Month: March 2018

The Lake Apopka Birding Festival was held from January 18-21, 2018. It felt like we were back in our 2015 big year with a flight from Newark arriving in Tampa at 10:00 p.m Thursday evening. Then an hour drive so we would be closer for our morning trip to Ferndale Preserve for sparrows and buntings. Our leaders were Gallus Quigley (Florida Ornithological Society) and Becki Smith (Oklawaha Valley Audubon). The sparrow of the day was the Chipping Sparrow which numbered above 40. We also saw Grasshopper and Savannah Sparrows. All and all, we saw 43 species with numerous Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Painted Bunting and Yellow-bellied Sapasucker as the highlights.

Our Friday afternoon trip was to the Seminole State Forest for the endemic Florida Scrub-Jay. Our leaders were Ralph Risch (Florida Division of Forestry) and Becki Smith. Ralph is wildly entertaining and educated us on the plight of the Florida Scrub-Jay and efforts to improve the population. This was an alternating driving and walking tour where we covered about six miles. The highlight of the 30 observed species was the Scrub-Jay of course. A second target bird was the Brown-headed Nuthatch which was located in the trees of the parking lot by our leader, Ralph. Too bad most of the birders had already left.

We spent Friday night in the charming town of Mount Dora at the Farnsworth House B&B. They provided breakfast to go since we had an early morning birding trip scheduled. We walked into town for a fantastic dinner at 1921 – By Norman Van Aken, a chef owned restaurant. The Kimchi Fried Rice with Royal Red Shrimp was superb. Lucky for us, we stopped at a roadside stand and bought five pounds of Royal Reds to take home.

On Saturday morning, we signed up for the Ocala National Forest Woodpecker Extravaganza. We met at the Clearwater Lake Recreation Area in the Ocala National Forest. The 5:30 a.m. start had us in the dark where we tried for owls with our leaders, Gallus and Becki. The walk was productive with five woodpecker species: Red-headed, Red-bellied, Downy, Red-cockaded and Pileated. You have to be out there at dawn to see the Red-cockaded leave their nest holes and do not return until dusk. One of the birders spotted something in a tree 100 yards away that was identified as a Great-horned Owl; great spot! Becki had a relatively new camera by Panasonic/Leica. We were so impressed with her photos that we have since purchased one. We dipped on the Bachman’s Sparrow that would have been a life bird but saw 33 different species. Other great finds were Pine and Yellow-throated Warblers.

 

After our final tour of the Lake Apopka Birding Festival we took the Wildlife Drive on our own where we scored 34 species. We had a nice flyover of Fulvous Whistling Ducks and all the regular herons and egrets. Two birds we didn’t expect to see were the normally skulky Sora out in the open and a Great-blue Heron trying to wrestle what we think is an invasive asian swamp eel. If anyway knows for sure what this is, please let us know.

We love this festival organized by Deborah Green and hope it continues. The final tally for the 2018 Lake Apopka Birding Festival was 128 species, an impressive list indeed. Our list list included 79 species and many we are unlikely to see again this year.

Trip Birds: 79   Life Birds: 0

Next up: Grand Bahama Birding