Winter term birds

Despite my life becoming totally consumed by ichthyology this month, I've actually been able to add a bunch more birds to my year list and even get in some local birding now and again. I have a lot to catch up on though, so bear with me.

About a week and a half ago I saw an email from a professor about a pied-billed grebe in one of our campus ponds that was tangled in soda can plastic, and they were looking for students to help corral and capture it. The plan was to get about 10 students or so in the pond to "herd" the pair of grebes into a large seine net, where one person (a student who also works as a wildlife rehabilitater) would detangle it or take it to the local seabird sanctuary if it was injured.

Unfortunately, only about 7 students showed up -- not nearly enough to keep the wily little grebes from slipping past us. We came close at one point. The grebe actually swam into our net while we were all on the other side of the pond, but by the time we got enough people over, it had somehow disappeared. We waded around, shivering in the pond for about an hour (it was around 45 degrees out), and finally had to give up. Hopefully we'll try again in a couple weeks if the grebes are still around.

Other than the attempted grebe rescue, I managed to get my birding fix over the last few weeks with the plethora of migratory and resident species present on campus this time of year. There are tons of palm warblers, tricolored herons, lesser scaups, blue-winged teals, and mottled ducks around the ponds. The usual for this time of year, but fun to see nonetheless.

Last week my class took a trip to the University of Florida's fisheries department up in Gainesville. The fish were cool, but I was really surprised by all the birds in the area! While we were seining, a pair of great egrets put on a spectacular courting display. I took a ton of pictures, but unfortunately they didn't come out too clearly because of the distance and low afternoon lighting.

By far my favorite birds of the day were the bald eagles hanging around the lake. There were one or two adults and at least one juvenile that I spotted multiple times swooping low over the water, hunting. It was spectacular! I've never seen a bald eagle hunting before, but it was quite a sight to behold. Around sunset a juvenile landed in a tree right over where we were working on the bank of the lake, making for a great photo op.

Now winter term is over and I'm about to return to the usual grind of a full class schedule. Yippee! So who knows when I'll be able to post again, but until next time...

Happy birding! :-)

Birding update

After a short hiatus from Project Feederwatch, I have begun collecting data again. I was surprised to find the significant increase in species this week than there had been just a couple weeks ago when we started the preliminary surveys. It is clear that migration is coming in full swing.

On Tuesday, when I was getting ready to leave after a couple hours of feederwatching, I looked behind me at the pond and saw a large, striped wading bird disappearing into the reeds.

Bittern! I thought immediately. I have never seen a Bittern before, but I remembered seeing pictures of them in my guide. I grabbed my backpack and camera, and clambered through the knee-high grass that grew on the bank, trying to ignore the large spiders that scuttled up their webs nearby.

There was another birder there as well, and she approached the reeds from the other side. We heard a crashing about, and all of the sudden the bird launched itself to the top of the reeds and froze in a strange position with its wing outstretched. (We figured out that the bird was playing dead, after a few moments of inspection)

It was a Bittern! An American Bittern, to be exact. I snapped bunch of pictures, and then felt guilty for scaring it, so we left it alone.

On Friday, I had another close encounter with a large bird. It was 7:30am and I was having breakfast in the common room of my dorm. I was sitting by the window (watching birds, of course), when I noticed a large avian flying towards the window.

Its wingspan was big enough to be a Great Blue Heron, but it had a short neck. As it got closer, closer, closer -- so close I held my breath, sure it was going to smack into the window -- I realized it was a Bald Eagle!

The bird was less than 10 feet away outside the window when it pulled up and soared right over the building, right in front of me. I have never seen a wild Bald Eagle so close before, much less watched in flight -- at eye level.

Well, needless to say, it was a good week for birding. I saw a couple year birds, a life bird (the Bittern) and a spectacular view of a Bald Eagle.

I'll post pictures later.

Happy birding!