Great Blue Heron shapes

by Amy Posted on 8 January 2012

Great Blue Herons are year-round residents here in central Florida, and they are extremely common at my local patch, Gemini Springs Park. When I see them they are typically alone, and rather still. Usually they seem to be stoic hunters, watching and waiting. This bird I saw last week, however, was rather active. It was hunting in the streaming water running through the dam.

GBHE4

GBHE3

GBHE2

GBHE1

I’ve submitted this post to this week’s Bird Photography Weekly. BPW is a regular collection of user-submitted bird photos from all over the world. The new edition comes out every Sunday. Go have a look at this week’s submissions!

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Posted in Behavior, Bird Photography Weekly, Florida, Gemini Springs, Volusia Birding | 1 Comment

Snowy amputee

by Amy Posted on 5 January 2012

Snowy3

Snowy Egrets are usually easily identified in flight. They fly with their long black legs and yellow feet fully extended behind their bodies.

Snowy2

Last week I saw this Snowy Egret flying across the spring run at De Leon Springs State Park. It was immediately clear that this bird had just one foot, his right; the left leg appeared to be just as long as the other, but it was footless. In the photo below you can see the bird’s joints are not level; the amputated leg is resting lower on the ground.

Snowy1

I wasn’t quick enough to take a photo of the egret in flight. After it landed on a small floating island, I took some photos of this handicapped bird. It moved around little, and in the few minutes I watched, it didn’t catch any prey. It had strong flight though, and seemed to move around on the island with ease.

Good luck, Snowy Egret.

Snowy4

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Red-shouldered Hawk nest-building

by Amy Posted on 4 January 2012

I stopped to watch a Red-shouldered Hawk working on her* nest late last month. The nest was just above the Spring-to-spring Trail at Lake Monroe Park.

RSHA06
Found a good stick

RSHA04
Another good stick for her nest

Red-shouldered Hawks are very protective parents. While I watched this bird prepare for her family, I thought about a couple of Florida Red-shouldered Hawks that made the news last spring for dive-bombing people who ventured into their territory during nesting season in Melbourne and Sarasota.

RSHA05
Fresh stick

RSHA01
The nest in the middle of the picture

Like the bird I was watching, these other birds made their nests in relatively high-traffic areas. I wonder if this bird and her mate will attack bikers, walkers and joggers on the Spring-to-spring Trail in the coming months? I hope not. I’ll be on their side, though, if it happens.

RSHA03
Off to get more sticks!

*Both male and female Red-shouldered Hawks participate in nest-building and -refurbishing. I am not nearly familiar enough with these birds to know if I was watching the male or the female of the pair; I could not judge its size. I just used “she” for convenience.

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Posted in Behavior, Florida, Volusia Birding | 1 Comment

Gemini Springs, December 2011

by Amy Posted on 3 January 2012

In December I added another 12 species to my Gemini Springs list, including Glossy Ibis, Wood Stork, American Bittern, Tree Swallow, and my favorite, Barred Owl. I hope to get photos of Barred Owls in the coming months, but I’ve had such bad luck with this species I won’t hold my breath. My total species count for the year (July to December) was 76 species. Here are some of my favorite photos from December.

I like to bird my patch on the first day of the month if possible, and on December 1st I birded a new part of the park I hadn’t visited before (“warbler alley”). This corridor along the DeBary Bayou was so busy with warblers and other passerines that I went back on December 2nd with Arthur. I added most of the 12 new birds in those two days.

foggy
steamy morning; December 1 2011

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher in “warbler alley”; December 1 2011

Tricolored Heron
Tricolored Heron; December 1 2011

Wood Stork
Wood Stork; December 1 2011

Glossy Ibis
Glossy Ibis; December 2 2011

Viceroy
Viceroy; December 2 2011

Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk; December 8 2011

Later in the month I noticed resident birds showing more flocking behavior. I saw large groups of White Ibis instead of the usual pair or single bird. Boat-tailed Grackles were acting even more gregarious than usual. And an enormous flock of Tree Swallows arrived to strip the bayou of all insects – they have their work cut out for them. On December 19th I was getting into position to photograph a Tricolored Heron and accidentally flushed the second-best bird of the month, an American Bittern. It landed across a small stretch of the bayou and Arthur and I got very good looks at this great patch bird.

