

Elena and I went to Florida over Presidents Day weekend. We were making a long-overdue visit to our friends Adam and Judy in Palm Beach County, but with their indulgence we got in some birding.

exclusive valet birding

I hadn't been in Florida in fifteen years, since before I started birding, so the life birds started coming as soon as we left the airport. White Ibises are all over the place--roadsides, along the ubiquitous canals, parking lots... And I saw my first Anhinga ouside a restaurant where we stopped for lunch. (My Big Fat Greek Restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale. Very nice place. Try the keftedes.)

Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga)

And Cattle Egrets are common roadside birds as well.

this one was at Green Cay, but trust me, they were all over the roadsides

Birding by the roadside is fun, but the best thing was Green Cay Wetlands.

totemic

This is a fantastic man-made wetlands park, run by Palm Beach County, with about a mile and a half of boardwalks that bring you right up close with normally-reclusive waterbirds.

very shy

This American Bittern wasn't a lifer, but what a view! It was not eight feet away from me, almost under the boardwalk. Funny thing--right after seeing it, I ran into Central Park birder Brian Padden, who was birding there with Big Year birding legend Sandy Komito. I had the pleasure of pointing them at the Bittern.

just off the parking lot

The birds at Green Cay start even before you reach the boardwalk. Along the path from the parking lot to the nature center building, we saw several warblers, Painted Buntings, and White-Winged Doves.

And then you get into the wetlands, and there's just a riot of birds. There are ducks:

I don't know how I missed seeing Blue-Winged Teals before, but I had.

in south Florida, Mottled Ducks replace Mallards as the common ducks

gallinules:

Common Gallinules live up to their name at Green Cay

juvenile Purple Gallinule. I didn't get a really good picture of an adult.

Grey-Headed Swamphen, an exotic South Florida speciality

herons:

Tricolored Heron. Well, I suppose you can claim any number of colors you like...

juvenile Little Blue Heron

adult Little Blue Heron

Glossy Ibises! Wood Storks! Limpkins!

Glossy Ibises, another introduced species quite at home in Florida

Wood Stork. It took HOW long to figure out these were dinosaurs?

this Limpkin was loudly asserting his territorial rights after a dispute

and Roseate Spoonbills. My god, the Spoonbills.

that spoon, that spoon, that Spoonbill...

And those are just my life birds! I'm not even close to done writing about Florida. More soon.

Five years ago this week (2)

In the winter of 2011, the best bird in Central Park was a Varied Thrush that was hanging around near the Ramble bathrooms. Varied Thrushes are common park birds in the Pacific Northwest; we get a vagrant here every few years.

This one had been often seen in January and February in the company of two male Eastern Towhees, where were the most accommodating Towhees I've ever seen.

The day I got the Varied Thrush photo above I also took one of my favorite Blue Jay pictures ever.

Cruising and scrambling for new birds

Lapland Lonspur

Last weekend, a Lapland Longspur was spotted on Randall's Island. This was the first sighting of one on land in New York County since probably the 1950s (there have been some flyovers). I was lucky enough to get a nice look at it after some adventures.

Sunday began with an Audubon harbor "eco-cruise" through New York harbor, past the Verrazano Bridge to Hoffman and Swinburne Islands. Elena and I and our friends Barbara and Jim were among the 60 or so people who piled on a NY Water Taxi at the South Street Seaport. There were a lot of other birders, but most people were there to see the Harbor Seals that winter around the islands.

Bonaparte's Gull (and Ring-Billed Gull)

We saw plenty of birds first, pointed out by tour leader Gabriel Willow. We stopped off Governor's Island where Double Crested Cormorants and a couple of Great Cormorants basked on the piers, and we saw a sizable flock of Black Ducks around the Island. There were dozens of Bonaparte's Gulls swimming off and flying around the Brooklyn shore.

Long-Tailed Duck

There were a large number of Long-Tailed Ducks, many in flight, recognizable by their bold black-and-white pattern. They were hard to photograph, as were the several Red-Throated and Common Loons we spotted.

Swinburne Island

Hoffman Island and Swinburne Island are artificial islands that were used for quarantining immigrants. Long abandoned, they are now home to large numbers of gulls, to nesting colonies of egrets and herons in the summer, and to overwintering seals in winter.

the seal also watches you

The seals who were basking on rocks offshore slid into teh water as the boat approached, but they seemed curious about us.

gulls on the rocks with a twist of cormorant

The rocks off both islands were covered with loafing gulls, One Double-Crested Cormorant was hanging out with the Herring Gulls there.

composition with Great Black-Backed Gulls

There were also Great Black-Backed Gulls, who stayed mostly a bit apart from the Herring Gulls. They also took over all the wood pilings.

doing the Great Cormorant hop

One Great Cormorant was on the pilings with the Great Black-backeds. Bigger gulls get a bigger cormorant.

distant Surf Scoter

I spotted this unfamiliar duck well to the south of Swinburne Island. Gabriel Willow ID'd it as a Surf Scoter, the first he'd seen on a harbor cruise, and a life bird for me. I really recommend these Audubon cruises; you can get details of upcoming cruises from the NY Water Taxi website.

While we were on the boat, an email from the NYSBIRDS-L mailing list reached my phone about a Lapland Longspur on Randalls Island. I had some trouble getting there--thanks MTA!--and whej I arrived it started to rain. Luckily there were several birds watching the Longspur. Unluckily, just as I was getting to where they were, a dog someone had let off leash (illegally, of course) flushed the bird.

Longspur taking a look around

All ended well when William Haluska refound the bird and pointed me at it. Thanks, William! I watched the bird creep through the brush along the rocks at the water's edge while the rain grew heavier and everyone else left, and then suddenly it popped up on a rock and posed in the open for a minute.