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Posted by Rock Jetty on 22:28:55 03/01/10
Okay folks look, I'm not trying to win a popularity contest here. I'm just trying to do my birding, mind my own business, and spot a rarity every now and then, a-la-Manfredi style.
The thing is I wind up seeing this bird, which would be a real whammy of a rare one for Florida, when I'm all by myself and no camera in hand. Here's how the story goes:
I arrived at the C-357 area at 5:00 PM and began looking for the Lincoln's Sparrow - the only one of the bunch I haven't seen for the year. I couldn't relocate any of the marquee sparrows (as Toe calls them) that we've been seeing (the sun in my face and the contractor guy in a pickup, spot spraying herbicide along the edges of the berm, could have had something to do with that). Lot's of bird activity though.
I decided to continue to walk along the berms, exploring fields that were farther southwest. A single bird caught my eye, flying east, south of the berm, in a somewhat irregular manner at about 200 ft. The bird was dark and I later realized it was black. My brain process immediately thought of either swift or martin but something was different about it. It was not a male Purple Martin - wings were too pointy, forming a crescent; overall body shape wasn't right; flight wasn't right. It was not a Chimney Swift - proportions were not right; much darker; tail of this bird was more defined (longer) than the vestigial tail of Chimney Swift; flight was definitely different (flew lazily, no rapid wingbeats).
The bird disappeared as it flew east and reappeared about 15 minutes later flying west. Again, I spotted the bird out of the corner of my eye as it was flying away. Even so, the looks were good enough to rule out Purple Martin, Chimney Swift, or any kind of swallow I know. Even though I had nothing to compare the bird's size to, it seemed bigger; the bird looked like a small Nighthawk.
By this time, I was freaking out. I had left my NatGeo in the car because I thought "I don't really feel like carrying the book...I know what a Lincoln's Sparrow looks like...what could I possibly see out here that I can't identify". Bam, right in your face Rock.
A called Toe and asked him to quickly look at his Sibley's. I described the bird in the same manner as above and asked him for the description of a Black Swift. It matched the suspect bird. I talked to Larry Manfredi next and asked him about Florida records for Black Swift. He told me this species has been recorded in Dry Tortugas and to carry a friggin' camera from now on.
This observation goes down as a possible Black Swift in anybody's book. It will remain an enigma. There is a lot of area to cover in these District lands and that bird could be hanging around anywhere. However, because of the success we've been having in the past few days, this entire area should be birded more often. Trey Mitchell will post a follow-up to this email showing the exact location of my sighting on a Google Earth image. Good luck if you decide to try to relocate this bird.
By the way, no lion was heard in the afternoon.
Cheers,
RJ
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