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Posted by Angel & Mariel on 11:36:23 10/03/09
On Wednesday Toe called us in the morning to report that Barnes was hopping; after work we decided to give it a try to see what was around. We had a nice variety of migrants in the two hours that we were there; including a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. The YBFL called a tu-weee call about 5-6 times which is what captured our attention. We followed the call to the top of the elevated boardwalk and started to look for the bird making this call; after looking for about 10 minutes we heard the call really close, we spotted the Flycatcher sitting on an exposed perch on the middle of the tree. We studied the bird for close to twenty minutes at a distance of about 15 feet then it flew up to a tall tree and foraged for a bit on some unidentified small berries, then quickly set up on a perch to catch insects. After having trouble viewing the bird from it's new perch we decided to bird the rest of the trail. We made our call on the following details noted while studying the bird; first we noted the bird had a yellow throat that blended with it's cheek which gave it a uniform look. We also noted that the yellow extended down to the birds undertail coverts, back was olive in color as well as some on breast, small bill with pinkish to orangish lower mandible, and a bulky head reminiscent of a Least Flycatcher. These field marks and hearing the call is what we based our ID by, we also took into account that it was a overcast day which eliminated the chance of reflected light casting the yellow coloration which was pretty even from the throat to the undertail.
We also had a variety of other migrants including 5 Summer and one Scarlet Tanager, 22 Swainson's Thrush, 2 Gray-cheeked Thrush, and one Veery we also had one great Warbler which was a unexpected Kentucky Warbler that was bouncing around in the leaf litter on the west side of the boardwalk. We have not had a day like this one in quite some time, if it was this good in Miami we can't even start to think about what it looked like in the Keys as lots of birds should have been around. Looking at others post from the west coast to Cape FL it seems as if everyone had a killer birding day.
We also birded FIU in the morning before work and saw about the same warblers but in much bigger numbers; we estimated seeing 150-175 warblers including a male Golden-winged Warbler in the Nature Preserve right before the rain.
Here is our list from Barnes, we birded from 5:15 to 7:15 p.m.
Chuck-will's-widow
Chimney Swift
Flycatchers:
Eastern Wood-Pewee (1 @ Barnes) (2 @ FIU)
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Vireos:
White-eyed Vireo
Yellow-throated (2 @ FIU)
Red-eyed Vireo
Swallows:
Bank (~15 @ FIU)
Barn (~30 @ FIU)
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Lots everywhere)
Thrushes:
Veery
Gray-cheeked (1 @ FIU)
Swainson s
Warblers:
Golden-winged (seen @ FIU earlier in the day)
Tennessee (4) (8 @ FIU)
Northern Parula
Chestnut-sided (1)
Magnolia (2) (we had 7 @ FIU)
Black-and-white
Black-throated Blue
Blackburnian (2)
Yellow-throated
Prairie
Pine
Palm
Kentucky (1)
Worm-eating
Ovenbird (4)
Louisiana Waterthrush
Northern Waterthrush (4 @ FIU)
Common Yellowthroat
American Redstart
Tanagers:
Summer
Scarlet
Orioles:
Baltimore
Spot-breasted
Nature & Migration is Awesome
Angel & Mariel
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