Monthly Archives: December 2011

Goals for 2012

I didn’t manage to accomplish all of my goals for 2011. So what? Here’s what I’m going to go for in 2012.

1. I plan on keeping another BIGBY list in 2012. My target for the year is 100 species.

2. I’d like to add some Florida specialties to my life list: Snail Kite, Red-cockaded Woodpecker, and Burrowing Owl. And I’ve just got to finally see an American Oystercatcher in 2012!

3. Even though I failed to meet my goal to read / review / cycle out 20 books in 2011, I’d like to get back on track. I’m setting my goal here at 20 book reviews again, but I’m not going to worry too much about the “cycling out” part this year.

There are three big things I’ve been missing since moving to Florida, and I’d really like to get back into at least one of them:

4a. Handling birds of prey and volunteering with a wildlife rehabber.

4b. Volunteering at a bird banding station.

4c. Getting involved with a local bird club (Audubon).

5. I’ll be trying the Bird-a-Day challenge again, with a very modest goal: beat last year’s pathetic total of 23 birds.

Do you have birding goals for 2012? I know birders are going to be taking the eBird Challenge or the One-a-Day eBird Challenge, and others will work on getting their minimum 20 Bird RDA of each and every day. How about you? Let me know in the comments below.

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Posted in Banding, Books, Green Birding, Life List | Leave a comment

Too big to inhale*

A fat frog or toad must surely be a prized meal for a wader like a White Ibis. Unless, of course, it’s too big to eat.

The other day at Gemini Springs I noticed an ibis being pursued by others in a flock of about 20 birds. The ibis had something large in its bill.

The bird managed to get away from its hungry friends and began manipulating the prey, but it was a struggle. At first I thought the ibis had a large crab, but it looks like the prey was some type of frog or toad, puffed up as a defense mechanism. The puffing process may have saved it. I watched the hapless ibis work on the amphibian for a few minutes, but the ibis eventually gave up and dropped its prey.

Ibis v frog

Ibis v frog

Ibis v frog

Later the flock of ibis moved to a shallow part of the spring run to feed and preen. Hopefully the hungry ibis was able to find more suitable prey here.

White Ibises

*Naturally the ibis did not intent to literally inhale its prey. But inhale rhymes with fail… get it?

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Posted in Behavior, Florida, Gemini Springs, Volusia Birding | Leave a comment

Results: Birding Goals for 2011

When I made my list of birding goals for 2011 back in December 2010, I had no idea that I would be moving from Illinois to Florida in the middle of the year. Even with that fairly major disruption, I didn’t really do too badly with my goals.

1. I wanted to get my life list in order. I expected this would take at least several weeks, but I went on an eBird binge and accomplished this goal before January was half over!

2. I wanted to read, review and cycle out at least 20 books. Here I failed rather miserably. I ended up reviewing just 11 books.

3. I wanted to improve my raptor handling skills, with a few specific tasks I wanted to accomplish: handle birds into and out of travel crates; handle a bird during flight training; and have one of my bird pals eat a meal while on my glove. Helping out with a few programs and the Raptor Internship at FCWR, I got to handle plenty of birds in and out of crates. I moved away before getting to work on the other two, but during my visit in November I gave Meepy a rat while she sat on my glove. She wasn’t overly interested so I proceeded to remove her equipment, both Meepy and the rat resting on my glove. After I got Meepy’s second jess removed, I offered the rat to her again. She was free to go but she took the rat and then she did something very cool, she snapped the rat’s spine! Of course the rat was already dead, but that was Meepy’s first action after taking the rat from me. I was wowed. She held onto the rat for a moment and I felt she was not going to eat it while still on my glove. I raised my arm and she flew to her perch with the rat in her beak. That was pretty awesome. I never got to work on flight training with any birds, so that is one I’ll have to save for the future.


