Yesterday morning we came across this 1st winter White-crowned Sparrow at the head of the boardwalk at Daggerwing Nature Center. We were expecting to give a large tour, so Maureen didn't have her camera with her. Of course it would give us fantastic looks when we can't do anything about it! Fortunately, we returned this morning to see if we could locate it again, and sure enough it popped up within the first 10 minutes. Not only is this an excellent bird for south Florida, but it's a lifer for us. It seems to be hanging around, too - a couple of months ago, we caught a glimpse of a sparrow that we weren't able to identify while we were doing a bird survey. From the little bits we were able to see at the time, we think there's a good chance it was the same individual.
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| White-crowned Sparrow |
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| White-crowned Sparrow |
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| White-crowned Sparrow |
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| White-crowned Sparrow |
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| White-crowned Sparrow |
For the first hour and a half, we didn't stray past the first 50 feet of the boardwalk and still managed a Northern Waterthrush, Sora, American Bittern, Painted Bunting, Red-tailed Hawks, Belted Kingfisher, Prairie Warbler, House Wrens, and Easter Phoebes, in addition to a host of more common birds.
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| Northern Waterthrush |
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| Northern Waterthrush |
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| Northern Waterthrush |
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| American Bittern |
Once we finally explored a little farther, we also picked up an assortment of woodpeckers: Pileated, Downy, Red-bellied, and Northern Flickers. It was an unexpectedly fantastic day!
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| female Northern Cardinal |
Nice pictures!! Thanks for making it possible to see all your great finds!!
ReplyDeleteYes, what Patti said!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the posting on our little D-wing sparrow. I am going to have to make a trip out there.
ReplyDeleteI work at Green Cay and bird in most of my free time. I'm always looking for people to bird with in Palm Beach so hit me up if you're interested. Like you say, young birders are a rarity down her ein South FL.
My blog: http://www.flyingmullet.blogspot.com/
-Eva