Saturday, March 16, 2024

Birding Miami Florida in March 2024


I spent the last week in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area. The trip was with my wife and two boys and was for generic leisure and birding was not the main priority. Even still I made great efforts to visit a few natural areas over the week and get some birdwatching and butterfly watching in. In almost an underwhelming fashion, I was able to pick up one life bird and one life butterfly.




Target birds that were possible but not likely-
Mangrove cuckoo(migrates in late march)
Western spindalis
La Sagra's flycatcher
Thick billed vireo
Black wiskered vireo
Local parakeets
Least tern (migrates in late march)
Short tailed hawk

Miami Blue butterfly - extinct to extirpated to a few small islands near key west. Read more here: Miami Blue Butterfly | FWC (myfwc.com)


My efforts to birdwatch was to look at some hotspots in ebird and focus on some of the top locations.


Bill Baggs Park -Key Biscayne (link)
Prairie Warbler
Chuck wills Widow
Common warblers
Little blue Heron
Sanderling
Magnificent frigatebird
Queen butterfly
Julia butterfly





Chuck Wills Widow ! (seen flycatching in leaf litter in mid-morning, then perched)





Anne Kolbe reserve - Hollywood Fl (link)
Yellow throated warbler
Yellow rumped warbler
Palm warbler
Black and white warbler
American redstart
Northern Parula
*Mangrove tree crab







MATHESON HAMMOCK PARK (link)
Yellow throated Vireo
Red shouldered hawk
Red headed woodpecker
Yellow rumped warbler
Palm warbler
Red shouldered hawk
Magrove skipper (worn - but life butterfly)
Zebra longwing butterfly



Mangrove Skipper (worn) - Life Butterfly (#164)





Random neighborhood baseball diamond
-Loggerhead shrike
-Prairie Warbler





Hal Scott Preserve (link) (closer to Orlando ---  Red cockaded woodpeckers are here but i did not see them on this brief visit.  )
Eastern bluebird
Brown headed nutchatch
Blue grey gnatchcher
Bachmans Sparrow (lifer! #471)
Pine warbler





Bachman's Sparrow - Lifer. Most certainly soon to be renamed







I guess this trip has reminded me that even if ebird shows that a bird may be present in a location.... 90% of the days you might only see the (at best) 90 percentile birds. An area that seems promising can be a let-down and seemingly devoid of birdlife, but another area that seems to not be of great significance could have surprisingly good birds. Sometimes we have to remember that the best part of travelling is the journey, not the destination itself. 

Good Birding,
Dwayne

Last Few Life Birds:
Black crested Titmouse (TX) 466
Snowy Plover (TX) 467 
Neotropical Cormorant (TX) 468
White tailed Kite (TX) 469
Least Grebe (TX) 470

Bachmans Sparrow (FL) 471


Last few Life Butterflies:
162 - Southern Dogface (Zerene cesonia) - Caves San Antonio TX , yes [link] 
163 - Henry's Elfin (Callophrys henrici) - Caves San Antonio TX , yes [link] 

164- Mangrove Skipper (Phocides pigmalion) - Mattheson Park Area MIAMI FLORIDA, yes [link]

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Mind Blown - *Tufted Titmouse* graces Backyard Feeder!

 






I have heard and seen Tufted Titmouse over the last 5-7 years of living at my current house (within south cameron woodlot) --- but on Dec 27th, 2023 - I had seen - for the first time in my life - an unmistakable Tufted Titmouse feeding from my black sunflower seed feeder! A nice male Red bellied Woodpecker was enjoying the feeder as well. 

I'm quite certain that this is the first time I have photographed a Tufted Titmouse (2+) on my back-yard bird feeder!

Tufted Titmouse is a special bird to me as its one of my sparkbirds  --- a bird that got me into bird watching! Also, its the official bird of Windsor

So - now I am going to have to keep my feeder well stocked and have this wonderful bird visit more often! Especially over the Winter Season.

Good Birding!