L: Getting Spirit out; top R: putting PA away; bottom R: putting 0511 away

4. I also wanted to improve my bird banding skills. I was only able to help out at the Rollins Savanna MAPS station one day (plus a short training period), and I haven’t visited a banding station here in Florida yet. Another goal unfortunately unfulfilled, for now.


American Robin in my hand with 2011 Rollins banding team in background; photo by Janice Sweet

5. I wanted to keep a BIGBY list for the year, with a target of 75 species. I set that number when we were still in Illinois, of course. I met this target, and then some, with a total of 88 BIGBY species for 2011.

6. My 2011 Bird-a-Day list pooped out after 23 days. I hadn’t set a specific goal here, but this was pretty pathetic. In my defense, my life was really, really hectic those first weeks of the year.

7. Finally, and a bit tongue-in-cheek, I wanted to keep up with my blog reading. While I ended up adding a bunch of new Florida bird bloggers to my regular reading, I didn’t fall too far behind at any point in the year, and I’m happy with that.

Coming up: my birding and blog goals for 2012. Did you have any goals for 2011? How did you do?

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Posted in Banding, Books, FCWR, Life List | Leave a comment

My local patch(es)

I found a lot of the birds on my 2011 BIGBY list at my new local patch, Gemini Springs Park, and along the Spring-to-Spring Trail.

Gemini Springs covers 210 acres and is bordered on the south end by DeBary Bayou, which meets up with the St. Johns River. My regular walks there bring me along the spring run and bayou, through a mature wooded scrub area, and across a recreational / mowed field bordered by various types of wooded habitat.

This map shows the park and some of my favorite hot spots. I usually walk just over a mile and a half.


click to embiggen

1. Bike rack 7. Dam
2. Playground 8. Fishing pier
3. Bridges over spring runs 9. Mature woods
4. Mature woods 10. Woods / lawn transition habitat
5. “Warbler Alley” 11. Stand of snags
6. DeBary Bayou

The park isn’t too big, but I still haven’t explored all of the paths just yet. I only discovered the path along the bayou last month. It’s so busy with birds each morning that I refer to it as “warbler alley” – I have high hopes for this habitat come spring migration. ๐Ÿ™‚

The Spring-to-Spring trail is a Volusia County project. The path will run from Lake Monroe Park, at the south end of the county, up through DeLeon Springs State Park and beyond. Today the path exists in completed but unconnected segments; the south Segment 1 runs from DeBary Hall to Lake Monroe Park.

This map shows the bike path. We live in the neighborhood of DeBary Hall, so the path is very convenient for everyday biking and birding. ๐Ÿ˜‰


click to embiggen

It’s about five miles from our home to the end of the path at Lake Monroe Park. I ride this trail 2-3 mornings per week. A pair of Bald Eagles has a nest somewhere in the middle of the path, but I’ve been unable to locate it so far. Starting in October I saw one or two adult Bald Eagles each time I biked the path. In the last month I’ve only seen one bird; the other is at the undisclosed nest site.

I realize this type of local patch post has limited interest; thank you for reading this far! If you’re going to be visiting the area and / or if you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email. If you’ve blogged about your own local patch, please leave a comment below!

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Willets in the mist

Arthur and I spent Christmas afternoon at Canaveral National Seashore, where we shared the beach with Willets (and little else).

Willet01

Willet02

Willet03

Willet04

Willet05

Willet06

I’ve submitted this post to this week’s Bird Photography Weekly. BPW is a regular collection of user-submitted bird photos from all over the world. The new edition comes out every Sunday. Go have a look at this weekโ€™s submissions!

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Posted in Bird Photography Weekly, Florida | 1 Comment

Best Bird of the Year 2011

It should come as no surprise to anyone with any familiarity with this blog that my best bird of 2011 is actually a pair of birds: the Mooseheart Bald Eaglets.


The first baby Bald Eagle flies free!

