Back where I started.

Yesterday afternoon I took care of a number of administrative things, and made my lady dinner. We then went to get Rosana her new 2002 Corolla. It is nice and red.

This morning I went to the Dump Marsh in southern Dade. There were a good amount of birds there, including SAVANNAH SPARROW, BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD, MOTTLED DUCK, RED-SHOULDERED HAWK, and a dark morph SHORT-TAILED HAWK. I ran into a birder here named Rafael, who was heading up the Hialeah Christmas Bird Count, which he invited me to join him on. Rafael pointed me to where he had seen a GRASSHOPPER SPARROW, but I was unable to tease it out. On my way back to the car, I watched a PEREGRINE FALCON hunting from the electric lines.


I then checked out the nearby Cutler Wetland, but didn't see too much happening. The light is often difficult here, allowing me only to barely see some shorebirds (DUNLIN, DOWITCHER sp.), as well as NORTHERN HARRIER and GLOSSY IBIS.


When I got back to Rosana's house, her roommate Danny and his dog Willow were wating on the front stoop. I had locked them out, as they were on a walk when I left this morning. Eeeeeehr.

West to East

Friday morning, Kim and I started the day at Bunche Beach in Lee County. We came across a good variety of shorebirds, including WILSON'S PLOVER, PIPING PLOVER, SEMIPALMATED PLOVER, WESTERN SANDPIPER, DOWITCHER sp., DUNLIN, SPOTTED SANDPIPER, and MARBLED GODWIT, as well as plenty of BLACK SKIMMER. The heat cranked up, so we moved onto some shade at Lakes Park and Six-Mile Cypress, where we picked up 5 warblers including PINE, PRAIRIE, YELLOW-RUMPED, NORTHERN PARULA, and BLACK-AND-WHITE. We finished our birding with a look at a pack of MONK PARAKEET at the marina. We were exhausted from this hot day, so we just hung out at Kim's house, engaging with a delicious homemade lasagna.


Saturday morning, Kim and I met up with Rosana at Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary for a stroll about. The ~3 mile boardwalk hike was pretty birdy, giving us great looks at a male PAINTED BUNTING, GREAT-CRESTED FLYCATCHER, BLUE-HEADED VIREO, HAIRY WOODPECKER, and MAGNOLIA WARBLER, among many others. I left with Rosana, heading east to South Miami.


I took a birding day off to be with my lady yesterday. In the last couple days we've mostly chatted and lazed, checked out Y Tu' Mama Tambien and The Wrestler, and last night made some delicious Risotto with Danny and Emily. Oh, and had blind taste testing of tap water that was filtered by their new Brita, versus unfiltered.


This morning I drove Rosana to work, and got right to business trying to see the RED-WHISKERED BULBUL. It was a success (sorry Eva), as I saw two of them on the electric lines of their infamous Kendall neighborhood. I then went to Matheson Hammocks to see what kind of late-ish neotropical migrants were around and was decently successful. A few mixed flocks provided me with PRAIRIE, PALM, BLACK-AND-WHITE, BLACK-THROATED GREEN, NORTHERN PARULA, and MAGNOLIA WARBLERS, as well as WHITE-EYED VIREO and the bird that escaped me a few times September 1st, the YELLOW-THROATED VIREO. I also got a flyby of 3 BLUE-AND-GOLD MACAW, which are not ABA countable.

Tuesday night I got to say goodbye to my Olympia folks in fine fashion. The whole house- Dave, Devin, Clara, Lexi, Babbi, and I went to a burrito shop that had this hidden lounge in the back, for a few drinks. Yesterday morning, Devin drove me to the shuttle bus in Longwood so I could get to the airport. In the airport, I heard someone call my name, so I looked back. Surprisingly, it was Will, my couchsurfing host from the Olympic peninsula! I new he was flying out on this day to head to Mexico, but I didn’t know what time (and I had mistakenly mentioned to him that my flight was the next day). It turned out that he was on my flight to Dallas, where we both had layovers. It also turned out that he had seat 24D and I had 24F. Crazy to think that even if we hadn’t met each other, two birders would have been sitting with one person in the middle of them. I politely asked the man in the middle to switch, which he was willing to do so Will and I could chat birds. For a little while, Will took a nap, and I finished up reading Under the Banner of Heaven, a book about Mormonism and its nuttiness. I noticed the guy next to me kind of reading along, and I glanced over to see he had a Ladder-Day Saints nametag on. He said nothing to me about the book, and I am glad for that.

I got to Dallas, then to Ft. Myers FL at about 9:30pm with no complications. Kim picked me up there, and we headed to her house to have some delicious pizza.

