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Posted by Rick Schofield on 16:49:42 02/27/14
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
-- Carl Sandburg
Yes, it silently haunched and then moved on but it came like gigantic Florida Panther feet and looked over Loxahatchee and all its surrounds (with a density you could only experience for yourself) before so doing. Sorry, Carl.
In any case, the dense fog really impacted this week's Wednesday walk. When we could see any bird activity, it was most likely a Yellow-Rumped Warbler. Knowing that the fog would eventually lift -- but not for a while -- we circumnavigated the Cypress Boardwalk behind the Visitors' Center checking for plants and butterflies including a non-native, Brazilian?, orchid whose name I have since forgotten.
One of our walkers placed her early bet on the total number of species (which we normally do at the end of the walk) at 15. (We call it a bet because the winner is supposed to bring doughnuts for the following walk. But I've never seen anyone actually follow through.)
When we got to the NE corner of C6 (the impoundment bordered by Lee Rd and the access road to the March Trail parking lot), we found a fairly large group of Blue-winged Teals. We always try to check these doppings (look that up in your _Funk & Wagnalls_) for other species and have, in the past, come up with Lesser Scaup, Ring-necked Duck, and Green-winged Teal. Well this time, in addition to Green-winged, there was definitely one that didn t look like the others.
While not necessarily scientifically valid, I describe Blue-winged Teals as having speckled butts when they are dabbling and Green-winged as having creamy white butts but this guy had a dark rusty butt. And he had a dark rusty breast, sides, and back. His bill was closer to that of a Northern Shoveler than a Blue-winged and was edged with a thin white border rather than a bright white chevron like the Blue-winged. After much discussion -- no fist fights -- we collectively concluded that this was most likely a Cinnamon X Blue-winged Teal hybrid.
I should apologize to some of the people in our group for spending so much time on this one bird. They wanted to finish up and move on to Green Cay for the Yellow-breasted Chat and Ovenbird. But I thought a Cinnamon (hybrid) Teal deserved some scrutiny even if it took a while.
When we got back to the Marsh Trail parking lot, quite a few of the group had already left for Green Cay so those that remained decided to call it a day -- even though it was only 10:00 am and we usually go until 11:00 or 11:30. Stupid fog!
We checked the perimeter of the parking lot for little birds but came up with nothing new so we went to the pavilion to fill out the day list. Our 15-birds person thought better of her earlier bet and went, instead, with 40-something. Well in actuality we had a total of 44 species. But that was only the beginning....
"Hold on a minute," came the cry from the other side of the parking lot. "Yellow-throated Warbler!"
Followed by "Hold on.... Black Vulture!"
Followed by "Oh, by the way, I had a Sora but it was dead (hit by a car?)." (I didn't include that one in my list.) [This is really too bad because we rarely get Soras at Loxahatchee. Some may remember one a few years ago that could have set the record for southern-most nesting Sora in North America. :-)]
Followed by "Osprey.... No, Light Morph Short-tailed Hawk!" (Beautiful views.)
Followed by "Snail Kite. I think we have a pair of Snail Kites. Bring the scope!"
Followed by "Osprey!" (The real thing.)
By the time we were through, we had upped our count from 44 to 56 (plus 1 dead Sora).
I am sorry for not posting since late December but it easily gets old saying "same thing as last week." Hopefully things will get more interesting in the next few weeks/months.
Rick
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