Show and Tell

This weekend, I did something I've never done before: I took a non-birder friend birding. This friend is a colleague of mine who's endured God-knows-how-many of my Monday morning weekend birding reports—and she decided that she had to see for herself what all the fuss was about.

So on Sunday morning, I picked her up and took her to La Chua, a perfect place for a birding virgin: a long, flat trail overlooking several waterways, offering guaranteed sightings of Big Pretty Birds. And for the first time in weeks, the birds decided to cooperate with me. (I suspect they decided to make an appearance for my friend's benefit, not mine.)

Near the trailhead, I set up my spotting scope so she could get good looks at the nesting Osprey pair, and while we were there, a Brown Thrasher and a Great-crested Flycatcher lingered close by—close enough for good looks even without optics. Other usual-suspect birds—Northern Mockingbirds, Northern Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees—hopped around nearly, singing loudly and allowing more good looks.

I was counting on a short trip; I figured that a non-birder would grow quickly bored of staring into clumps of foliage for signs of movement. But my friend was surprisingly game—and naturally skilled. We lingered on the trail by the Osprey nest for a good half-hour, watching songbirds come and go.

We moved on towards Alachua Sink: just before the sink, the trail opens up to a flat expanse of prairie and grazing land. There, we saw several Wild Turkeys—a fairly common occurrence there. But today we got unusually lucky: one of the male birds was in the middle of a feverish courtship display:

This dude kept up his prancing and preening for a good half hour, while a nearby female pointedly ignored him. We kept tabs on their seduce-and-snub act while looking out for other birds in the area: a group of three Red-bellied Woodpeckers (a family?), a Blue Grosbeak, and passing overhead, a Sandhill Crane and a Mississippi Kite. Another productive half-hour spent standing nearly still.

Near the sink, we got another good summer bird, and an ideal piece of avian eye candy for a new birder: a Purple Gallinule:

Along the main part of the trail, we saw all the usual egrets and herons (though not the Least Bitterns that others had reported seeing a few days earlier), as well as Wood Storks and the whole range of non-avian wildife known to inhabit the area: a huge herd of bison, wild horses and pigs, a four-foot long soft-shell turtle, and of course, dozens of alligators.

I was happy and grateful that the birds and other critters were all out and about for my friend. Maybe now she understands what all the fuss is about.

A Million Sparrows (and Ospreys and Gators)

My neighbor the Chipping Sparrow

At the Catholic high school I attended, we used to sing a song during liturgy services that included the lines "You are worth a million sparrows/ sheltered by the Lord." Even though I wasn't a birder at the time, I wondered about the math behind this equivalency: which bored Vatican bureaucrats came up with this? What's wrong with sparrows, anyhow?

Before I started birding, I thought sparrows were boring (after all, the insignificance of sparrows is officially enshrined in Catholic theology!) When I first started birding, I found sparrows—and the endless identification problems they posed—utterly terrifying.

And this weekend, they were all I wanted to see.

Some visitors last week set my sparrow lust in motion; a large flock of Chipping Sparrows discovered my feeder, and has been keeping me entertained (and dangerously distracted from work) for hours on end. I'd seen these birds only a couple of times back in California, and close-up in my tiny yard, it's easy to see how colorful they are. (They're also quite gluttonous—one day last week, I watched a fat little guy perched at the feeder, calmly eating sunflower seeds for about 5 minutes. I left the room to brush my teeth—and when I came back, about three minutes later, he was still there!)

The other bird I've been trying in vain to find is the White-throated Sparrow. Around here, the White-crowned Sparrows are supposed to be (relatively) uncommon, while the White-throated Sparrows are regular wintering birds. But so far this winter, I've seen numerous White-crowneds and no White-throateds (which would be a life bird for me).

Yesterday, I ran into a birder at La Chua who knew I had been trying to find White-throated Sparrows—he said he'd seen a flock just minutes before, and was nice enough to walk with me back to where they had been. And of course, once we got there, they were gone.

Still, it was a great day out--we saw a pair of Ospreys mating, and about four American Bitterns hunting in the water. But I still wanted my sparrows.

