NEW YEAR, NEW DAY, NEW BIRDS

I decided to head out with a fellow birder early in the morning on the first day of the year in order to try and start the new year off with a bang.  Right off the bat as I was walking out my front door I heard one of the resident barred owls calling.  Not too shabby for a first bird of the year.  I'll take it as a good omen of things to come this year.

So we decided to try for whip-poor-will at Camps Canal and see if any owls were around.  It took awhile to hear a few soft "whips" from a nearby whip-poor-will, but in the meantime we were able to hear barred, great-horned, and barn owls calling from all around in the pre-dawn darkness.  Once dawn started to show itself, we headed out on Cones Dike to see if we could locate a few of the more uncommon and rare birds, and see if we could get all three expected rails.

Apparently to atone for the unfathomable amount of bird diversity amassed in the county in 2012, we felt 2013 decided to bring in a lingering fog across the prairie basin to keep bird activity low.  Most species outside of the blue-gray gnatcatcher, yellow-rumped warbler, swamp sparrow, and marsh wren were either keeping a low profile or recovering from New Year's Eve festivities.  However, once the fog began to burn off and was replaced by warm sunshine, bird activity increased and became a bit more interesting.  We were able to hear all three expected rails (with only sora being visually encountered), find three northern waterthrushes, and one ash-throated flycatcher.  Even though we missed out on re-locating the wilson's warbler, fox sparrow, lincoln's sparrow, and least flycatcher, we saw a very nice species diversity on the basin.

Ash-throated Flycatcher (a new regular visitor to Alachua County???)

Afterwards, I decided to head to the Prairie Creek Conservation Area to see if I could re-locate the golden-crowned kinglets I had found the day prior.  They did not disappoint.  They were a bit further south, but still kept close to the creek/floodplain edge and seemed to be in the same mixed flock as the day before.  Most of the mixed flock species and numbers were very similar to the previous day, and the golden-crowneds made themselves readily apparent for observation.

After this jaunt, I decided to try to find a winter wren at the best known location in Alachua County on some sound advice.  I struck gold again, as I spotted the winter wren on a cypress "knee" and responding to playback of calls.  A carolina wren flew in next to the winter wren, and it provided an excellent observation that it is a giant in comparison with the winter wren.

Winter Wren

When all was said and done, the first day of birding for the new year started with a bang.  Now it's onto the La Chua side of the prairie to look for  a few other interesting species.  Time to get cracking on the new year.