It is now Monday and the ABA conference is over. Rather than give you one
report covering the whole conference, I will give a separate report for each
day. Friday we left in two buses, about 55 people, for Central Florida. Two
other buses headed for the Everglades and Corkscrew Swamp which we will do on
Sun. We get boxed breakfast to eat before we leave at 0600 while it is still
dark. Our leaders were Bill Pranty, who authored the latest version of "A
Birder's Guide To Florida", and Bill Bouton. I highly recommend the book for
anyone going to bird in Florida. It has detailed directions for all the
birding hotspots. We got to Rainey Slough before light and played King Rail
tape. We did hear one which was a first for me, but never saw it. We saw a
total of 33 species there. The uncommon ones for me were:
Anhinga
Black Vulture
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Northern Cardinal
White Ibis - large flocks
Carolina Wren
Boat-tailed Grackle
Red-shouldered Hawk
White-eyed Vireo
Swamp Sparrow
Gray Catbird
Loggerhead Shrike
Common Ground Dove
Tree Swallows - I guess this is where a lot of them winter
Then we went on to the Venus Flatwoods Preserve where we had 14species, Incl.:
Red-headed Woodpecker
Eastern Bluebird
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Blue Jay
Norther Flicker
Pileated Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
RED-COCKADED WOODPECKER - a lifer - six woodpeckers at this one spot
Pine Warbler
Great-crested Flycatcher
BROWN-HEADED NUTHATCH - another lifer
Palm Warbler
We went to Drigger's Pond and looked for a Crested Caracara without luck and
nothing out of the ordinary. We went to Archbold Biological Station for lunch
and saw a number of Florida Scrub-Jays, including the one that is perched on
Bill Pranty's head in the overleaf of the book. All the jays are banded for
any ongoing study. Bill worked there for four years. We drove back to Coral
Ridge area of Fort Meyers where we saw Bald Eagles on nest, a pair of young
Burrowing Owls, Fish Crow and on to a playfield with light standards and
picked up:
MONK PARAKEETS - a lifer - nesting in light standards
Osprey - also nesting on top of a light standard
EURASIAN COLLARED-DOVE - another lifer
The program that night was about "Reintroducing Whooping Cranes to Florida".
More to follow.

Hugh Jennings
Bellevue, WA
hughbirder at aol.com