Friday, March 7, 2014

March 7, 2014

Today's excursion was to Enchanted Forest Elaine Gordon Park in North Miami. Their bird list is extensive but I only saw 10 species, mainly warblers. The trip was worth it though because I found a new confirmed breeding record for the Atlas. Let the breeding season begin!!!


Unidentified raptor. It looks like he's maybe eating something he caught in his talons. There were two of them flying around.

Our friend the Palm Warbler

Black-throated Blue Warbler. A lot of birds are pretty literally named for what they look like.

Unidentified warbler eating unidentified berries.

And the breeding record! A female Northern Cardinal carrying nesting material. That counts in the Atlas as a confirmed record, plus these will be the first observations in this block for this Atlas AND only the 4th confirmed Cardinal record for Miami-Dade. We are so behind down here; get out there and find some birds people!

In even more exciting news, my previous 4 records (3 Anhingas and the Egyptian Goose) have finally been reviewed and accepted! Anhingas weren't recorded in Miami-Dade before my records, so that's a new species! The first Atlas from 1986-1991 found 120 species confirmed breeding in Dade and we're at 40 right now. When people want to look at long-term trends in environmental indicators, this will be one of the top resources they look to. We can't let there be such a gaping hole in the scientific record; get out there and bird!

This is the current Atlas map for Anhingas. The dark green squares in Miami-Dade County are my sightings!

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