In another thread, I asked if anyone would sponsor me in my company’s annual Bird-a-thon. I had never been on one before (always being the person to cover the office phones while everyone else got to go) Damn, did I have fun, even with the mosquito bites and the heavy rain. I did get a few responses to my thread (thank you ever so much) and here’s what I saw:
American Avocet; American Coot; American Crow; American Kestrel; American Robin; American White Pelican; Anhinga; Bald Eagle; Baltimore Oriole; Barn Owl; Barn Swallow; Barred Owl; Belted Kingfisher; Black Skimmer; Black Vulture; Black-crowned Night Heron; Black-necked Stilt; Blue Jay; Blue-winged Teal; Boat-tailed Grackle; Bonaparte’s Gull; Brown Pelican; Brown Thrasher; Brown-headed Cowbird; Burrowing Owl; Carolina Wren; Cattle Egret; Cedar Waxwing; Chimney Swift; Chuck-will’s-widow; Common Ground-Dove; Common Moorhen; Common Snipe; Common Tern; Common Yellowthroat; Cooper’s Hawk; Crested Caracara; Double-crested Cormorant; Downy Woodpecker; Eastern Bluebird; Eastern Meadowlark; Eastern Screech-Owl; Eastern Towhee; Eurasian Collared-Dove; European Starling; Fish Crow; Florida Scrub-Jay; Forster’s Tern; Glossy Ibis; Gray Catbird; Great Black-backed Gull; Great Blue Heron; Great Crested Flycatcher; Great Egret; Greater Yellowlegs; Green Heron; House Sparrow; Killdeer; Laughing Gull; Least Sandpiper; Least Tern; Lesser Yellowlegs; Limpkin; Little Blue Heron; Loggerhead Shrike; Mallard; Marsh Wren; Mottled Duck; Mourning Dove; Muscovy Duck; Northern Bobwhite; Northern Cardinal; Northern Flicker; Northern Harrier; Osprey; Palm Warbler; Pied-billed Grebe; Pileated Woodpecker; Purple Gallinule; Purple Martin; Red-bellied Woodpecker; Red-cockaded Woodpecker; Reddish Egret; Red-eyed Vireo; Red-shouldered Hawk; Red-tailed Hawk; Red-winged Blackbird; Ring-billed Gull; Rock Dove; Roseate Spoonbill; Royal Tern; Ruddy Turnstone; Sanderling; Sandhill Crane; Sandwich Tern; Savannah Sparrow; Sedge Wren; Semipalmated Plover; Sharp-shinned Hawk; Short-billed Dowitcher; Snowy Egret; Spotted Sandpiper; Swallow-tailed Kite; Swamp Sparrow; Tree Swallow; Tricolored Heron; Tufted Titmouse; Turkey Vulture; Western Kingbird; White Ibis; Whooping Crane; Wild Turkey; Willet; Wood Stork; and a Yellow-rumped Warbler
The Whooping Cranes were my favorite. About 6:30 in the morning, just walking through the morning mist. Dozens of alligators resting in the lake (or what is left of it). And I am still kicking myself for forgetting the video camera.
Definitely mundane, definitely pointless, but meaningful to me. Not bad for 14 hours of being outdoors.
Well, whenever I visit my parents in Dayton, I like to see the finches, robins and cardinals we have flitting around our yard. I always find hawks and the like to be almost breathtaking whenever I see them, though this might have to do with where I usually am (out West) more than the birds themselves.
Bird-watcher, not really, but they’re nice to look at. And yes, you should have had the camera.
Of course you know I am a bird watcher screech, it sounds like you had a great time. I can picture the sight of the great white bird looming in the mist. Unfortunately I still need to see my first Whooper, they stop over here in the fall on their way to the Aransas and I always seem to find out about them the next day.
I’ve always wanted to see a Whooper, but never have. I tried looking for them at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico once (the western flock) but I have never gotten around to going to Aransas. Once when I lived in Colorado, though, I went to see the Sandhil Crane migration on the North Platte - really a magnificent sight, with tens of thousands of them.
This was in Florida, right? How many are there now?
I just got back from a week in the Darien, in Panama, at Cana, a former gold mine near the Colombian border. My favorite place to bird in the country - four species of macaw flying around, not to mention lots of local endemics. The bird-of-the-trip was Solitary Eagle, soaring over the airstrip (eighth record for Panama, and much rarer than a Harpy) - a real stunner.
Fellow birder checking in, I saw your birdathon thread but I knew better than to pledge anyone birding in Florida! Besides, my own chapter needs the cash, especially since we get to keep it all now.
Sounds like an excellent day…Long! How much did you personally make for your chapter Screech?
We typically only get 60 to 70 species here in N. Idaho.
colibri - there were about 100 Whooping Cranes reintroduced south of Kissimmee around 1995-1997 (IIRC). Some of them were offed by bobcats and feral animals. We’re still hoping for babies from this flock. A couple of them have been spotted not too far from the release site.
Unfortunately, “Jeb” and the legislature are wanting to cut funding for the Fish & Wildlife Commission, and some of the money earmarked for conservation efforts (of the whoopers, the black bears and the manatees, for example) will be strecthed out for an already understaffed and streched budget, putting not only those programs in danger, but lessening enforcement of game laws and other programs. Not gonna be fun, especially after everyone said last year, “nope, not gonna touch that money, nope nope nope.” :mad:
Never seen a Solitary or a Harpy. You were lucky!
bare - Actually mine goes to the administrative office and the Center for Birds of Prey, since I was on that combined team (ironically, I don’t have the time to attend a local chapter meeting). Not sure how much, since a lot of people whose charities I normally support have not seen fit to reciprocate. Hmmm.
thinksnow - Yup, definitely going back with a camera. I only saw half of a Burrowing Owl, since it was in the burrow, just peeking out. But it counted!
Odieman Thank you SOOOOO much! I’ll talk to you as soon as I get rid of the bronchitis.