Gemini Springs
calm morning; December 19 2011

Tree Swallows
Tree Swallows; December 19 2011

American Bittern
American Bittern; December 19 2011

Boat-tailed Grackles
Boat-tailed Grackle – 5 girls for every boy; December 19 2011

Northern Mockingbird
Northern Mockingbird; December 19 2011

Towards the end of the month a marshy area at the end of “warbler alley” dried out and I could explore the path further, where I was delighted to find a beautiful old Live Oak with lots of character. The path leads out to a spot on the Spring-to-spring Trail where one of the adult Bald Eagles is nearly always hanging out.

American Coot
American Coot; December 23 2011

Downy Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker; December 23 2011

Marsh Rabbit
Marsh Rabbit; December 23 2011

Bald Eagle
Bald Eagle; December 28 2011

colors
colors; December 28 2011

Live Oak
Live Oak; December 30 2011

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Posted in Gemini Springs, Volusia Birding | Leave a comment

My visitors came from *where* in December 2011?!?!?

by Amy Posted on 2 January 2012

Here are my favorite search terms that brought visitors to this site during December 2011. You can see previous editions of this monthly post here. I started up this monthly round-up post in January 2011, after a year-long hiatus. With this 12th entry for 2011 I’m putting the series on hiatus again, for at least a year.

Traffic on MagnificentFrigatebird.com was at record levels during December, and most visitors hit the birder gifts and other shopping areas of the site (thank you, shoppers!).

That said, there were still a few search terms that made me chuckle. Hipsters were on the mind of at least two visitors, searching for: hipster owl and kiss on the cheek hipster.

Then there were a few terms related to handling birds came up, making me miss my volunteer friends (even though a couple of these are just wrong): owls ears located video; can you own an owl in illinois; public domain images bird in shoe box; Human Imprinted Bald Eagle; Osprey with person; owl like to be pet; gloves used to handle parrots; and correct glove position in falconry.

Searches for swan maternity and swans cheating came in virtually together; sounds like swans have some drama in their lives.

Finally, if you want to see some fun pictures, search Flickr for birds of prey stretching. I hope the person who landed here tried Flickr, too.

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Goals for 2012

by Amy Posted on 31 December 2011

I didn’t manage to accomplish all of my goals for 2011. So what? Here’s what I’m going to go for in 2012.

1. I plan on keeping another BIGBY list in 2012. My target for the year is 100 species.

2. I’d like to add some Florida specialties to my life list: Snail Kite, Red-cockaded Woodpecker, and Burrowing Owl. And I’ve just got to finally see an American Oystercatcher in 2012!

3. Even though I failed to meet my goal to read / review / cycle out 20 books in 2011, I’d like to get back on track. I’m setting my goal here at 20 book reviews again, but I’m not going to worry too much about the “cycling out” part this year.

There are three big things I’ve been missing since moving to Florida, and I’d really like to get back into at least one of them:

4a. Handling birds of prey and volunteering with a wildlife rehabber.

4b. Volunteering at a bird banding station.

4c. Getting involved with a local bird club (Audubon).

5. I’ll be trying the Bird-a-Day challenge again, with a very modest goal: beat last year’s pathetic total of 23 birds.

Do you have birding goals for 2012? I know birders are going to be taking the eBird Challenge or the One-a-Day eBird Challenge, and others will work on getting their minimum 20 Bird RDA of each and every day. How about you? Let me know in the comments below.

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Posted in Banding, Books, Green Birding, Life List | Leave a comment

Too big to inhale*

by Amy Posted on 30 December 2011

A fat frog or toad must surely be a prized meal for a wader like a White Ibis. Unless, of course, it’s too big to eat.

The other day at Gemini Springs I noticed an ibis being pursued by others in a flock of about 20 birds. The ibis had something large in its bill.

The bird managed to get away from its hungry friends and began manipulating the prey, but it was a struggle. At first I thought the ibis had a large crab, but it looks like the prey was some type of frog or toad, puffed up as a defense mechanism. The puffing process may have saved it. I watched the hapless ibis work on the amphibian for a few minutes, but the ibis eventually gave up and dropped its prey.

Ibis v frog

Ibis v frog

Ibis v frog

Later the flock of ibis moved to a shallow part of the spring run to feed and preen. Hopefully the hungry ibis was able to find more suitable prey here.

White Ibises

*Naturally the ibis did not intent to literally inhale its prey. But inhale rhymes with fail… get it?

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Results: Birding Goals for 2011

by Amy Posted on 29 December 2011

When I made my list of birding goals for 2011 back in December 2010, I had no idea that I would be moving from Illinois to Florida in the middle of the year. Even with that fairly major disruption, I didn’t really do too badly with my goals.

