Great White Pelican at Ding Darling NWR, 1st N.A. Record, or Escapee?

Great White Pelican mania continues at J.N. Ding Darling NWR, Sanibel FL. First North American record or escapee? Here's the latest. No (AZA) zoos in this country are missing any Great White Pelicans. Great White Pelican authority Sheila Murphy, of the American Zoological and Aquarium Society and Senior Bird Keeper at the San Diego Zoo did a census last week of Great White Pelicans at all 10 AZA facilities who house this species and determined no Great White Pelicans were missing. Zoos band and may microchip their pelicans and this female Great White Pelican has no bands on her legs. So the speculation mounts as to where she came from. Great White Pelicans breed in Africa, Asia and Europe. She was last seen at Ding on Tuesday, when she flew off (see my photo of her taking flight) and joined a small group of White Pelicans headed east. Birders are trying to relocate her. The Florida Ornithological Society Records Committee is reviewing this report and will meet in August to discuss it. They will be looking at the zoo records and other places that may have kept these birds in captivity. If no sources they research are missing any Great White Pelicans then maybe she will go down in history as a record of the first wild Great White Pelican who made it to North America. How lucky for us she showed up at Ding Darling NWR. This story is to be continued.

Great White Pelican, usually from Africa and Asia in Ding Darling NWR, FL Today

What a surprise when birders found a Great White Pelican, in J.N. Ding Darling NWR today. Normally found breeding from southeastern Europe through Asia and Africa, it is not known where it came from. It was not banded. The female in breeding plumage has orangey skin on its face, the male has pinkish skin, so this bird looks more like it has orangish facial skin and a female. It was discovered in the morning, then spent over an hour soaring over the refuge then settled on a sandbar with the American White Pelicans.

Amazing Bald Eagle Photo!

This amazing photo of 2 Bald Eagles greeting one another in a unison call display took place in my Sanibel, FL backyard. One eagle was sitting in the tree then the other landed next to it and they both tipped their heads up and loudly called together with a loud upward squealing sound, unlike their usual weak chattering calls. These eagles are a mated pair and have nested nearby for probably several years. Such unity expressed in this photo of their pair bond.

Brrr, it can get cold even in FL says this Prairie Warbler!

Prairie Warbler

This Prairie Warbler was foraging at the sunny south edge of a parking lot in the recent cool temps and high winds on Sanibel, FL. It was joined by 2 Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and a few other birds.  a Pay attention to what birds do under different weather conditions to gain a better understanding and appreciation of them.

Warbler Migration Starting, Worm-eating, Kentucky Warblers in Sanibel, FL!

Worm-eating Warbler

Kentucky Warbler

Hooded Warbler

Barn Swallow and Tree Swallow above.

Good migrants were coming into Sanibel Lighthouse Park Sanibel, FL and east end today. Worm-eating Warbler and the Kentucky Warbler were the highlights. The lighthouse also had Hooded, Prairie, N. Parula, Palm Warblers and Red-eyed Vireo, Blue-headed Vireo, Indigo Buntings, Northern Rough-winged, Barn, Tree Swallows, Summer Tanager (heard.) In the east end of Sanibel in a friend's yard we had Yellow-throated Vireo, Blue-headed Vireo, White-eyed Vireo, and Red-eyed Vireo, female Hooded Warbler, Summer Tanager, Eastern Kingbird. Challenging photography conditions in the dark light and birds were feeding and well into the foliage. Birds were still coming in ahead of the storms. (Canon SX 50 photos in Sports Mode).The strong SW 24 mph winds blowing now with thunderstorms will turn to strong NW winds tomorrow and may keep some of these migrants here, or ground new ones.

Anhinga Prize!

Love the way Anhingas spear a fish, then maneuver it until they can get it down their mouth. Quite a skill! Cannot believe the way their throat stretches. They are sometimes called the"snake bird" for how they swim almost submerged with just their neck sticking above water. Often they come out and rest after a meal. Female Anhingas have brown heads and necks, males have black heads and necks.
One of the fun things about photography is to be able to examine the details of the action shots you take. Photographed on Sanibel, FL with the Canon SX 50 camera.

Indigo Bunting Fallout, Sanibel, FL

Indigo Bunting, male

feasting on fig fruits

 Indigo Bunting, female, she needs a napkin

When the light shines a certain way, the blue is electric

They were all over the ground also. How many buntings can you find in the photo?

Birders looking up at the native plantings at the Sanibel Lighthouse.

There were also Blue Grosbeaks, another blue bird but they are larger than the indigos and have rust colored wing bars.

Here a male (r.) and female (l.) Blue Grosbeak who have just crossed the Gulf of Mexico and landed in the sea oat grasses at the edge of the beach. A big congratulations to them for making it!

Everywhere you looked there were beautiful, blue, Indigo Buntings at Sanibel Lighthouse park, Sanibel FL. Hundreds of them had come in off the Gulf of Mexico that they have just migrated across. Landing on the ground and in the fig trees the hungry migrants devoured the fruits and seeds. Blue fallout, a birders dream!
In addition to the buntings we also saw Blue Grosbeaks, orioles, kingbirds, warblers, swallows and more. Migration has been great and more is to come.

Cerulean Warbler, Sanibel, FL a Wow MIgrant!

