Where Are the Birds?

 Friday, October 22nd

For whatever reason, the Fall Migration has been relatively weak in our corner of Florida this. There have been a few rarities spotted, like warbling vireo, Philadelphia vireo and Nashville warbler, but the number of birds has actually been low. Certainly no fallouts for us.

Not a bird, but there is lots of nature to observe while birding
Green Iguana at Sanibel Lighthouse

 So what's going on? I haven't seen anything yet for an explanation. Seems the winds were more in favor of the birds to fly past and not make a pit stop. Another thought going around is a lack of food. There are plenty of berries and seeds, but we may have a decrease in insects. Some believe that the ecosystem hasn't yet recovered from Hurricane Irma, 2017. Another thought is that cold weather has yet to push many of the neotropical birds to migrate, aka climate change. 

Did get a few photos recently 

Snail Kites at Harns Marsh.
Harns used to be very reliable for finding snail kites,
but they had become scarce here lately

Yellow-crowned Night-heron
Ding Darling NWR - Sanibel Island

Wood Duck at Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve

Pileated Woodpecker at Rotary Park

Eastern Wood-Pewee at Rotary Park

Black-and-White Warbler at Caloosahatchee Creeks Preserve

Northern Parula

Northern Parula

The Gray Catbirds have arrived

Purple Gallinule

Monday June 29th

Florida Sandhill Crane Family at Harns Marsh

Some of the Faces at Six-Mile Cypress

Wednesday, November 9th

Gray Squirrel

Today I spent about an hour at the Six-Mile Cypress Slough boardwalk. Basically was interested in a bit of walking and a bit of photography. The weather was nice, the light was good and the parking lot was quite full.

Double-Crested Cormorant

Anhinga

Carolina Wren

Red-Bellied Woodpecker dining on Dahoon Holly berries

Downy Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker

A Napping Black-Crowned Night-Heron

Florida Banded Watersnake

Spring Migration Begins - Sanibel Lighthouse

Tuesday, April 10th

Pileated Woodpeckers are nesting at the lighthouse

Spring migration has begun here in beautiful Southwest Florida. We are not located on one of the major spring migration routes through the state, but sometimes we can have a real good day.  Last spring most of the migrants had favorable winds and just shot right past us to points north. It's possible that we'll have a repeat this season, but usually our best results are at the Sanibel Lighthouse. A couple of years ago I visited  day as large numbers of birds did stop here with the telephone wires packed with exhausted Purple Martins and Barn Swallows.

Exhausted purple martins in 2010

Great Crested Flycatcher

Today I stopped by in the afternoon and found zero migrants after a two hour search. But on Easter Sunday we did have a few good hits. We had plenty of eyes as several birders were on hand including several friends like Dr Jose Padilla, Vince McGrath, Wes, Gary Lee and others like Don and Lillian Stokes. Best bird was a continuing Blue-winged Warbler first reported by the Stokes a few days ago.  We also had Black-and White Warbler, Palm Warbler, Hooded Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo, White-eyed Vireo, Blue Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, Pine Warbler, Northern Parula, Coopers Hawk, Cliff Swallow, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Purple Martin, Barn Swallow, Fish Crow, Cedar Waxwings, Gray Catbirds and a late Common Loon.

Young gator looking for a safe place to grow up

April is also the time that the local reptile population starts becoming active as the temps rise and the wetlands dry up.  Snakes and lizards are more active, turtles are looking for nesting sites and the larger gators are forcing the smaller gators to look for new digs as the ponds shrink. Just last night I found a displaced yearling baby gator wandering the property at work.  In years past much larger  gators had managed to enter the property.  So we are bit more cautious when working about the property at night this time of year..

Canada Warbler at Six-Mile Cypress

Saturday October 1st

Female Canada Warbler - photo by Jose Padilla

Saturday I wanted to squeeze in some birding in the morning before going into work.  First checked out my patch along Domestic and Lee Streets in San Carlos Park to see if the burrowing owl are present. Seems that following the fledgling of the chicks the two families of owls that I have been watching  have moved to new digs elsewhere. As of this visit none are found.  Did have some Palm Warblers and a FOS American Kestrel, plus a few Mourning Doves, a couple of Loggerhead Shrikes including one with a dragonfly skewered on some barbed wire, some singing Eastern Meadowlarks and a juvie Red-shouldered Hawk.

Red-shouldered Hawk

Next onto Six-Mile Cypress Slough Preserve to look for migrants. Bird-wise things were actually slow. Ran into Stan Daman who had already done some birding, finding a couple of warblers.  As we were speaking we came up with a male American Redstart and a Northern Parula, plus Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, singing Carolina Wrens and Tufted Titmice. Later we ran into Jose Padilla at the far side of the boardwalk.  Still the birding was slow, but as we were talking a couple of warblers did show up.  The first was a Black-and-White Warbler and then to our surprise we were able to id the second bird as a female Canada Warbler,  The canada is not very common at all in Florida during migration as they generally travel down through Texas. So it was a welcome addition to my Life list As we were leaving we were to locate an Ovenbird near the pavilion.

Pileated Woodpecker at Six-Mile Cypress

Yellow Rat Snake explorering the boardwalk