So today, I broke my pledge to go somewhere other than La Chua, and headed back there again. Everyone had been seeing those darned sparrows there but me. My friend from yesterday said he has the best luck finding them early in the morning, so I got there just before 8 and started looking.

Already, it seems that winter is ceding its way to spring. The Sandhill Crane flocks were thinning out as the birds started heading north to their breeding grounds (according to park rangers, they'll be gone by next week), and the little thicket of plum trees where the White-throated Sparrows had been seen was already in bloom.

The nesting Ospreys were still there; here's one of them on its nest:



The little plum tree thicket was quiet except for a couple of Orange-crowned Warblers, so I worked my way towards the prairie. There, of course, were the White-crowned Sparrows, the now-resident Harris' Sparrow, and half a dozen or so migrant birders following in his wake. The Harris' Sparrow is quite bold: today, he was feeding on the ground with the White-crowned Sparrows, and got within 10 feet of me! (But of course he flew the minute I reached for my camera!)

I saw a flock of sparrows moving back towards the trailhead, and decided to follow them. Back among the plum trees, I finally found what I came for: a flock of White-throated Sparrows! They were darting about through the trees quite quickly, but a few got close enough for good looks. None of my photos are suitable for public consumption, unfortunately.

The weather started getting warm; a real change from the sub-freezing temperatures of the past week. The alligators were out, taking full advantage of the sunshine. I like how this guy made a custom-fitted little niche for himself among the lotuses:

So I finally got what I was looking for—my long-sought White-throated Sparrows and a third good look at the Harris' Sparrow. I'm not sure if I'm worth a million sparrows, but a few good sparrows can make you feel like a million.

A Conspicuous Absence of Sparrows

What's wrong with this bird?

Look closely at the photo above: this is the infamous Harris' Sparrow that has been wintering in Gainesville, near the head of the La Chua Trail of Paynes Prairie State Park.

Look closer: what's that white line on its back? It's...the paper backing behind the photo (the nice contouring shadow is from me standing in front of it as the sun shone on me from behind). Some wise guy or gal (yet to be identified) pasted a life-size photo of Gainesville's only celebrity not named Tebow in the middle of the little bare tree where the REAL Harris' Sparrow has been most often seen.

Ha, ha, ha.

Well, seeing this (actually, having it pointed out to me by another birder) was pretty much the highlight of my birding weekend. Which was odd, as I managed to score two lifers this weekend. This is a good number for two mornings' worth of birding—but for some reason, it felt as though the birding scene around here was kind of dull.

On Saturday, I went back to La Chua Trail, on the hunt for White-throated Sparrows (dipped on these), as well as the Harris' Sparrow and Whooping Cranes (dipped on these, too). There had also been sightings of a Ross' Goose out there the day before, but I dipped on this as well—as did every other birder I encountered out there.

But the Sandhill Cranes were still out in numerous and noisy force, snarfing away happily at anything and everything:


At this tine of year, La Chua Trail is quite the meet-and-greet place for nature lovers of all persuasions—everyone loves those cranes! Over the past few weeks, I've run into several of my University of Florida colleagues there, as well as le tout Gainesville of the birding community. Never in a million years would I have considered putting "birding" and "professional networking opportunity" in the same sentence, but it's something to do when the birds are scarce...

Today was the much-anticipated Alachua Audubon field trip to Persimmon Point, an area of Paynes Prairie usually closed to the public and supposedly a great spot for winter sparrows. I say "supposedly" because once we made the two-mile hike up there (on a very pretty trail, which we spent regrettably little time birding), we ended up seeing three sparrows. Not three species of sparrows. Three sparrows. Period.

And this was after the trip leaders had us slog in a long horizontal line through fields of 3-foot-high broom sedge, blackberry bushes, briars, and prickly pears in order to flush out the swarms of sparrows allegedly hidden within.

We did manage to scare up a flock of Bobwhites—the first of my two lifers—but they flew off before I could get any photos or get a good look at them.

