I was leaving on Thursday, so I went down to the beach for a last look at all the birds which come and hang out on the sandbars when the tide is out, terns, gulls, sandpipers, skimmers, turnstones, dunlins, plovers, herons and egrets. It was a warm breezy sunny morning, similar to an August day in Michigan.
I packed up and had coffee before we loaded my stuff on a cart and took it down to the car. How quickly the atmosphere and island life becomes familiar.
It was 9:30 and I headed north and east to three more places I wanted to check out for birds. Which worked for me as now I had an excuse to avoid Interstate 75. But this also meant I probably wouldn't drive enough today. While I have a general plan and itinerary, it is rather fluid, but I do have a reservation at the Grand Canyon and birds to see in Texas. My target bird there is a Vermilion Flycatcher, preferably a male. Birding for me is about the perfect beauty of many birds; it is a reason to stay off Interstates when traveling; it is the simple pure delight I feel when watching bird behavior, especially if unexpected, like finding Burrowing Owls standing in the bright early morning sun, staring back at me with yellow eyes from someone's LAWN, for heaven's sake, in a Florida city; it is the thrill of seeing a bird I have never seen before; it is an excuse to explore all kinds of natural habitat (even the back lots of restaurants, motels, malls and gas stations); it makes waiting in heavy traffic bearable as birds sing from telephone wires and forage on the ground next to the car; it is a mental exercise learning and reading about birds and memorizing their songs....
My first stop was 6 Mile Cypress Slough Preserve where I spent about 45 minutes. These parks and refuges and preserves have older retired people serving as volunteers. They wear nice birding vests and set up spotting scopes and chat with the tourists who walk by. This preserve has a beautiful 1.2 mile boardwalk and, while I only went a little way, I saw several birds that I will see in Michigan in May...Black-and-White and Palm Warblers, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, another colorful warbler that flitted out of sight before I could get a good look at it, a Downy Woodpecker...These venues demand a certain time commitment, which I didn't give today, feeling some pressure not to linger too long.
So I went to the second spot, which on eBird was the Harnes Marsh, except I ended up at the Harns Marsh Elementary School. I drove into the parking lot and googled various possibilities and still couldn't find directions to "Harnes Marsh" but finally found some vague information I had written at Maria's while researching these places and drove to a sandy dead-end street that looked over a large pond. There were a bunch of Coots in the water and several Black Vultures on far bank. I put up my scope and saw an immature White Ibis which has a lot of brown on it. Another bird (that I thought was also a young Ibis) turned out to be a Limpkin! and was clearly visible and identifiable through the scope. I had never seen one before. It's a weird name..LIMP-kin. It looks like a large Ibis but is chocolate brown with small white markings all over its body. It also has the long downward-curving bill like an Ibis. This one was slowly probing in the shallows on the far side of the pond. I also saw one Tri-colored Heron. These birds have a very long, ropy, skinny, kind of ugly neck.
Next I headed to Alva, Florida, where I wanted to see Painted Buntings. Someone named "White" has feeders in or near Alva, and both Indigo and Painted Buntings come regularly. Or so the eBird reports said. The problem was though that I had NO idea exactly where these were. I was hoping Alva was tiny. It seemed that people in the know would just drive to Alva and see Painted Buntings. Maria and Richard had seen one at Merritt NWR. If you haven't googled this bird, do it now. The bird guide just says "unmistakable." No possible identification issues with this gorgeous sparrow-sized, not-in-Michigan bird.
Alva WAS small. It is on the Caloosahatchie River and I came from the south (via iPhone directions), crossed the river, drove into town and drove right on out almost before I realized it. What did I expect? That Painted Buntings would greet me when I crossed the river? or be perched on the bridge railings? I knew there was a state park 3 miles west of Alva, and I was already out of town so went there thinking perhaps the park would have a visitor's center or someone who might know the whereabout of the White's feeders or another PB venues. No visitor's center. There were trails but I wasn't going to walk around trying to find buntings. I couldn't quite let it go yet, so I googled and googled and came up with "oldmanriggs" who sold honey and had some connection with feeding PBs but not recently. I was about to just move on but it was peaceful under the trees in the Caloosahatchie State Park and I tried one more thing: the "coords" as Esther calls them...coordinates. I typed them in on my map app and was surprised when it showed a marker right in front of the school in Alva which I had passed as I drove through town. So I drove back slowly, looking in yards across from and on the side of the school but didn't see anything.
I was about to leave town, disappointed, but detoured one block south of the school and......voila!
The feeders were in the front yard of a modest home with a slightly messy yard...not messy with anything plastic, but just not perfectly manicured and orderly. There were bushes by the feeders and several types of shrubs and trees and vines on the property. Everything was very quiet and sleepy in the afternoon sun. I parked half on the street and half on the edge of the dry lawn but it wouldn't have mattered. It was that kind of property with no sidewalks and an empty lot across the street.
I first saw a brownish bird in one feeder and through the binocs could see a rich blue streaky wash on its belly, like someone had run a paint brush down the front and hadn't covered it on the first pass. It was an Indigo Bunting and I eventually saw about a dozen in the 30 to 45 minutes I watched. The females were all brown and nondescript with a bit of blurry belly streaking, but the males had varying amount of blue. Each one differed as to the amount of his particular blueness. Only one came close to an Indigo Buntings in its brilliant breeding plumage, and that one still had some brown blotches. Their tails also had navy blue coloring.
Very soon at another feeder I saw a mostly greenish bird and figured it was a female Painted Bunting, and then, glory of glories, the male came. The only downside was that Deborah or Maria weren't there to share the experience. I was mesmerized. The Painteds would feed about 30 seconds and then disappear into the bushes up against the house. I think I saw them come out 5 times, and once there were TWO males at once.
While sitting in the car, I heard a dove. Maria and I had listened to the call of the White-winged Dove which looks a lot like the ubiquitous Mourning Dove...same size, very similar coloration but with a slightly different vocalization, a more squared-off tail and visible white in the wing, so I was quite certain I hearing a White-winged. Yes! It came to feed on the ground, along with the Mourning Doves, and that was the second life bird in Alva, which town I will always remember. The sun was out and it was in the 80s but totally pleasant under the trees with my car windows open. Only a couple of other cars drove by, and no one from the house showed up or came out and asked what I was doing. Although, they must be used to people gawking at their feeders. OTOH, I have no idea if this was even the White's house.
I finally left and started seriously driving and got to Homosassa Springs at dusk. Both Maria and Esther had called and told me to "find a motel before dark!"
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