1. I wanted to get my life list in order. I expected this would take at least several weeks, but I went on an eBird binge and accomplished this goal before January was half over!

2. I wanted to read, review and cycle out at least 20 books. Here I failed rather miserably. I ended up reviewing just 11 books.

3. I wanted to improve my raptor handling skills, with a few specific tasks I wanted to accomplish: handle birds into and out of travel crates; handle a bird during flight training; and have one of my bird pals eat a meal while on my glove. Helping out with a few programs and the Raptor Internship at FCWR, I got to handle plenty of birds in and out of crates. I moved away before getting to work on the other two, but during my visit in November I gave Meepy a rat while she sat on my glove. She wasn’t overly interested so I proceeded to remove her equipment, both Meepy and the rat resting on my glove. After I got Meepy’s second jess removed, I offered the rat to her again. She was free to go but she took the rat and then she did something very cool, she snapped the rat’s spine! Of course the rat was already dead, but that was Meepy’s first action after taking the rat from me. I was wowed. She held onto the rat for a moment and I felt she was not going to eat it while still on my glove. I raised my arm and she flew to her perch with the rat in her beak. That was pretty awesome. I never got to work on flight training with any birds, so that is one I’ll have to save for the future.


L: Getting Spirit out; top R: putting PA away; bottom R: putting 0511 away

4. I also wanted to improve my bird banding skills. I was only able to help out at the Rollins Savanna MAPS station one day (plus a short training period), and I haven’t visited a banding station here in Florida yet. Another goal unfortunately unfulfilled, for now.


American Robin in my hand with 2011 Rollins banding team in background; photo by Janice Sweet

5. I wanted to keep a BIGBY list for the year, with a target of 75 species. I set that number when we were still in Illinois, of course. I met this target, and then some, with a total of 88 BIGBY species for 2011.

6. My 2011 Bird-a-Day list pooped out after 23 days. I hadn’t set a specific goal here, but this was pretty pathetic. In my defense, my life was really, really hectic those first weeks of the year.

7. Finally, and a bit tongue-in-cheek, I wanted to keep up with my blog reading. While I ended up adding a bunch of new Florida bird bloggers to my regular reading, I didn’t fall too far behind at any point in the year, and I’m happy with that.

Coming up: my birding and blog goals for 2012. Did you have any goals for 2011? How did you do?

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Posted in Banding, Books, FCWR, Life List | Leave a comment

My local patch(es)

by Amy Posted on 28 December 2011

I found a lot of the birds on my 2011 BIGBY list at my new local patch, Gemini Springs Park, and along the Spring-to-Spring Trail.

Gemini Springs covers 210 acres and is bordered on the south end by DeBary Bayou, which meets up with the St. Johns River. My regular walks there bring me along the spring run and bayou, through a mature wooded scrub area, and across a recreational / mowed field bordered by various types of wooded habitat.

This map shows the park and some of my favorite hot spots. I usually walk just over a mile and a half.


click to embiggen

1. Bike rack 7. Dam
2. Playground 8. Fishing pier
3. Bridges over spring runs 9. Mature woods
4. Mature woods 10. Woods / lawn transition habitat
5. “Warbler Alley” 11. Stand of snags
6. DeBary Bayou

The park isn’t too big, but I still haven’t explored all of the paths just yet. I only discovered the path along the bayou last month. It’s so busy with birds each morning that I refer to it as “warbler alley” – I have high hopes for this habitat come spring migration. 🙂

The Spring-to-Spring trail is a Volusia County project. The path will run from Lake Monroe Park, at the south end of the county, up through DeLeon Springs State Park and beyond. Today the path exists in completed but unconnected segments; the south Segment 1 runs from DeBary Hall to Lake Monroe Park.

This map shows the bike path. We live in the neighborhood of DeBary Hall, so the path is very convenient for everyday biking and birding. 😉


click to embiggen

It’s about five miles from our home to the end of the path at Lake Monroe Park. I ride this trail 2-3 mornings per week. A pair of Bald Eagles has a nest somewhere in the middle of the path, but I’ve been unable to locate it so far. Starting in October I saw one or two adult Bald Eagles each time I biked the path. In the last month I’ve only seen one bird; the other is at the undisclosed nest site.

I realize this type of local patch post has limited interest; thank you for reading this far! If you’re going to be visiting the area and / or if you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email. If you’ve blogged about your own local patch, please leave a comment below!

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