Our trip leaders were flummoxed, and had no explanation for the strange absence of sparrows up there. So we retreated back towards the lower part of the prairie where—finally—a less-common sparrow, a Grasshopper Sparrow, deigned to appear for us. This was Lifer #2 for me: Yes, I know this photo blows chunks; the little guy was quite sedate and sat in one spot for several minutes, but wasn't quite close enough for a real beauty shot:


So now I know how to pick a Grasshopper Sparrow out of a lineup, and I know the call of a Bobwhite Ia little like a truncated California Quail call So it really wasn't such a boring weekend after all.

And a weekend of boring birding is always better than a weekend of no birding at all.

Attack of the Flying Metaphor

The infamous Harris' Sparrow deigns to make an appearance for me.

My birding expectations for this weekend were pretty low. For one, I've had a nasty cold and laryngitis for the past week and a half, and thought it would be wise to spend the weekend resting. Second, there didn't seem to be that many interesting birds being found locally—there was a sighting of a Masked Duck, which would have been a lifer for me—but I didn't feel up to driving halfway to Tallahassee to look for it.

I hate being sick.

But I hate being stuck indoors even more. This morning, when I heard the first Cardinal chipping outside my window, I got up and decided to return to La Chua Trail. I had been there twice in the past week, and I knew I wasn't likely to see anything now that I didn't see then. I just needed to get out.

Getting out, however, took longer than I expected. It has been crazy cold for for the past few days, and there has been frost on the ground most mornings as of late. But today, I went outside and found my car fully encrusted in frost. Big thick layers of it obscured both windshields.

When I lived in Canada, my friends there teased me for not keeping an ice scraper in my car. But somehow, I managed to survive three years in Vancouver without one.

And it never occurred to me to get one when I moved to Florida.

Still, I managed to get the ice off my car and get to La Chua just before 9:00. When I stepped out of the car, I was glad I came: I could hear birds everywhere: Robins, Red-bellied and Downey Woodpeckers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Carolina Chickadees... all ordinary birds, but in unusual numbers. Down the trail, a Hermit Thrush popped up, Northern Cardinals were singing loudly, and huge numbers of Palm Warblers jumped around in the leaf litter, flicking their tails.

I had set a low-level goal of looking for White-throated Sparrows: they were supposed to be regular winter birds at La Chua, but I had never seen one. A White-throated Sparrow would be a lifer for me, and I wanted one. But I wasn't expecting much: it was already on the late side for sparrows (according to local wisdom, the sparrows at La Chua are most active and visible early in the morning; after 9:00 it's too late). And I had tried and failed to relocate the visiting Harris' Sparrow twice the previous weekend and hadn't heard any news of it all week, so I assumed it had taken off as well.

I was thinking about this while checking out a flock of singing White-crowned Sparrows mingling with a few Savannah Sparrows. The birds were unusually bold, and I managed to get fairly close to them. Then out of nowhere came...the Harris' Sparrow! And he landed in a bare bush directly in front of me, and sat—nearly stationary—for several minutes, allowing me to take several pictures.

Weirdly, I wasn't even terribly surprised by this. My first thought was something like, "Well, it's about time, you evil little bastard!" But then I felt—just happy. I just stood there and watched the little bird twitch about on the branch, thinking of how lucky I was to be right there at that very time.

Then it occurred to me that just about all the truly cool stuff in my life—my friends, my hobbies, my academic research—all came to me much as that Harris' Sparrow did: by happy accident, often after I'd given up looking for something or was obsessed with getting something else. While I constantly badger my students to Stay Organized, Be Responsible, and Plan Ahead, I'm coming to the realization that all the planning the the world won't always get you what you want ( yup, I'm a slow learner). And some of the things I didn't plan for have led me to amazing places—like to Gainesville, and to a bare bush with a strange sparrow in it.

To paraphrase John Lennon, "Lifers are what happens when you're making other plans."

You Just Missed It

Beautiful but birdless: weekend scenery from La Chua Trail

This should have been a great weekend for birding, but for some reason, it wasn't. It started promisingly enough, with an Alachua Audubon field trip to Tuscawilla Prairie, an undeveloped tract of marshy prairie just outside the unbearably cute little town of Micanopy.

It had rained the night before, and was still drizzling that morning, so the ground was thick with mud when we arrived. I hate mud. There were no trails on the prairie, so we powered our way across the muddy expanse through 6-foot high dog fennel and other vegetation. We were headed towards an even wetter and muddier area where ducks and shorebirds had been seen, and as the mud got thicker,my feet got wetter and wetter. And then I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my left leg—as though someone had impaled it with hundreds of hot needles.

