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Posted by Elsa Alvear on 11:45:15 12/23/14
Hello everyone,
First of all, our deep appreciation to the staff of Dry Tortugas National Park for hosting us and making accommodations and transportation available, especially the park boats and their captains and crew.
What a truly great count team we had this year, our 11th since the count was reinstated in 2004. Many, many thanks to the count team for their boundless energy and good cheer despite lack of sleep and long boat rides:
Sonny Bass - our fearless - and peerless! - leader
Michelle Davis
Dr. Stuart Pimm
Deb Hess
Deb White
Lloyd Brown
Mark Hedden
Dr. Marc Kramer
Eliana Ardila
We covered all the islands, including a 5 person team on Loggerhead, a boat sent specifically to Hospital Key, East Key, and Middle Key, and a boat sent specifically out to the boundary markers for pelagic birds. We thought for sure this would be the year we hit 50 species, especially since we had 11 warbler species, but even though that was not meant to be, we sure got some great birds (just not pelagic species) like clay-colored sparrow and chuck-will's-widow and house wren.
Results:
Masked boo by 76
Brown boo by 302
Northern Gannet 4
Brown Pelican 58
Double-crested Cormorant 3
Magnificent Frigatebird 137
Great Blue Heron 1
Tricolored Heron 1
Yellow-crowned Night Heron 2
Red-breasted Merganser 2
Northern Harrier 2
American Kestrel 3
Peregrine Falcon 4
Black-bellied Plover 12
Semipalmated Plover 5
Killdeer 6
Willet 1
Whimbrel 1
Ruddy Turnstone 29
Sanderling 15
Laughing Gull 172
Herring Gull 3
Royal Tern 51
Sandwich Tern 1
Sooty Tern 100+ (heard, at night: "wide-awake! wide-awake!")
Black Skimmer 42
Eurasian Collared Dove 2
Chuck-will's-widow 1 (inside fort grounds in case you wondered)
Belted Kingfisher 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
House Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 5
Gray Catbird 6
Orange-crowned Warbler 3
Northern Parula 1
Black-throated Blue Warbler 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler 10
Black-throated Green Warbler 1
Yellow-throated Warbler 2
Prairie Warbler 2
Palm Warbler 60
American Redstart 2
Ovenbird 1
Common Yellowthroat 6
Clay-colored Sparrow 1
Savannah Sparrow 10
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