Miami November Report 1

Angry skies over Ft Lauderdale:


Sanderling:






Anhinga scream:


At a Gatorland show;


Seen during an Everglades airboat ride:


Belted Kingfisher:


Oh, hello! Egyptian Goose at Key Biscayne:


Apparently there are parts of Miami that are being overrun with peacocks. They were released from an old zoo in Key Biscayne and spread throughout the greater Miami area. It's not as amusing as it sounds - rather than sing, they make really grating noises (usually an hour before sunrise) and leave really large gifts on lawns and walkways...


Great Blue Heron:


Young Double-Crested Cormorant:


Wintering Palm Warbler, trying to hide:

Shorebird fight

These little birds fly 14,000 miles every year from their wintering grounds in Brazil and Surinam to the breeding grounds in the Arctic - sometimes all the way west in Alaska. On their way south, they stop by our area around mid-August. They are Semipalmated Sandpipers, and they are among the most numerous shorebirds in the world (although their population is 70% below their historical normals).

I took these pictures in Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge this last summer:

Check out the moth flying out - through the water - from under the bird on the left while they are fighting

 

 

Bonus picture: common tern with its catch:

 

Miami sunrise

August sunrise in Miami:













BTW, here's a ponderable: are sunrises in Miami earlier or later than they are in New York? Hint: it depends.

Three picture stories

Some pictures are just snapshots of fleeting moments in time. Some either come or remind you of stories. Here are three of them.

Story #1: The most improbable New York immigrants
If you've seen them, you must've been very shocked to find this bird chirping airily on a brisk January morning in New York:



Some call them Quaker Parrots, but the real name is Monk Parakeet. They are originally from South America, from an area with the same climate as New York, so they feel very much at home here. As a matter of fact, they've been in New York for 40 or 50 years already.



Some urban myths credit their spread to a broken crate at the JFK airport. From there, they've spread to Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and now to north New Jersey. But there are actually colonies of them in Chicago and even some European cities. So it's more likely that their northern population originated with just escapees from captivity - they were very popular as pets in 1970s apparently.



This guy is from Bergen County, NJ - I took these pictures in a local park on Thanksgiving morning.







Story #2: Sanderling migration
If you've ever been to a northern beach in off-season, you would have seen flocks of them pecking their way at the water's edge. Sanderlings are small shorebirds, just 6-7 inches bill-to-tail. But they attempt some of the longest migrations ever. I took this shot on May 5th in Fort Lauderdale, FL:



Notice this Sanderling is banded! So I reported the sighting, and learned that this same bird was seen just two weeks later in New Jersey, not too far from where I live. It was banded in 2011 in Delaware, on the banks of Delaware Bay. In between its banding and my sighting, it was also seen wintering in South America! Quite a long trip for such a small creature.




Story #3: Falcon's dinner
Note: some of the pictures on the bottom are a little bit graphic. 

A friend and I went to look for owls in upstate New York recently. No luck, but on the way there we came across a small falcon, called Merlin, guarding something on a tree:



Merlins are the second-smallest falcon in US (the smallest being American Kestrel), but they are mostly bird-hunters. They are really acrobatic flyers - they actually catch most of their prey from below! This one seems to have caught a starling. We actually passed it before we realized what it was, and had to make a U-turn to take these pictures.

Miami August report

This year was a Florida year for me. For one reason or another, I went to South Florida three times, in May, August, and November. I tried to set aside some time during each of the visits for some photography sessions. This set of pictures is from August. As one would expect, the weather wasn't all that great - it was overcast and rainy the entire time - but a few shots made it:

Florida Eyeballs

An eyeful of wonders from my trip to Miami back in November:

Snowy Owls

Normally, it takes me a few weeks to edit and post my pictures, but some of the pictures in this post are from just yesterday. There is something cool happening in the parks near us that I thought you might want to see for yourself - while it lasts. So, first some words, and then some pictures.

The Northeast is being overrun with Snowy Owls. They usually don't come that far south, even in winter, but once in a while the lack of food in the Arctic drives them here. This year is one of such years, and they are here in record numbers. Apparently, this summer was really good for them in Canada, and a huge number of owl fledglings have survived to the winter. Now there isn't enough food there to sustain all of them, so those fledgelings - by this time, they are fully sized birds, but with black bars on their feathers instead of totally white coloring - have migrated as far south as they could. They are being seen down in North Carolina and even Bermuda.

This irruption (as such phenomena are known) will not repeat for another 10-20 years. So if you always wanted to see a majestic Snowy Owl in the wild, this is your chance. Snowys happen to be daytime owls - they hunt during the day, but mostly they just sit in the same spot on the open dune or fence post, for everyone to easily see. And they are - for the most part - are not shy. I was able to get within 5-7 yards of a few of them, without scaring them away. It is indeed an awesome experience! So get out and go see them.

The following three spots have had multiple Snowy Owls consistently ever since November, and they will be your best chance to find them quickly. Once you get there, don't look for the owl - look for people who've already spotted the owl. If you see a bunch of birders with scopes and binoculars all looking in the same direction - you've found it.

Floyd Bennett Field, NYC: There are three owls in this park now. If you haven't been there before, this park is a former airport not too far from JFK. The runways are now open to drive on. So drive onto them and look for the owls in the fields between the runways, or sitting on top of posts or trees. (It took me and my friend all of 10 minutes to spot two owls there yesterday.)

Sandy Hook, NJ: There are two owls here, usually at the north end of the park. Before you go, check the NJ eBird link below to find out which side of the park the most recent sighting was, and just head there.

Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge, NJ. This one is a little far, near Atlantic City, but it's worth it. It has three owls wintering in it. The best part of this park is that it's a drive-through - you stay in your car as you drive around the marsh. The owls tend to stay closer to the road, so you'll see them easily.

If none of these work, check out the links below. They contain alerts for rare birds in our area, including Snowy Owls. Each sighting will include a link to the map to the precise spot where it was found. Just scroll through them, and go to the nearest place with the recent sightings:

NJ: http://ebird.org/ebird/alert/summary?sid=SN35544
NY: http://ebird.org/ebird/alert/summary?sid=SN35466
CT: http://ebird.org/ebird/alert/summary?sid=SN35614

And now, for the pictures:

The first three shots were taken at the Forsythe Wildlife Refuge, where the owl was sitting right next to the road, with 20+ cars and 50+ photographers around it:







While we were gawking at the owl close by, someone pointed out that there was another one in a tree not too far away:



This owl is from the Floyd Bennett field in Brooklyn:



This is another owl from the same place, but this one was sitting in the middle of the grasslands. It looked like a big white football:



Finally, here is a shot of an owl from Sandy Hook. Notice how much more heavily barred it is. I am not sure why - maybe it's younger than the others?