[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TAS BirdBoard ] [ FAQ ]
Posted by Angel & Mariel on 10:28:32 01/12/11
Monday we headed out to the beach to see what was moving offshore with hopes of getting lucky and snagging a pelagic species for our bird-a-day effort. We started out with several Northern Gannets, a few Magnificent Frigatebirds and loads of Tern. Mostly Royal Tern but two of the Terns were smaller with dark incomplete caps and deep fork tails (Forster's/Common?). We were unable to see if the mask continued around the nape or if they had gray primaries which would have ruled out Forster's Tern. Oh well next time we won't let them get away that easy.
As we were looking at the Terns we noticed a man feeding the Gulls farther down the beach. We walked over and to our surprise a first winter Franklin's Gull was at the forefront of "Battle Bread"! We watched the Gulls fight over the bread for a while until the man ran out. With no food to keep them interested the Gulls lifted off and flew north. We then walked down the beach in search of Shorebirds with no luck. On the way back to our car, we looked for the Franklin's but only found a couple of Ring-bills on the beach. We could see lots of Gulls flying north along the beach; farther north a nice congregation of Gulls could be seen in the distance. We will be back in search of the Franklin s Gull soon with a camera in tote and luck on our side; hopefully. A few key field marks were easily seen including dark cheeks that made it look more hooded than the Laughing Gulls. The darker cheeks also seemed to make the eye crescents stand out; the slimmer bill and smaller head as well as the bird s size were very noticeable next to Laughing Gulls. The Franklin s Gull was seen near Gilbert Samson Oceanfront Park in Sunny Isles Beach. We would estimate that the birds were flying north for about a mile or so up the beach. This is where the big numbers were but we did not have time to walk that far north.
A quick lunch stroll yesterday yielded some nice birds. We followed the call of an Orange-crowned Warbler which gave away the location of the feeding flock that consisted of an Eastern Phoebe, Blue-headed Vireo, several BG Gnatcatchers, Palm, Yellow-rumped, Yellow-throated and Prairie Warblers. A look out over the bay yielded us our entry for today s bird-a-day; a Red-breasted Merganser. We looked for Horned Grebe but no dice. A Common Loon continues in the area, the bird has been present since 1/05. We have enjoyed close up elongated views of the bird; awesomeness! No-see-ums are definitely present! As we were making our way back to our building we had a Prairie Warbler fly over us and into some bushes along a fence. We pished a bit and a few Palm Warbler came out to investigate as did another Prairie, just as we were about to walk away we noticed some yellow deep in the bush. We pished some more and encouraged a Magnolia Warbler out of the bush, what a beautiful treat.
Nature is Awesome,
Angel & Mariel
[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TAS BirdBoard ] [ FAQ ]