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Posted by Angel & Mariel on 13:49:56 09/18/13
Hey all,
Sorry for the late and long post :) The list is below if you dont have time to read the following. Late Saturday night while watching the radar we noticed a band of thunderstorms coming ashore in North Miami Beach and working northwest towards Miramar and Pembroke Pines. We decided that it would be a good time to go outside and listen for flight calls before the rain got to us. At first we were treated to a fantastic lightning show in the clouds and chest pounding thunder, five minutes later we heard a harbinger flight call, a lone BOBOLINK then another one and within seconds it seemed as if birds were descending just above our heads. At first the flight calls seemed high above, but as lightning intensified, the calls felt so close we could just reach up and grab a Bobolink! This went on for a few minutes before calls began to sound farther away but staying within audible range, even with a few a/c compressors running outside. We listened to flight calls for two sits of 15 minutes each, the first sit was a mixed bag of migrants that streamed overhead as the storms intensified. This group of migrants were mostly Bobolinks, but this flight included lots of VEERY and a few SWAINSON'S THRUSH. As the thrush calls tapered off the Bobolinks continued and some new calls became evident, these were calls of warblers, but our warbler flight call library is limited so they were just a bunch of zeeps, tzeets, zzzz, and other high pitched calls. We were however able to pick out familiar migrants like Northern Parula and Prairie Warblers. The second sit offered more Bobolinks, three Veery and lesser numbers of warbler flight calls than the first flight. At that point we knew Sunday would be a good day!
Sunday afternoon we birded Enchanted Forest in North Miami with hopes that the storms overnight and throughout the day had brought down some migrants. We posted our Badbirdz post and went with our intuition of birding where thunderstorms had come ashore last night, thinking this would be our best bet at finding birds nearby. We were treated to a leisurely walk of this beautiful park, the most common migrants were by far RED-EYED VIREO, PRAIRIE WARBLER and AMERICAN REDSTARTS. We did however run across a few feeding flocks that included "marquee" warbler as Toe calls them, a female CERULEAN, two CHESTNUT-SIDED and three possibly four BLACKBURNIAN WARBLERS! Most birds were seen on the west side of the park and the horse stable area, on the east side of the bridge we saw our skulkers for the day.
With the afternoon going so great we decide to chase Bryant's awesome sighting of a Golden-winged Warbler at Snake Warrior's Island. We arrived at 6:30pm and were pleased to see that the area where the bird had been seen was small because it was getting dark and real fast. We walked up and slumped our shoulders at first since it was quiet, we thought are we too late? Just then, zeeet a gnatcatcher called. We followed the call and found the gnatcatcher and a redstart, then a bird flew into view, BAM the GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER!!! The bird was accompanied by a CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER which at one point we had in the same binoc view with the golden-winged. How often does that happen here in South Florida? We arrived with only minutes to spare because after getting three fuzzy pictures of the bird, the golden bird and most of the other warblers disappeared. We searched the small area twice and nothing but one redstart and an OVENBIRD. On the way back to the car a HOODED WARBLER, NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH and a SUMMER TANAGER were in the brushy area southwest of the parking area. Its been a while since we have visited Snake Warrior's Island, we will definitely start to visit the park as much as we used to years back.
Here is a list of migrants seen today.
Enchanted Forest:
1 Ruby-throated Hummingbird
1 Eastern Wood-Pewee
1 Great Crested Flycatcher
29 Red-eyed Vireo!
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
3 Veery
Northern Parula
1 Yellow Warbler
2 Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
3-Blackburnian Warbler
Yellow-throated Warbler
Prairie Warbler
1-Cerulean Warbler
Black-and-white Warble
American Redstart
1-Prothonotary Warbler
Worm-eating Warbler
Ovenbird
Northern Waterthrush
Snake Warrior's:
Golden-winged Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
American Redstart
Prothonotary Warbler
Worm-eating Warbler
Ovenbird
Northern Waterthrush
Hooded Warbler
Summer Tanager
Nature is Awesome
Angel & Mariel
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