Florida: Scrub-Jays and lots of Exotics

 On the fourth full day of our Florida adventure, January 3rd, Caleb and I went south again from Port St. Lucie toward Miami.  Our objective of this day was to go to Miami and find as many established exotic species as we could.  In birding, there are escapes or introduced exotic species that establish feral populations in the wild.  When these populations grow, they become part of the wild avifuana and are considered countable on birders lifelists if they are detected in places where they are countable.  In the greater Phoenix area here in Phoenix, we have the Rosy-faced Lovebird as a countable established exotic.  Florida has many more, especially in Miami.  Exotic birds we would be looking for included Common Myna, Egyptian Goose, White-winged Parakeet, Nanday Parkakeet, Monk Parakeet, Mitred Parakeet, and the rather-cool Spot-breasted Oriole (my favorite exotic).  Others that are in Florida include Scaly-breasted Munia and Red-whiskered Bulbul.  Birding for exotics is far from being my favorite, and on the way to Miami we had something much more fun to start the day off with as we would search for the Florida Scrub-Jay.  When birders visit Florida, this well-named jay is one of the most obvious targets.

Florida Scrub-Jay is a threatened species who's range is restricted to the central portion of Florida.  In the 20th century, the population of this bird declined by 90 percent due to the destruction of the low oak scrub habitat that it requires.  The optimal habitat for the Jays is produced by fire, as the habitat they need is burned every 10 to 15 years or the scrub habitat will overgrow beyond the requirements of the birds.  What they prefer is a maximum height of 10 feet with small openings in the oak scrub.  The place we started at with the Jay as the main target was at Jonathan Dickinson State Park.  This location is said to be one of the best spots in Florida to see the Florida Scrub-Jay.  Caleb and I searched for about thirty minutes before we heard and then saw a Scrub-Jay, and eventually it was joined by a second jay and the pair came very close to the path.  We had great looks at the birds, both of which were banded.  To keep tabs on the populations of this bird, most of the other ones are banded too and one is actually less likely to find one without bands.  Florida Scrub-Jays differ from other scrub-jays with the field marks of a whitish forehead and eyebrow, shorter and wider bill, paler back, distinct collar, and a longer tail.  It was great to get this bird as a lifer!  Something else that was cool was getting to see a little bit of Jonathan Dickinson State Park, which contains a wide array of different habitats that include oak scrub, pinewoods, and wetlands.  Many other birds were present while we looked for Florida Scrub-Jays.

 

Florida Scrub-Jay.  Yes!

Florida Scrub-Jay habitat

Up close!

Blue Jay

Northern Cardinal

Myrtle Warbler

Pine Warbler

After we finished up at Jonathan, we headed south for Miami and we had a little over an hour's drive before we would start looking for exotics.  It took awhile to start finding them, but we 6 of them that we were looking for (I got 6 lifers, and Caleb got 5.  He already had 1 of the 6 that I did though in Egyptian Goose).  We walked over a mile through the city and some neighborhoods where Parakeets were reported often.  There were no Parakeets detected, but we did see plenty of the established Muscovy Ducks.  In ways I wish these birds weren't countable, I love the remote chance of seeing a true wild one in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.  Now that these Florida birds are countable, I fear that maybe the Texas ones won't matter as....nevermind.....

 

