Wednesday, 27 March 2013

First few days of Florida birding

So far, after three days, I have amassed a species list of 91 species. This is a decent total as I have not birded obsessively.
Yesterday, I went to Pelican Island  (USA's first nature refuge). Besides American white pelicans, I had  a nice variety of birds, including four species of warbler and both species of yellowlegs.
 Here is a list of species I saw yesterday.
Merlin (female)
Common ground dove
Black and white warbler
Prairie warbler
Black throated green warbler
Parula
Great crested flycatcher
Greater yellowlegs
Cardinal
Wood stork


Today, I went birding with a tour guide called Dave Simpson. He is a great birder and one of the best in Florida.
First stop - Fell marshes
There we saw:
Roseate spoonbills
Limpkin 
Marsh wren
Savannah sparrow
Fulvous whistling duck (our target bird for the area)
Black winged stilt
American bittern
Cliff swallow among hundreds of Barn and Tree swallows
Yellow crowned heron
Bald eagle

Next stop was blue cypress lake, where there was not a Short tailed hawk, which we dipped for and annoyingly it was seen the day before.

Next was Pelican island again, here we saw
A male Eurasian wigeon
A white cheeked pintail.


GC flycatcher

Female merlin 

black and white warbler

male eurasian wigeon

Spoonbill

Sleeping white cheeked pintail

Limpkin

Black necked stilt
 Both these birds were lovely to see despite the wigeon being very common where i come from! The pintail though countable by ABA guidelines could well be an escape.







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