Dwayne








Some other birds seen today:

2 Red tailed Hawks

4 Black capped Chickadees

4 Dark Eyed Juncos

4 American Goldfinch

2 Tufted Titmouse

1 Downy Woodpecker

1 Red bellied Woodpecker

4 European Starling

25 Turkeys

1 Dove Morning

2 Robins

4 Cardinals

10 Blue Jays

Sunday, December 24, 2023

Looking back at 2023 - Year in Review

 

Least Grebes in Austin Texas

Merry Christmas! And wishes for a healthy, happy, prosperous new year!  I have been in poor health over the last few weeks - I "blew out my back" this week so I have been in great pain. Even still - I have a 10 year tradition of reflecting on birding and nature highlights so why not continue the tradition?

I have not had too many highlights this year.  But - I guess there are three events/categories that were somewhat noteworthy:


1. Trip to Texas

  • Black crested Titmouse (TX) 466
  • Snowy Plover (TX) 467 
  • Neotropical Cormorant (TX) 468
  • White tailed Kite (TX) 469
  • Least Grebe (TX) 470

2. Western Tanager near Belle River

3. Greyling MI trip

4. Swallowtailed Kite in LaSalle

5. Noteworthy Backyard birding


Texas: This was my first time visiting Texas and it was quite nice. Its big! I had 10+ birds that I was hoping to see but only caught up with about 5 birds. They highlight bird for me of the five was a small flock of Snowy Plovers that I was able to see in a naturalized beach area on Galveston Island.  I was able to convincingly see a Neotropic Cormorant, Least Grebe, Black crested Titmouse as well as a White tailed Kite. 





Western Tanager in Belle River

Greyling MI trip



Swallow-tailed Kite in LaSalle ON:



Noteworthy back-yard birds:  My backyard continues to give exciting birding opportunities, and this year, I was able to pick out a couple of neat birds. A Grey-Cheeked thrush and a Golden winged Warbler absolutely blew my mind. Even a small flock of Eastern Bluebirds made my heart skip a beat.... I am still a few years away from retirement --- so I appreciate what I have seen considering I'm still grinding out a living!






Butterflies and Astronomy-  

While I was in Texas, I attempted to see an Astronomical phenominon called "OMEGA Centauri" --- the largest globular cluster visible from earth. I have seen a handful of these globular clusters of stars - and they are incredible! There is a theory that globular clusters are small galaxies that have been absorbed into our galaxy - The Milky Way.  Comet E3 ZTF was seen and photographed in Febuary of this past year. 






Texas Butterflies:  (Austin area - March 2023)
Southern Dogface, Henry's Elfin - as well as many other species that I had seen previously such as Funeral Duskywing, Dainty Sulpher, Varigated and Gulf Fritillary, common buckey, red admiral, monarch, Giant Swallowtail, Eastern Tiger, Pipevine Swallowtail.  Reakirts blue was seen as well. 



So this concludes some of my highlights from the last year of bird-watching and naturalizing. Thanks for reading this blog - nerdy for birdy - and all the best in the new year!

Dwayne

Saturday, November 11, 2023

Beautiful Backyard Bluebirds? Plus Possible Comet Spotting Opportunity (Comet Lemmon)

 


My heart skipped a beat this morning as looked out into my back yard at about 9:30 am. I almost spit out my coffee when I noted a pair of white and rufous breasted bluebirds perched in the hedgerow behind my house!

My son who is 11 was standing nearby and he always says that Eastern Bluebirds are his favorite bird, so I challenged him to spot one with my binoculars. He found one! He also stated that even though that was awesome, he would have preferred to see a Western Bluebird!


This scene below shows 4 of them perched in the hedgerow behind my house. 


I read an article yesterday that a comet is in view for people that appreciate astronomy and I thought I would share some information for those with scopes, binoculars and telephoto lenses.

Using Stellarium-Web (https://stellarium-web.org/ ), you can locate this comet --- and it would be ideally located high in the western sky tonight (on Remembrance Day) at 6:30pm. It would be found in the constellation Aquilla, but --- sadly, the "magnitude" (brightness) is "10" which is only going to be seen with a telescope in "dark skies".  A long exposure of the constellation Aquila might reveal it though.


Anyway - good birding!

Dwayne


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