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Posted by Rick Schofield on 13:10:47 01/10/13
You know that it is High Season in Florida when the number of birders outnumbers the number of birds and the cars overflow the parking lots! Well...not really...but close. :) We were happy to welcome back quite a few past birders for their first walk of the season -- and some new faces as well.
Our route was to be the same as last week's as the path (just west of the Pavilion) from Lee Road to the Marsh Trail was still closed off due to the humongous alligator that likes to bask in the sun partially blocking that route. But we diverted slightly to check on the Great Horned Owl that I had heard was spotted earlier and was actually seen on this past Saturday's walk. And there he was -- full butt view -- not too far south of Lee Road. Everyone got decent views but he could, at least, have given us full frontal.
At the Visitors' Center we had multiple good views of the resident Merlin. He perched at the top of a Cypress, chased after something, and returned to the same spot over and over. I believe all of the photographers got pretty good shots of him even if he was fairly distant. There were a reasonable number of little birds -- Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and Yellow-rumped Warbler -- but difficult light conditions made it hard to pick them out.
We walked the butterfly triangle and had Soldier, Queen, Zebra Heliconian, Julia, and White Peacock.
When we came back out onto Lee Road we saw Purple Gallinule, Blue-winged Teal, Ring-necked Duck that morphed into American Coot, Limpkin on the fly, and distant Northern Harrier.
The Pavilion area on Lee Road yielded up more warblers including Palm, Black-and-white, Yellow-rumped, Prairie, and Northern Parula. (Pine was added shortly after.)
We again divided into two groups to straddle the strand of Cypress approaching the boat launch parking lot. While not as birdie as last week (or earlier in the morning), we had reasonable (but redundant) little bird sightings.
We took the path by the helicopter pad back to the Marsh Trail and spotted the resident Loggerhead Shrike and Belted Kingfisher. I was fairly certain that we heard multiple King Rails calling from the south but, of course, we never actually saw them. Many people mistake Cricket Frogs for King Rails but I played the call for everyone present to hear and you could clearly here the difference. I debated whether or not to put them on the checklist and that "heard" would suffice. As we approached the Marsh Trail, a refuge employee was removing the tape blocking the temporarily closed trail. So next week our route should be back to normalcy.
Most of the attendees departed when we got back to the Marsh Trail parking lot but a few hardy souls went bunting hunting -- unfortunately to no avail.
Until next Wednesday,
Rick
Loxahatchee NWR--Marsh Trail, Palm Beach, US-FL
Jan 9, 2013 7:30 AM - 11:00 AM
Protocol: Traveling
2.0 mile(s)
Comments: Weekly Wednesday morning birdwalk, Marsh Trail, Loxahatchee NWR, Boynton Beach, Florida. 25 birders. Rick Schofield, leader.
53 species
Mottled Duck
Blue-winged Teal
Pied-billed Grebe
Wood Stork
Anhinga
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Cattle Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
White Ibis
Glossy Ibis
Roseate Spoonbill 1
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Northern Harrier (several including at least one Gray Ghost)
Red-shouldered Hawk
King Rail (several heard)
Purple Gallinule
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Limpkin
Caspian Tern (several along the canal at the boat launch area)
Mourning Dove
Great Horned Owl 1
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Merlin 1
Nanday Parakeet 1
Eastern Phoebe
Great Crested Flycatcher (heard)
Loggerhead Shrike 1
Blue Jay
House Wren
Carolina Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Black-and-white Warbler
Northern Parula 1
Palm Warbler
Pine Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)
Prairie Warbler
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Boat-tailed Grackle
View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S12551938
This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)
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