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Posted by Jeff Weber on 15:15:38 11/22/08
Miguel Padura and I birded ENP this morning, specifically looking for the Rusty Blackbird at Pa-Hay-Okee. We stopped first at Lucky Hammock, where we had great luck with raptors. The fields to the west of the hammock contained two Peregrine
Falcons (male and female), plus Northern Harriers, Merlin, and several Swainson's Hawks, including two light-morph individuals flying right overhead. Other raptors included Cooper's Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, an immature Bald Eagle flying over the Turnpike near Fla. City, and (of course) TVs and BLVUs. Also at Lucky Hammock, Bill Boeringer, Vince Lucas, Spike Updegrove and we saw a Yellow-headed Blackbird perching on the wires with numerous Starlings and BH Cowbirds.
Pa-Hay-Okee yielded the Rusty Blackbird before we even got to the parking lot. It was oblivious to passing traffic and gave us great photo ops from about 10 feet while it fed in the grass. We stopped there on the way back, and it posed for photos in a baldcypress most obligingly.
At Mahogany Hammock, we had WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW, which also posed for photos in cooperatively.
Wish I'd seen that coytote, but that's reason enough to go back tomorrow morning.
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