Tortugas

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: Gerard Phillips and I made the trek out to the Tortugas Monday 14 Oct. Numbers of migrants were far from spectacular, but the variety was pretty good. All of the terns were gone, but Brown and Masked Boobys were easily seen. About 15 adult Masked were on or around Hospital Key and many Browns were seen on the pilings and channel markers. Neither of us had been out there before, so we can't verify this, but the captain said that about 1/2 of Hospital Key is now under water/washed away. Hopefully this won't continue and end up displacing these birds. At the fort we had the following: (from memory, in order remembered, sorry) : Warblers: : Am. Redstart 4-5 : W. Palm ~10 : Golden-winged 1 male : Tennessee 1 : Ovenbird 2 : Swainson's 1 : Prairie 2-3 : N. Parula 1 : Black-throated Blue 2-3 : Common Yellowthroat ~10 : Chestnut-sided 1 : Others: : Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 1 : Red-eyed Vireo 1 : Yellow-throated Vireo 1 : "Gray-cheeked" Thrush 1 : Gray Catbird 1-2 : Indigo Bunting 2 : Scarlet Tanager 1 : Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1 : Archilocus hummer fem/imm 1 : White-winged Dove 1 : Eurasian Collared-Dove 1 : Broad Winged Hawk 50 (counted) : Peregrine Falcon 5-10 : Merlin 1-2 : Am Kestrel 2-3 : Sharp-shinned Hawk 1 : Cooper's Hawk 1 : Ruddy Turnstone lots : Sanderling 2 : Willet 5 : Royal Tern lots : Sandwich Tern lots : Laughing Gull lots : Cattle Egret 20-30 : Yellow-Crowned NH 1 : Tricolored Heron 1 : Great-blue Heron 4-5 : Frigates lots, many doing breeding displays on Bush Key : plus a couple others that I can't remember right now. The weather was beautiful, so no complaints. Hopefully I'll get out there one more time this fall to look for some late vagrants, unfortunately it's closed to camping indefinitely. They said they hoped to be back online by next spring, but they don't know, they have to replace the sewage system. : Brennan Mulrooney : Key Largo, FL

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