The adventure began back at the end of May, when FCWR became aware of a downed Bald Eagle nest in Mooseheart, Illinois. The race was on to keep the parent Bald Eagles on site and replace the fallen nest, reuniting the baby eagles with their parents.

Eaglet On Ground
One of the eaglets on the ground

When the parents unfortunately failed to care for the babies in the new, human-made nest, the eaglets were brought back to FCWR for care. Arthur and I helped with their initial enclosure – complete with a new “nest” – but this was only a very tiny part of their time in the care of FCWR. The eaglets were eventually transferred to a new, large flight chamber, where they learned to fly and all of the other skills they would need to be released back into the wild.

The release at Starved Rock State Park was magical, and I feel so lucky to have been able to attend as a FCWR volunteer. Both babies flew strong from their release site on Plum Island.

In case you missed the release videos, here they are:

If you click through to the older blog posts, you’ll see more photos and video of these beautiful birds. The Mooseheart Eaglets were easily the highlight of my 2011!

Mooseheart eaglet rescue 1

Mooseheart eaglet rescue part 2

Mooseheart Bald Eaglets to be released next week!

Starved Rock Eaglet Release

Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation is a non-profit, federally licensed rehab organization with locations in Chicago and Barrington, Illinois. You can follow their blog here, follow them on Facebook here, and make donations online here. This post reflects my own experiences as a volunteer with FCWR. Any errors are purely my own, and opinions here do not necessarily reflect those of FCWR.

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Posted in FCWR, Festivals & Events, Illinois, Rehabilitation | 1 Comment

Birding Highlights 2011

When I sat down to reflect upon the ups and downs of 2010 about a year ago I had no idea what was in store for me in 2011. Moving out of Illinois wasn’t on my radar at all. Now I sit here in my Florida home just one year later, looking back on twelve months that saw a lot of personal ups and downs, and one huge change – the move to DeBary.

But what about the birding? Here are my 2011 bird-type highlights.

Moving from northern Illinois to central Florida was a major highlight, bird-wise, even though it meant I’d be missing a lot. The below photo shows your blogger at Gemini Springs, the new local patch.

Blogger

I managed to pick up a whopping 35 life birds in 2011! With just 285 ABA lifers, it’s still not too tough to pick up new birds. 15 of the birds were found in Illinois (including the Ogle County Snowy Owl), and the remaining 20 were all found in Florida.

Six of those life birds were picked up on my first-ever pelagic birding experience on a voyage out of Ponce Inlet in September.

One of those lifers was a rather out-of-range western treat in our own Florida back yard: a Western Tanager.

Early in the year I helped out with the Raptor Internship at FCWR. I had a lot of fun helping the new volunteers learn about handling raptors and I made a lot of friends (who I still miss every day). Of course spending time with some amazing birds is always special. This is Darwin puffed up on a particularly cold day.

My very best bird experience of the year also came courtesy of Flint Creek, and I’ll share that with you tomorrow (though regular readers will surely have no problem guessing my #1 for 2011!). Stay tuned!

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Posted in FCWR, Florida, Gemini Springs, Illinois, Life List, Yard Birds | 1 Comment

Soaked shrike

More fun from our visit to Merritt Island NWR and the Black Point Wildlife Drive on December 10th. There were lots of kingfishers, yes, and lots of other birds to see, too, like this one.

Loggerhead Shrike

It had rained a bit in the early morning, but it wasn’t much more than a drizzle and it didn’t last very long. So we were puzzled when we came across this very wet Loggerhead Shrike close to the Wild Birds trail.

Loggerhead Shrike

It was completely soaked across the lower body and tail, and I wondered if it fell into water while pursuing prey.

Loggerhead Shrike

It perched in the open and shook itself a few times, but we didn’t see it preen at all. After a while it started to vocalize.

It didn’t mind our slow approach or observation, so I happily fired off a bunch of photos while wondering what exactly happened to this wet little predatory songbird.