This morning, we headed to Sanibel Island at about 8:30am. Right after leaving Kim's house, we checked out the local BURROWING OWL nesting sites. At Ding Darling NWR, we encountered a bunch of the birds I hadn't seen in a while, or in this year project. Some of these included WOOD STORK, REDDISH EGRET, ROSEATE SPOONBILL, RUDDY TURNSTONE, and PALM WARLBER. On our drive to Blind Pass, a beach on Sanibel, we got great looks at MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRD. At the beaches, we scoped out several NORTHERN GANNET, as well as SANDWICH TERN. A great day of birding with 53 species seen on the day.

In the evening, Kim and Alison (from Audubon of Florida) gave a presentation on bats at a local elementary school. Alison brought detectors that made sounds when bats flew overhead, which we got to hear in action. After, Kim and I got some Indian food, and now we are chilling with some starfruit wine!

Ocean Shores

Last night we played some Bananagrams, and I was in bed by 10:30pm. It looked like it was going to be a rainy and windy day today, so I planned to check out the coast at Ocean Shores. Either I would get some birding in or see some intense waves.


It turned out to be birding. It didn't rain while I was there, but there were intense winds. On the way out to this coastline, about 70 miles away, I was entrapped for speeding in an area called Central Park that the limit went unnecessarily low. 68 in a 50, $93 ticket.


I went to check out the jetty on the south end of the peninsula, but it was cut off during high tide. I was trying to see if I could get looks at BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE which had been reported off the coast. I did see a number of RED PHALAROPE flocks scanning the shore.


At Chance a la Mer State Park, I drove onto the beach for a vantage point. Gulls were being fed by a man while I was here. After not seeing to much action over the water, I IDed the gulls that were around my car, which included what turned out to be a number of THAYER'S GULL, as well as MEW GULL, CALIFORNIA GULL, and RING-BILLED GULL. While scanning, I came across a solo BRANT, and HEERMAN'S GULL cruising the shoreline. A television weatherman van parked right in front of me to do a live broadcast. The star apologized for blocking my view, but said they'd be done in a half-hour. I decided it was time to leave.

Rains

In the evening of last night, Devin, Dave and I chopped up a tree cookie that was about 2 feet by 4 feet. It cut up nicely, after some work. Afterward, we had some delicious dinner that Clara got going, of enchiladas.


Today I got a bunch of administrative things done during the crazy weather. I'm packed up for my trek out of here on Wednesday, so perhaps I can go explore the intense winds and severe rain on the coast tomorrow.

working hard, but hardly working.

Friday afternoon, Devin, Clara and I headed under the house to install insulation. The crawlspace is only about 1 1/2 feet high, so it's quite snug under there, and not the most fun thing in the world. An hour and a half was enough for the day.


In the evening, Devin and I went to his previous employer, Windfall Lumber, where he has bartered to get access to the building during off hours. We started working on cutting boards, made from Alder and Madrone. Friday night, we got the boards glued together, and sat them aside until they dried and we could work on them later.


Yesterday morning, Clara, Devin, their roommate Dave, and I went to Tacoma to pick up their friend Shannon, and headed to Tiger Mountain to get in some hiking. The weather was awesome, but the trails were confusing.


We did about 10-13 miles of hiking, without any major outlook or summit. I was a lot of fun, and a few birds were sited, including VARIED THRUSH, HAIRY WOODPECKER, and BEWICK'S WREN. We also noticed this ree that when uprooted, lifted a pretty large rock with it.


Last night we celebrated with some Vietnamese food and booze. We played some Apples to Apples in the living room, and did not make it to 11pm. This morning, Devin and I went back to Windfall Lumber to check on our cutting boards. I used the belt sander for a couple of hours getting them smoothed out a bit. Then we epoxied areas that needed it. It is kind of a slow drying type, so we'll have to head back tomorrow to finish them up.

Stalemate

Wednesday morning I joined the folks who do the weekly bird walk at Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. We got a good show of raptors - RED-TAILED HAWK, NORTHERN HARRIER, PEREGRINE FALCON, and BALD EAGLE. All of these birds had interactions with each other, which were quite interesting to see. The first three of these species listed fought each other over a GREEN-WINGED TEAL that the RED-TAIL caught. One of the lighter RED-TAILS we were trying to turn into a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK, but as it came to pass, it was not.


In the evening of Wednesday, and all day yesterday, I've just been having some down time at Clara and Devin's house. There have been no areas that I feel I have a good chance to see new birds at, and no rarities have popped up in the immediate area. I guess my car needs a little break and so do I. I did stop at Capitol Lake yesterday and inventoried the ducks, but no new species have arrived.


Last night, Clara gave me this present which could come in quite handy.