Muscovy Ducks

As we spent some time at the first stop, we got lunch and then went to a gas station parking lot to try for Common Myna at the next stop.  We were successful!  Common Mynas are pretty cool-looking and are in the Starling family.  They are a South Asian species.  Up next we went to a golf course at a hotel, and the eBird hotspot is called "Country Golf Biltmore Hotel".  Parrots were flying around the hotel and golf course, but they were the uncountable Red-masked Parakeets.  We were trying for countable ones, with the White-winged Parakeet being one of them.  As we searched for them, we walked out on the golf course which had a huge tournament event going on.  We saw spectators walking around the course, and technically we were qualified "spectators" too.  And then we accidentally interfered with the tournament itself and were told to get out of the way.  Ha ha, whoops.  We did find a few Egyptian Geese though, a lifer for me.  These geese are native to Africa, and are established and countable in southern Florida.  After some patience, we did see the flock of White-winged Parakeets, an established exotic that is native the Amazon area south to east-central Peru.  Following the golf course event birding, we ended up at A.D. Barnes Park, which is a great birding location that features a variety of habitats and is great for a variety of birds.  Our main target here was Spot-breasted Oriole, which didn't take us too long to find as Caleb detected a singing male.  Spot-breasted Oriole is a Middle American bird and was introduced to Florida.  It was first found nesting in the state in 1949 and is now established.  To me, this bird is as good as an exotic can get.  After the oriole, we birded for native species in some of the trees in the park and had an awesome flock of vireos and warblers.  This flock included a few Cape May Warblers.  As we walked out of the park we got another lifer, Monk Parakeet.  A few of them called loudly and flew by as we were almost done birding.  Monk Parakeets are native to South America, and are the most widespread of the established parrots in Florida.  Our last stop of the day came from the neighborhood areas were we first started the day.  Parrots become noisier toward the evening, and this was certainly the case.  We saw some species that aren't established, weird ones, and then we got one more established one for a lifer, which was the Mitred Parakeet.  Mitred Parakeets are native to western South America, and while in this Florida neighborhood, we probably had a flock of about 8 of them.  And that concluded the exotic search.

Common Myna

Egyptian Goose

White-winged Parakeets.  On the trailing bird you can see it's wing pattern.

Some weird established lizard.  You might as well introduce everything into Florida...

Spot-breasted Oriole, really a cool bird.

woah, a Black-and-white Warbler in midst of it all!

Mitred Parakeets

Scrub-Jays and lots of exotics are an interesting mix for a day of birding.  On the way back to Port St. Lucie we said, "at least we got these exotics out of the way so we don't have to look for these species in the United States again".  And there are a few more south Florida established exotics we didn't have time to get to as well on January 3rd...

An Eastern Warbler I Had Always Wanted to See

The North Dakota trek was a tiring one and a long one, but it was one that was worth it.  Six life birds came out of the trek as well as my main Short-eared Owl target for the entire trip.  Once I made it back to the Wallestad's home on the night of June 11th, we had some preparing to do for our next trip.  The upcoming trip would take us into the heart of central Wisconsin where there are some epic birds to go along with some epic birding locations.  Josh and I were mainly thinking about two endangered birds that we could land on our life lists, the Whooping Crane and Kirtland's Warbler.  As both would seemingly require some luck to see, Josh and I did some studying before we would leave on June 12th for both species.

Once June 12th came, Josh, Evan, and I left early to start our 5.5 hour drive to Wisconsin.  Yes, the trek was long and you rarely see three dudes last for 5.5 hours straight without getting out of the vehicle and doing something cool.  That was solved when we went for a 1.5 hour birding outing at Carver Park Reserve in Carver County, Minnesota.  If you remember back to the first day of the trip, June 9th, we made a stop at Carver for nearly an hour.  That first visit here saw me lifer with Sedge Wren and Field Sparrow.  And now I was hoping to lifer on an extremely cool bird, in fact, this cool bird is an eastern warbler that I had always wanted to see, the Cerulean Warbler.  We were thinking about trying for the Cerulean Warbler on the first day on June 9th, but because Falls Creek State Natural Area was great and took up a lot of time, we didn't have time for the Cerulean search.  As the conclusion to that, Josh came up with the alternative of looking for it on June 12th while en route on our way to Minnesota.  With this alternative, it made more sense.  It was early in the morning, and the bird along with many other birds, were likely to be more vocal.  Josh, Evan, and I arrived at Carver Park Reserve at 7:35 A.M. and started to walk towards where someone had seen and heard a Cerulean Warbler.  The location was along a bike trail through Carver Park Preserve, and it was just southwest of a lake in the area.  We felt like the warbler wouldn't be too hard to locate if we found the right habitat.  Josh was telling me during the morning about the Cerulean Warbler's main habitat preference, which are thick deciduous forests highly made up of oaks that fall on hills and slopes.  As we got to the area of the sighting, Josh looked up the trail and pointed out some habitat ahead of us that looked good for Cerulean Warbler.