Loggerhead Shrike

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This calendar is all over the place…


… literally! Some of the twelve birds featured in this 2012 Backyard Birds Mini Calendar may be Backyard Birds, but you’d never find them all in the same back yard.


Click picture to see larger

Northern Cardinals are native to eastern North America.

Cedar Waxwings live across much of North America.

Wren is kind of non-specific for a calendar published in Indiana, but it probably refers to the Eurasian Wren, which is commonly referred to as simply “wren” and is native to Europe and Asia.

Great Tits are back yard birds through much of Europe and are also found across Asia and north Africa.

White-crowned Sparrows live across much of North America.

Great Spotted Woodpeckers live in parts of Europe and Asia.

Steller’s Jays live across western North America.

Oriental White Eyes are found in tropical Asia. I can’t find any evidence of them frequenting feeders.

Siberian Rubythroats live in Siberia, natch. They eat insects.

Vermilion Flycatchers (spelled Vermillion on the calendar) live in the Americas, from the American southwest through much of South America.

I’m having a hard time figuring out what a “Common Tree Pie” is supposed to be, but it looks like a White-winged Redstart, native to southwest and central Asia. They eat insects.

Finally, the Azure Kingfisher is native to Australia and neighboring islands. However, the bird identified as such looks more like a Common Kingfisher (native to Eurasia and Africa). If you’ve got a thriving body of water in your yard, you might count a kingfisher as a yard bird, but they’d certainly never be feeder birds.

On Amazon’s best seller list, this calendar ranks #258,859 in books. That seems a little high to me.

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Highlights from our first CBC

On Saturday Arthur and I participated in our first Christmas Bird Count. We counted in the southwest sector of the West Volusia County circle with six other birders. The weather was perfect for being outdoors, but a string of pleasant weather days kept many birds generally quiet.

We started out at the home of our sector’s leader, where the count cars were outfitted with official signage. Here’s our minivan ready for the day. We counted some feeder birds before heading out.

Birdmobile

We listened for birds from the car, driving slowly on some low-traffic roads. At an early stop we spotted an adult Osprey bringing major branches and other material to a dilapidated-looking nest.

Osprey nest

Along Cummer Road, a popular birding-by-car spot here in Volusia County, we found 130 Sandhill Cranes.

Sandhill Cranes

We also counted 15 Wild Turkeys here, plus a Red-shouldered Hawk, several hunting American Kestrels, our first Eastern Bluebird of the day, and our only Eastern Meadowlarks. Our leader knew about a Bald Eagle nest in the area, and we were able to see one adult already on the nest. While scoping other birds, we heard a Bald Eagle vocalizing. Shortly the the other adult appeared, soaring over the nest.

Bald Eagle nest

While we really enjoyed the entire day, one of the best parts was finding out about local birding hotspots that were previously unknown to us. We stopped at many private marinas where special access for the count was granted, but other public spots were visited as well.

Marina

One cute discovery was the Hummingbird Garden at the Hontoon Landing Resort & Marina. While we didn’t have any hummingbirds on count day, we learned that hummingbirds frequent the feeders especially during spring migration, so this is a spot we’ll have to hit again in the new year.

Hummingbird Garden

At the north end of Lake Beresford, we found a large flock of White Ibis feeding. At this little hotspot we also found our only Blue-gray Gnatcatchers of the day, another Eastern Bluebird, and the only Orange-crowned Warbler of the CBC circle.

Flock of Ibis

Another roadside stop, at a hunter’s access point to Lake Woodruff NWR, we searched for Brown-headed Nuthatches but came up empty. We did pick up our only Eastern Towhees of the day, our only Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, plus a few additional birds.

Lake Woodruff NWR hunter's access

It was a great day out with some new friends. In all we counted 1243 individual birds of 56 species. The initial tally at the CBC dinner came up with 108 species for the circle. Not a record, but not a bad number, either. And a very good count day for these two newbies.

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Posted in Citizen Science, Florida, Volusia Birding | 1 Comment