Tropical Audubon Society

South Florida’s Voice of Conservation

Twenty-three wonderful birders joined me this morning for the TAS walk in Bill Baggs Cape Florida SP. WOW - What a morning! A little bit of whining early on must have done some good because we later had a quality morning. Most birds that were stopped by last Thursday's rain have left but new birds came in - not in large numbers but in good diversity.

As we started up the mound and admired a close, perched Bobolink, a call from Cape Florida Banding Station changed our plans. They had just mist netted a young MacGillivray's Warbler! While Michelle Davis showed us the bird, there was speculation whether it could be a young Mourning Warbler. Bill contends that there is no such thing as a Mourning Warbler so we had to settle for a MacGillivray's in the hand. Brandon Trentler's photo shows the undertail coverts, which eliminates Mourning Warbler.

CFBS kept producing good birds so we didn't get far! A small group got on a cuckoo and after it flew across the path, we realized that it was a Mangrove Cuckoo. It sat in the open and posed for photos. If anyone from the walk wants to share their photos, please do so.

We ended up with 12 warbler species and other good birds. Paul picked out some good birds while on the north end of the bike path. THANKS everyone!!

Warblers:
Prairie
Ovenbird (plus in hand)
Black-and-white
Cape May
Black-throated Blue
Common Yellowthroat
Northern Parula
Yellow-throated
American Redstart
Worm-eating (plus in hand)
Northern Waterthrush
MacGILLIVRAY'S

Other birds of interest:
Merlin
Cooper's Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk
Bobolink
White-crowned Pigeon
Traill's Flycatcher (in hand)
Red-eyed Vireo
Yellow-throated Vireo (in hand)
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
MANGROVE CUCKOO
Baltimore Oriole
Veery
Catharus thrush (probably Swainson's)
Great Crested Flycatcher
Barn Swallow
Common Ground-Dove