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Posted by Rick Schofield on 16:04:25 02/17/14
STA-1E is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you re gonna get!
[apologies to Forest Gump]
Fourteen birders and photographers were lucky enough to witness shorebirds by the thousands on Sunday s trip to STA-1E. Water levels were down everywhere but especially in cell 4S (the southern-most cell on our journey). What used to be open water covered with thousands of ducks a month or two ago is now exposed mud flats with interspersed pools of water only a few inches deep.
Most, but not all, of the ducks have left Blue-winged Teal being an exception but the new habitat has attracted an unbelievable number of shorebirds. Now I am not saying that we didn t have a decent representation of duck species but the ducks were outnumbered by the shorebirds both in variety (16 vs. 13) and number (3,113 vs. 709). These numbers are from the Robin and Batman team of Corey Callaghan and John Sutton who are always good at keeping the day list but who went the extra mile for the Great Backyard Bird Count weekend. Corey s eBird submission attached below. By the way, you decide for yourself who is who. :-)
Speaking of the Great Backyard Bird Count, each car was issued a sheet with various species to count. But with Corey s and John s extraordinary skills, we relied for the most part on their numbers.
In the end, we had 13 species of ducks, 12 waders, 8 raptors, 16 shorebirds, and 7 warblers with smatterings of others for a total of 92 species + 3 additional taxa. Not too shabby in my book!
The weather started out cool well, actually, cold but ended in a glorious South Florida way with crystal clear blue skies and temperatures in the mid 70s. What a fabulous day!
Rick
Stormwater Treatment Area 1E--Auto entrance, Palm Beach, US-FL
Feb 16, 2014 6:30 AM - 11:50 AM
Protocol: Traveling
9.0 mile(s)
Comments: A small group this week for the STA1E Auto Tour. The most birds I have ever seen here which coincided with the Great Backyard Bird Count, as the water levels provided habitat for thousands of shorebirds. All counts are just about as accurate as possible and were mostly done with clicker counts.
92 species (+3 other taxa)
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 136 fly outs in morning
Fulvous Whistling-Duck 5
Gadwall 29 individually counted. conservatively
American Wigeon 14
Mottled Duck 61
Blue-winged Teal 326
Northern Shoveler 32
Northern Pintail 21
Green-winged Teal 66
Ring-necked Duck 6
Lesser Scaup 3
Hooded Merganser 6 fly overs in morning
Ruddy Duck 4
Pied-billed Grebe 40
Wood Stork 18
Double-crested Cormorant 25
Anhinga 48
American White Pelican 246
Brown Pelican 2
Least Bittern 2
Great Blue Heron 42
Great Blue Heron (White form) 1 continuing bird
Great Egret 152
Snowy Egret 148
Little Blue Heron 28
Tricolored Heron 36
Green Heron 8
Black-crowned Night-Heron 4
White Ibis 676
Glossy Ibis 122
Roseate Spoonbill 52
Black Vulture 4
Turkey Vulture 22
Osprey 11
Snail Kite 6
Northern Harrier 3
Bald Eagle 1 seen by others in the group
Red-shouldered Hawk 1 reported by Clive
Red-tailed Hawk 2 flew over early in morning
King Rail 2
Sora 1
Purple Swamphen 17
Purple Gallinule 3
Common Gallinule 145 conservative estimated count
American Coot 1704 conservative estimated count
Limpkin 53 individually counted. Very numerous with 4 to 5 birds gathering at a time
Black-necked Stilt 43
American Avocet 14 individual count.
Black-bellied Plover 124
American Golden-Plover 1 Rare*. Photos obtained. First glanced over this bird and hesitated briefly but kept scanning. A few minutes later, John redirected my attention to the same bird. John raised a couple of good points noticeable in the field that pointed to AMGP. The bird appeared overall less chunky and daintier than the one nearby BBPL. A smaller head was evident. It was by itself for the most part in a grassy portion of an exposed flat. There was a white supercillium noted on the bird. In addition, the overall coloration was pale and a lighter color. Finally, the last field mark that helped to identify AMGP was a long primary projection that the bird showed in some of the photos compared to the short primary projection seen on BBPL. Some crappy photos that portray some of these field marks were taken by John along with a short video.
Semipalmated Plover 17
Killdeer 74
Greater Yellowlegs 62
Lesser Yellowlegs 329 minimum count. using clicker
Ruddy Turnstone 11
Stilt Sandpiper 668 clicker count to best of ability
Dunlin 60 conservative estimate of one flock mixed in with other shorebirds
Least Sandpiper 302
Pectoral Sandpiper 1 Unfortunately, the bird was distant and could not obtain photos. Picked this bird up while scanning through the shorebirds. Was a sandpiper size and similar in size with the nearby STSA and LEYE. The bird was resting and never lifted its head. However, the size was a relatively the same as the nearby birds. Very distinct "belly band" about halfway down with streaks and slightly yellowish. Very clean white underneath that.
peep sp. 200 at least 200 more peep sp. that could not be identified for sure.
Long-billed Dowitcher 907 clicker count to best of ability.
shorebird sp. 300 about 300 shorebirds that were not counted due to uncertainty in the identity of the species.
Ring-billed Gull 9
Gull-billed Tern 12
Caspian Tern 66
Forster's Tern 34
Black Skimmer 336
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) 1
Common Ground-Dove 1
Belted Kingfisher 11
American Kestrel 2
Peregrine Falcon 1
Monk Parakeet 27
Eastern Phoebe 4
Blue Jay 1 near entrance
Fish Crow 68 one large group flew over early in morning
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 40 estimate of how many were mixed in. Usually just a couple of NRWS mixed in with the various TRES groups throughout
Tree Swallow 1500 tough to count. conservative estimate of the swallows that were present
House Wren 2
Marsh Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
American Robin 310
Gray Catbird 1
Northern Waterthrush 2
Common Yellowthroat 106 minimum
Palm Warbler 97 numerous. Probably lots more. Conservative count
Yellow-rumped Warbler 13
Savannah Sparrow 57 minimum count. Very numerous today as they were continuously flushed from the dike. Nothing else with them that was picked up.
Grasshopper Sparrow 2 reported by Linda
Swamp Sparrow 6
Northern Cardinal 2 near entrance
Red-winged Blackbird 183 conservative estimated count
Eastern Meadowlark 5
Common Grackle 3 probably more. but at least three early fly outs
Boat-tailed Grackle 162 conservative estimated count
View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S16996647
This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org)
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