Total ABA Species Recorded During 2010 - 731



Wednesday, April 28, 2010

I've Reached Five Hundred Before the End of April

With six new species today I have reached 502 species for the year, and it's not yet May.  Okay, so it's going to get tougher to add new ones with each new day.  But so far we haven't missed anything that was around except that &*$%# La Sagra's Flycatcher (which has my number!) and the Budgerigar (which is nearly extinct as an ABA bird).  So what were the six new species.  We got a couple of thrushes (Swainson's and Gray-cheeked) and a Black-billed Cuckoo at the Dagny Johnson Botanical SP on Key Largo.  It's a fabulous place with the best collection of tropical hardwoods in the US.  We also had a Veery and later in the day a Wood Thrush for a four-thrush day.  But we didn't get the Mangrove Cuckoo we sought.  A red Eastern Screech-Owl did stick his head out of a cavity in a dead palm tree in response to my whistling.  At a stop in Marathon to look for Roseate Terns, which nest along with Least Terns on the roof of a municipal building, we heard then saw a Northern Waterthrush (web photo), a warbler that had strangely eluded us.  On Sugarloaf Key we drove to the Mangrove Cuckoo spot where I got my lifer over forty years ago.  We had just arrived and were enjoying a couple of thrushes, when a group from Kansas drove up in three vans with the same objective.  The leader played the tape a bit long, but one of the party saw a cuckoo come in and then quickly leave.  No one else saw it.  After the group left, John and I walked back along the road and lo and behold from behind us came the machine gun call of the cuckoo.  It didn't show itself, but we had gotten the bird.  We drove on to Key West and checked into our motel that we had reserved earlier over the phone while enjoying a Starbucks coffee.  We ate at a nearby seafood restaurant and then drove to an area near the Key West airport where we ran into the group from Kansas who were also there to see and hear the Antillean Nighthawk.  John and I walked down the road a distance and heard the bird.  We're now back in the motel and looking forward to birding around Key West tomorrow for migrants.  Tomorrow night we board the boat for the Dry Tortugas.

8 comments:

  1. Way to go Bob on 500

    Cheers
    Andrew

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  2. Hey Bob! Marvelous! Watch for Band-rumped and Black-capped on the crossing to the Tortugas - and I think there is one record of Bulwer's Petrel (14 May 1969) from waters west of Key West. May the terns, noddies, and boobies (and migrants) rain down!

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  3. Congratulations!!! Over 500 already . . . I see you going beyond your original goal! Excellent job (and I'm jealous about the Mangrove Cuckoo, although I would HAVE to see it)! Renee

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  4. Congratulations!!! You've done in a few months what it takes some years to do! Don't forget to check out Blue Heaven on Key West for breakfast or really anytime!!!

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  5. Congrats for the 500 species (so much more than my life list!!!).

    Thanks for sharing your adventure!

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  6. Hey, those 150 or so more shouldn't be too hard, right?

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  7. Wow! Right on track to reach your goal. Keep working those species that you need to go back for. It is easier now than later.

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  8. Hey Bob I was one of the Kansas horde. We did get the Antillean Nighthawk the night after we were out there with you but not too many went back for a second try. Hope we didn't bother you too much during our several encounters. It was a big group to manage.

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