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Posted by Raul "Rock Jetty" Urgelles on 22:29:17 01/24/05
My wife and I spent this past weekend in the Tampa Bay area, visiting her sister. There were flocks of American Robins everywhere! On Saturday, we paddled the Weedon Island Wildlife Refuge canoe trail where we got good looks at Red-breasted and Hooded Mergansers and Lesser Scaup. On the way down Sunday, we stopped at the Celery Fields in Sarasota to look for the Short-eared Owl. We arrived in the late afternoon but couldn't afford to stay until dusk. In other words, there would be no owl for us that day. We did see more Lesser Scaup at the Ackerman Park pond and Forster's and Caspian Terns flying by the gazebo on Palmer Road. It was cold. While driving through Alligator Alley at dusk, my wife and I witnessed nothing short of a spectacle: Tree Swallows, numbering probably a million, swarmed the skies all along I-75 as it cuts through Water Conservation Area 3A. They flew low and were concentrated mostly south of the interstate, on the periphery. This morning, I went to Larry and Penny Thompson Park to get my year birds. All the suspects were there: Ring-necked Duck, Ruddy Duck, Common Loon, and 3 Lark Sparrows. I was REALLY cold. I believe I'm going to try for that Black-throated Gray Warbler again on Wednesday. I'll be fortunate enough to be in the company of Florida legend Paul "411" Bithorn. Hopefully we can spot the Bananaquit first, since he needs that for the year. I've decided I'm going to have some fun racking up the numbers this year; it'd be interesting to see how I fare against the Big Guns...Hmmm, let me go add up my species list.
Cheers,
RJ
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