I looked down and saw a swarm of fire ants crawling up my leg. Their nests are usually easy to see and avoid, but not out there.

"Try to brush them off the best you can, " one of the other birders said, and I did—but then they started biting my hands as well.

This made it hard to focus on the birds. Which was a shame, as there were some good ones out there. Sedge Wrens were everyone, skulking in the underbrush and checking us out with their beady black eyes. Lots of Savannah and Swamp Sparrows, and potentially others as well—but I was in too much pain and not in any mood to race though the mud and and mosquito-filled brush to find them.

On the way back into Gainesville, we stopped at a little pond (actually, within walking distance of my place) that looked, as one of my carpool mates said, "shorebirdy." This was a fair assessment: we found both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Killdeer, a Least Sandpiper, and a couple of Wilson's Snipes. This was the first time I'd seen one of these close up:



I hoped Sunday would be better: I had planned to get together with some other local birders to look for wintering sparrows off the La Chua Trail on Paynes Prairie. The rain had passed, and the sky was bright and cloudless. While waiting in the parking lot for the others to arrive, I saw large feeding flocks of Palm Warblers, and watched several Northern Flickers flying from tree to tree. Near the trailhead, we immediately spotted about half a dozen sparrows darting through the brush: Savannah Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows (the first of the season for me), and a Vesper Sparrow. Here's an immature White-crowned Sparrow:



Things were looking promising.. until a cold, gusty wind abruptly set it, sending all the small birds diving for cover. During the rest of our walk, we saw only a few Savannah Sparrows and Eastern Phoebes. As a consolation prize, though, we did get some good looks at raptors: a pair of Northern Harriers, and a pair of American Kestrels, as well as Red-tailed and Cooper's Hawks. We also got a good look at several wild hogs and missed—apparently, by only a minute—seeing a herd of wild bison that passing hikers kept telling us about.

Another local birder had just scored 10 sparrow species at La Chua last week, and it was clear that we weren't going to get even close to this.

But a weekend of bad birding is better than a weekend with no birding. And the bad days make the good days even better.

Dispatch from the Gator Nation

Oh no, not one of these things again!

No school is more deeply, obsessively into its mascot than the University of Florida. There's a late-night bus service called Later Gator. The webpage that tracks buses to and from campus is called Gator Locator. The university's day care center is called Baby Gator. The secure, online system faculty members use to submit grades every semester is called—wait for it—Grade-A-Gator. I'm not making this up.

And yet, it was still surprising to find that there are, indeed, real alligators slithering their way around the town's periphery in large numbers. After a morning of birding my favorite weekend spots (Palm Point and Powers Park), I dropped by La Chua Trail, on the north end of Paynes Prairie, to look for any winter sparrows that may have started wandering in. I got a few Song Sparrows, several Palm Warblers, and an enticing little sparrow-like bird I couldn't ID. There was also a female Northern Harrier, and a nice assortment of waders. But the most noticeably numerous creatures there were the gators.

There were really big guys, like the one above, as well as oddly proportioned babies:



In Alachua Sink, about a dozen of them were basking on a mudflat. Here are a few of them:



All along the trail, there are big, ominous signs warning people to keep a safe distance from the gators, and to be sure to be off the trail by dusk, when the gators start to feed. IF IT MOVES IT"S FOOD! one of them practically screamed. Oddly, the local birds (all of whom seemed to be moving) didn't seem terribly concerned: the gators on the mudflat were surrounded by a large flock of Least Sandpipers foraging calmly away; and everywhere else on the trail, Little Blue Herons, Common Moorhens, and White Ibises were resting or hunting only feet away from basking gators. The Cattle Egrets below are clearly not worried about getting eaten:



There was also a large variety of butterflies on the trail, which made me realize I should get a guidebook and learn more about them. This was one I hadn't seen before:



As I walked back to the trailhead, a couple with several young children passed and asked where the alligators were. I told them to it wasn't very far, and they wouldn't have to look very hard. And I was out of there long before sunset.