I've read that Cerulean Warblers can be very tough to see and that they really cling to the treetops.  One such example that I heard of this was that people would wait for hours to catch a glimpse of this warbler.  They would even take blankets with them to lie and the ground and look up for a good chunk of the day before the warbler would finally come into view.  I was hoping that we wouldn't have to wait too long.  As we approached the habitat where there were many oak trees on a hill along the bike path, I felt good about our chances.  These oak trees weren't tall to the intimidating degree, and a moving warbler wasn't going to be too difficult.  Minutes after getting into this area, the Cerulean Warbler sounding off, giving it's distinctive buzzy song.  Sibley describes it as, "tzeedl tzeedl tzeedl ti ti ti tzeeeee....".  This song is high in pitch and it was awesome to hear the bird!  At first it was well back in the woodlands, and then it moved a lot closer.  And before we knew it, it was then above us!

Cool looking warbler, huh!?!  The Cerulean Warbler is distinctive, and the females are distinctive too.  This male here is easily identified by his solid white underparts, dark blue breastband, white throat, sky blue back and head, and two white wingbars.  Josh, Evan, and I all took every advantage that we could to get good looks and pictures of this epic warbler.  It's a great feeling to look in your field guide with a relaxed mindset and see that awesome bird like the Cerulean Warbler and want to see it for years, and then to enjoy it live on a trip like this and to enjoy it by hearing and seeing it sing in front of you.

Josh and Evan were just as excited about the Cerulean Warbler as I was.  Josh has seen this bird before, but hasn't had the views that this guy was giving us.

At 4.75 inches in length, the Cerulean Warbler is a very small warbler.

For several minutes, the male Cerulean sang above us in a smaller tree just off the trail.

While deciduous woods were on one side of the bike path, an open marshy field was on the other.  To our surprise, the Cerulean decided to majorly switch things up and fly into the marshy area a few times!  His blue back really stood out as he flew around in the open.  At one time, he even perched briefly on top of the grass and right as Josh and I tried to get a picture of his weird flight path, he flew back into the woods and into the oaks where we originally had him.

Trip wise, the Cerulean Warbler also came at a great time.  It was my 20th life bird of the trip.  When I told my friends in Phoenix about my trip, I said I'd be lucky to reach 20 life birds on the trip.  With Cerulean being the 20th and more targets to go, I guess I underestimated how many lifers I would get.  Getting warbler lifers is something that is great, and on this trip, lifer "slots" were filled in many different families.  As my lifer Cerulean flew into the woodland, he continued to be obliging for the three of us.

The Cerulean Warbler is now one of my favorite warblers.  I snapped away.  Heck, here's a few more!

Here's two pictures of Josh and Evan celebrating the warbler: one in front of the marsh the bird flew into and the other in front of it's appropriate woodland habitat.

As we started to work our way back, the Cerulean continued to sing in the woods above us.  What a great bird!

In addition to the Cerulean Warbler score, there were some other birds that were highlights for the Carver Park Reserve expedition also.

A Blue Jay popped into our path.  Although these birds are common, they can be challenging to see sometimes!

We then heard a Blue-winged Warbler singing.  For the second time of this trip, we had some awesome views of this species, which I lifered on during the trip's first day.  This second bird was very obliging, just like the Cerulean Warbler was.  Dang!

This Field Sparrow also popped up into close view.  It seemed to have a nest nearby.

A close up Tree Swallow was also pretty cool.

At Carver, other highlights among 40 species we had included a Common Loon vocalizing on a lake as well as flying over the area, Chimney Swifts, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Great-crested Flycatcher, Yellow-throated, Warbling, and Red-eyed Vireos; Sedge Wren, Eastern Bluebird, Gray Catbird, Brown Thrasher, Bobolink, and Baltimore Oriole.  It was a great 1.5 hours at Carver.  Thanks Josh and Evan!

After Carver, the trek to Wisconsin was officially underway.  Stay tuned...