Tropical Audubon Society

South Florida’s Voice of Conservation

Five birders joined me for Tropical Audubon’s annual four-day winter birding tour to North Florida. Though we encountered heavy downpours all morning on Friday as we drove north, we still decided to try for the recently reported Western Grebe at Lake Ariana in Auburndale, located between Orlando and Lakeland. Using his camera lens as a spotting scope during a period of lighter rain, John Boyd was able to find the grebe among a raft of Ruddy Ducks in the very center of the lake, offering identifiable views of a new state bird for all. American White Pelican and Bald Eagle were among the other birds spotted at the lake before another band of heavy rain descended upon us.

After lunch in Wildwood, where the weather finally cleared, we continued north to Gainesville, where we stayed the first night. We spent the mid-afternoon hours at Sweetwater Wetlands, a wonderful new birding location at the northern edge of Paynes Prairie. Large flocks of Black-bellied Whistling-Duck and several Limpkin were encountered as we explored the wetland’s extensive boardwalk and berm system. After checking in to our motel near the University of Florida, we headed to Dauer Hall on the UF campus to wait for a wintering flock of Vaux’s Swifts to arrive. The flock appeared just after sunset; it was quite the spectacle as they swirled overhead, then dive-bombed almost one-by-one into Dauer Hall’s twin chimneys to roost for the night. We all toasted our second state bird of the day during dinner at one of Gainesville’s finer restaurants.

After breakfast in Gainesville the next morning, we made the long drive to St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, stopping to assemble our picnic lunches before entering the refuge. We spent most of the day exploring the refuge. Among the highlights during our visit were a dozen duck species, including several Mallards (the non-feral kind!), a Canvasback and many Bufflehead, Bald Eagles at the nest, a Clapper Rail scurrying along the mudflats, a young male Vermilion Flycatcher, a heard-only Winter Wren and our only Hermit Thrush seen on the tour. After a quick late-afternoon stop at Lake Henrietta, south of Tallahassee, where we failed to find any of the Rusty Blackbirds reported earlier in the month, we headed to our motel near I-10, home for the next two nights. Dinner was at Nancy Freedman’s favorite Mexican restaurant in Tallahassee.

Day three took us west of Tallahassee, first to the Sumatra area in Apalachicola National Forest, where we met up with Danny Young and his girlfriend Grace. Danny is a birder from the Daytona area whom we first met on Friday at the Vaux’s Swift stakeout. We took a short drive on Forest Road 123 off of Apalachee Savanna Scenic Byway, where we found several Red-cockaded Woodpeckers. We then backtracked to an area of wet savanna where we have consistently found Sedge Wren and Henslow’s Sparrow; this year would be no exception. Next, we headed down to Apalachicola Airport, where we found a wintering Sprague’s Pipit in a grassy area between runways; we also flushed a couple of Wilson’s Snipe.

After lunch in Apalachicola, we drove east towards the Panacea area. Along the way, we spotted four American Oystercatchers loafing on a pier, as well as a spectacular flock of thousands of Redhead close to shore. Also present were at least a dozen Horned Grebes and a small flock of Bonaparte’s Gulls that were apparently chasing a baitfish school. Flocks of Lesser Scaup and a Northern Gannet were the only birds of note during two visits to Alligator Point. In between, we visited Bald Point State Park, where we found Snowy Plovers and a Red Knot among the shorebirds at the point. We also had crippling looks at a female Common Goldeneye there. Along Bottoms Road, we heard and saw both Clapper and Virginia Rail; John Hutchison heard a Black Rail! Our traditional dinner at Posey’s in Panacea followed.

The tour’s final day began with a predawn visit to Southwood Estates in Tallahassee, where we found a single Whooping Crane among the large flock of Canada Geese. We stopped briefly at Crowder Landing on Lake Jackson, but failed to find the Red-throated Loon seen there over the weekend. At Tall Timbers Research Station, near the Georgia border, sightings included Wood Duck, Red-headed and Pileated Woodpecker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, White-breasted Nuthatch, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Eastern Palm Warbler and Chipping, Song, Swamp and White-throated Sparrows. The tour ended with a visit to a Tallahassee home where four species of hummingbirds were recently banded. During our brief visit, we managed to see two of the four: Ruby-throated and Calliope!

Here’s the list of 142 species encountered during the tour:
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Canada Goose
Muscovy Duck
Wood Duck
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Mallard
Mottled Duck (en route)
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Canvasback
Redhead
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup
Bufflehead
Common Goldeneye
Ruddy Duck
Northern Bobwhite (heard)
Common Loon
Pied-billed Grebe
Horned Grebe
Western Grebe
Northern Gannet
American White Pelican
Brown Pelican
Double-crested Cormorant
Anhinga
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Cattle Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
White Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Wood Stork
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Northern Harrier
Cooper’s Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Black Rail (heard)
Clapper Rail
Virginia Rail
Sora
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Limpkin
Sandhill Crane
Whooping Crane
Black-bellied Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Snowy Plover
Killdeer
American Oystercatcher
Black-necked Stilt
Spotted Sandpiper
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
Short-billed Dowitcher
Wilson’s Snipe
Laughing Gull
Bonaparte’s Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Caspian Tern
Forster’s Tern
Royal Tern
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Mourning Dove
Common Ground-Dove
American Kestrel
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Calliope Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Red-headed Woodpecker
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Red-cockaded Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Vermilion Flycatcher
Loggerhead Shrike
White-eyed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Fish Crow
Tree Swallow
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown-headed Nuthatch
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Winter Wren (heard)
Sedge Wren
Marsh Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Eastern Bluebird
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Sprague’s Pipit
Cedar Waxwing
Orange-crowned Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler
Palm Warbler
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Henslow’s Sparrow
Seaside Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Boat-tailed Grackle
Baltimore Oriole
House Finch
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Brian Rapoza
Field Trip Coordinator
Tropical Audubon Society