BIRDING TO THE EDG

Florida birding is so great I wanted to put another post up. The birds in general are easy to view and this state makes bird photography a "breeze." Palm Warblers (Dendroica genus) are northern bog breeders that winter in the SE United States each year. In Florida, they seem to be extremely numerous and give you lots to look at if ever the birding is slow. In breeding plumage, these birds have a chestnut cap, yellow vent, and streaking restricted to center of the breast and flanks. There are two distinct forms from the east and west United States. The eastern birds exhibit much more yellow ventrally and dorsally and this is even evident in the winter non breeding plumage. You will also notice yellow lores and supercilium with the "eastern," form. Notice on the bird above the lack of a crimson crown. Well, this is typical during winter, but the overall gray/brown plumage with the yellow restricted to the vent tells me that is is a "western," Palm Warbler.

Palm warblers are very active birds usually at eye-level or lower in open areas, edges, and thickets. They will flick their tail incessantly and when they fly they fan their tails. The tail has white spots on the tips of the outer two retrices which readily identifies this species from others if seen flying away. Their call note is very noticeable and is a sharp but often sweet sounding "TICK." They gather in groups and are very obvious much like Yellow-rumped Warblers.

You can't get to the southeast with out seeing these buggers, but in the right light they are gorgeous. Boat-tailed Grackles, like other grackles, can be gregarious and noisy! Boat-tailed and Common Grackles coexist in the southeast, but the Boat-tails are much larger and have a more uniform coloring to their body. Look at the birds posted up here! Even from this angle you can see a soft contrast between the iridescence on the head and nape and the jet black body of the bird (males of course). Look at the tails next! They are long, but not that long (I would expect longer in Boat-tails) and the bill's of these birds are average in relation to the body. After having said that, wait a minute! Boat-tails have a very steep forehead whereas the Common Grackles have a flatter head. Even though, proportionately, these birds look like Commons (yes, I have seen this mistake made before at a distance) at first glance given the distance, I would like you all to compare the bird's body size in relation to the tree they are sitting in. These are Boat-tailed Grackles. After further review of the picture these birds have dark eyes as all Boat-tails would! This is why it is important to use multiple points of ID to come to the right conclusion.

I also had the privilege of hearing these birds, so I could confirm ID. Voice is always the best aspect of ID to accurately give the birds a name.


The jewel of Florida! There aren't many birds that you can attract by making any sound of your choosing, but Florida Scrub-Jays are one of them. They are endemic to Florida and breed in Scrub Palmetto habitat that is fairly open up top, but dense below. This habitat needs to be maintained with fire to clean out the thick underbrush much like that of the western Chaparral habitats. The decline of this species is tragic, but projects that are funded privately and federally are working hard to rebuild this species to a "stable" population.

Now, this is the only Scrub-Jay in Florida, but certainly very different morphologically from the Western and Island Scrub-Jays. Florida's version has a lighter overall appearance with a frosty cap, supercilium, mantle, throat and chest. They live communally in family groups and often are very tame. They share duties for the success of the family! The way things should be, right?

One thing to note is that people will often try to feed these guys peanuts in hopes for a close encounter. Ethically, this is obtrusive to the bird's better welfare and often is accompanied by a very hefty fine and believe me, local park agents are aware of this and they enforce it daily if need be.

All of these photos were taken with a Nikon D300 and a 500mm F4 VR lens. This set-up just kicks butt in the field. I couldn't have been happier with the results. To enjoy more photos and educational information about these beauts visit Tom Dunkerton's website whom is a Nikon ProStaffer and an expert on this species (4 years of research conducted). Good birding to all!