Cerulean Warbler, male, migrant on Sanibel Island this afternoon. I was lucky to get any photos as this is a treetop warbler.

He stayed high in the trees and mostly this is the view birders got.

Or this view of the underside.

Cerulean Warblers are not commonly seen here on Sanibel. They winter in South America, so this bird had flown quite some distance. They breed mainly in the middle of the eastern part of the U.S. in tall deciduous trees with open understory, eating insects they glean from leaves. Ceruleans are a species of high concern in the East, due to its small population size. It is being considered for becoming listed as an Endangered Species. We feel lucky to have seen it.

Migration, Sanibel Lighthouse, FL Today!

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Blue Grosbeak

Hooded Warbler

The migrants are arriving! Strong NW winds after storms yesterday grounded some of these neotropical migrants at the Sanibel Lighthouse park, Sanibel FL, this morning and lots of birders got to see beautiful birds, including the above plus hummingbirds, vireos, kingbirds, tanagers, buntings and more. These birds found food and water at the park and will refuel and continue their journey north. Many more waves of migrants are still to come.

Northern Shoveler, Isn't She Lovely?

Northern Shoveler, female, photographed at Bailey Tract, Sanibel, FL.

Isn't she lovely? Somehow that song plays in my mind when I look at her and think, from the perspective of a Northern Shoveler, male, it's true.

Here she is with a Blue-winged Teal, male. Two different types of bill, each adapted for a specific type of feeding. Photos taken with the Canon SX 50 HS point and shoot super-zoom camera. Nature is wonderful.

Photographing Warblers with Canon SX 50 HS camera

Palm Warbler. AV, 1/1600, f5.6, ISO 400 -2/3 exposure compensation.

100% digital zoom ratio

Here's another shot of the same bird.

Here is the first photo before it was cropped.

Yup, I can photograph fast moving warblers with my new Canon SX 50 HS point and shoot super-zoom camera. That's what I found out this morning when I followed this fast moving Palm Warbler through the tree on Sanibel, FL, where they winter. Someone had commented to me that the real test of this camera will come in spring migration. I am encouraged and impressed with this camera. Getting any kind of decent photo of a warbler moving through trees is an accomplishment. It tests the photographer's and camera's abilities. These photos were shot in .jpeg and only sharpened slightly, nothing else done.
Palm Warblers are a common wintering warbler here. Look for their yellow (sat in mustard) undertail coverts, so nicely shown in the first photo, as a good ID tip.

A "Rail-ly" Good Day: Clapper Rail and Sora

Clapper Rail

The chin is not white and does not contrast strongly with the breast.

The eye is reddish and the auriculars (cheek area) are gray.

Hunting for small fish.

Rails really like to be stealthy and stay hidden, which challenges the autofocus systems on cameras.

Don showing people the rails. Pretty soon a crowd was gathering and for some birders, who had never seen these bird species before, these were life birds.

A bonus was the Sora, another species of rail.

It was smaller, with a smaller yellow bill.

It also stayed in the grasses and hunted.

Peek-a-boo.

Wow, two rails in the same binocular view, a Clapper Rail and a Sora. This turned out to be a "rail-ly" good day, as my pun-prone husband said. On a tip from SWFLBirdline listserve that someone has seen a Clapper Rail at the Bailey Tract on Sanibel Island, FL, we headed over there today. We approached the east pond and saw someone looking at birds. Voila, out came a Clapper Rail, then a Sora. It was a grayish overcast day, just the type of light level rails prefer and photographers don't. I had my Canon SX 40 HS point-and-shoot superzoom camera (which zooms out 840mm and beyond to 140x) with me. These were photographically challenging conditions, not the least of which was that rails like to stay hidden. I I was hand-holding the camera. This camera does not take as high quality photos as a digital SLR, but its ability to zoom out and take close-ups of birds leads to more intimate views which are great for studying identification.

You can learn a lot about bird identification from your photos. It's like taking the bird in your hand back home with you. Make sure and take lots of photos of the bird from different angles. Here is some information on the rails, based on our field guide.

Clapper Rails are divided into two groups of subspecies: the Western North American Group (with 3 subspecies) which has rich reddish brown underparts and auriculars and a contrastingly white chin and the Eastern North American and Caribbean Group (with 5 subspecies) which is slightly smaller, has grayish auriculars, from gray to pale reddish brown underparts, and a less contrasting whitish chin. By range alone, this bird is in the Eastern North American and Caribbean Group. It is also in the very dull gray end of subspecies in this group. This most likely places it in the subspecies crepitans. Birds in this subspecies breed on the Atlantic coast from MA to NC and winter along the southeast coast. The picture in our Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America at the top of page 159 was taken on Sanibel, FL (several years ago) also in January and looks very similar to this bird. Could it be the same one?

Soras are monotypic, that is, they do not have subspecies.

By the way, as we just said in our last blog post we have great news. We are coming out in March with two portable new guides, The NEW Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern and Western Edition, that are a split of our national guide, The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America (which came out in 2010). These new regional guides will contain all the same wonderful photos and text of our national guide and will be the most current of all bird field guides available. (By the way, these are not at all the same as our previous Stokes Field Guide to Birds, eastern and western regions published in 1996 which are going out of print.)

Have fun taking bird photos and through them learn how to better ID birds.