Bird Tweets

Shut up and bird!

I'm probably the last person under 80 in the civilized world without a Twitter account. I have several principled reasons for this: (1) sloth, (2) my life is generally boring, (3) on the rare occasions it's not boring, I'd much rather throw myself fully into whatever I'm doing than tell everyone about it, and (4) all those perpetually exciting people with Twitter feeds would probably agree with (2).

But there is a weird, haiku-like allure to some tweets. At best, they're like phone calls from kidnap victims: just enough info to leave you hanging for more. Thus,some pundits have declared blogging in full sentences to be hopelessly démodé. Just in case they're right, here's my weekend as a series of fake tweets!

Saturday, 8:00 a.m: 2 early 4 migrants at Palm Point. Here anyways. Y?
8:05: Whistle-like call/song in trees. Can't ID.
8:06: Can't locate calling bird. Where is it?
8:07: Nothing in trees but 2 ducks. No other birds. Who's calling?

8:08: Black-bellied WHISTLING-DUCK. DUH!

Sunday, 7:50 a.m: Deer at Paynes Prairie, by parking lot. Awesome!

8:15: Bobwhite calling. Can't find it.
8:20: 12-foot gator w/open mouth. Moving towards us. Yikes.
9:00: Found 2 Purple Gallinules! Freaking pretty birds.

9:01: Gallinules have 2 babies! Very cute.
9:15: Cool lavender dragonflies are everywhere! They look blue in pix.

10:00: At platform at end of trail. 2 rangers there.
10:01: Rangers are saying 2 Whooping Cranes seen earlier!
10:15: Waiting 4 cranes. Lots of growling gators. 1 is on trail by platform now.

10:30: The Whoopers are here! Mated pair. 2 far 4 pix.
10:32: Will they breed here? We all hope so.
10:40: Swallow-tailed Kites overhead!

11:00: Effing hot out here! Thunderheads moving in.
11:15: Ack, rain! 1/2 mile back 2 parking lot.
11:30: Swallow-tailed Kites again, and a Mississippi Kite too!
11:45: Hot. Thirsty. Sticky. Need a shower badly.
12:00: Outta here and heading home. Bye till next weekend!

While You Were Out (Another Spring Break Flashback Post)

A beautiful sight that I missed because I was working.

My break from teaching only lasted one week, but Glenn was out here for two. To make sure his second week in Florida was a fun as his first, I gave him the car keys and loaded my GPS with the addresses of Gainesville's best birding hot spots. And a friend of mine offered to keep him out of trouble for part of the time by taking him to work with her.

I should mention that this friend has one of the coolest jobs imaginable: she monitors Florida's Swallow-tailed Kite population for a small non-profit. And at this time of year, her "office" is any mature pine forest with said birds nesting in it.

Swallow-tailed Kites were high on the list of birds Glenn wanted to see, and my friend assured him that if he went with her, sightings were "guaranteed." And she was true to her word: on the two days they spent driving from nest site to nest site, Glenn got some great close looks at the birds—and some really nice shots.

Here is one of the Kites carrying nesting material back home:

And here is an amorous couple uh, making babies. Nothing wrong with anything that results in more Swallow-tailed Kites flying overhead!

Another flight shot:

I didn't get my own first sighting of a Swallow-tailed Kite until the weekend. If anyone else near me were having that much fun while I was stuck in my office (in a building my grad students unaffectionately call "The Death Star") I would have been massively jealous. But I could only share his joy, and enjoy a touch of pride: I really wanted him to see all the good stuff there is out here, and to experience all the fun things I have. And I did.