GRAND DAYS OUT #1 - Tall Timbers, Florida

I don’t know about you BUT... some birding days are just etched in the memory. So begins the first of what will, I have decided, become a regular feature of this blog – GRAND DAYS OUT. Everything is from diaries, photos and notes written or taken at the time [except stuff in square brackets or italics]. So here's the first installment...

Tall Timbers Research Station

Flew out from Manchester yesterday and 8 hours 38 minutes later was in Tallahassee, Florida collecting the hire car and heading to the Tall Timbers Research Station. Now it's just gone midnight and I'm lying in my bunk in the Den... and the first bird of the day,  *Chuck-Wills-Widow is calling from the forest outside. Perfect! Time to sleep... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Our accomodation

Woke briefly to be greeted by the sound of Tree Frogs...

Green Tree Frog on our porch

... and Cicadas . Fell asleep again, and woke about 07:30 and grabbed a shower. Got a few birds from the porch (full day list follows).

Northern Mockingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Loggerhead Shrikes

Male Bobwhite

Went to Subway for breakfast – HUGE rolls! Took it easy to recover from jet lag... got a few more common species along the way...

Common Ground Dove

Took walk through pine woods to the swamp... LOADS of STUFF here!!!

Longleaf Pine Woods

Red-headed Woodpecker

Great Crested Flycatcher

Drove to Publix Supermarket this afternoon where we bought provisions for the week ~ $120. Should last OK. Saw a few dead Armadillos on the roads.

Purple Martins

Cottonmouth on the path during walk – nearly trod on it! [kinda venomous those...thankfully it was quite a small one, although we did get a huge one in one of the snake traps -future blog for sure].

Young Cottonmouth

 Broad-headed Skink on the porch when we returned.

Broad-headed Skink

Got 51 bird species today!

  

Anhinga

FIRST DAY’S LIST

1. Anhinga (5)
2. Green Heron (5+)
3. Little Blue Heron (3+)
4. Great White Egret (2)
5. Great Blue Heron (3)
6. White Ibis (5)
7. Turkey Vulture (10+)
8. Osprey (3)
9. Cooper’s Hawk (1)
10. Red-tailed Hawk (5+)
11. Bobwhite (10+)
12. Purple Gallinule (3)
13. Mourning Dove (3+)
14. Common Ground Dove (1)
15. Great Horned Owl (1)
16. *Chuck-Wills-Widow (1)
17. Chimney Swift (1)
18. Red-bellied Woodpecker (2)
19. Northern Flicker (1)
20. Red-headed Woodpecker (10+)
21. Downy Woodpecker (1)
22. Pileated Woodpecker (3)
23. Eastern Wood Pewee (4+)
24. Acadian Flycatcher (2)
25. Great-crested Flycatcher (5+)
26. Eastern Kingbird (3)
27. Blue Jay (10+)
28. American Crow (10+)
29. Purple Martin (10+)
30. Northern Roughwing (2)
31. Tufted Titmouse (4)
32. Carolina Chickadee (5+)
33. Brown-headed Nuthatch (3)
34. White-bellied Nuthatch (1)
35. Carolina Wren (5+)
36. Eastern Bluebird (3)
37. Northern Mockingbird (15+)
38. Brown Thrasher (5)
39. Pine Warbler (5+)
40. Northern Parula (1)
41. Prairie Warbler (1)
42. Eastern Towhee (5+)
43. Bachman’s Sparrow (4)
44. Northern Cardinal (5)
45. Blue Grosbeak (2)
46. Indigo Bunting (10)
47. Red-winged Blackbird (10+)
48. Common Grackle (2)
49. Brown-headed Cowbird (2)
50. Orchard Oriole (5)
51. Loggerhead Shrike (3)

* Misidentified it as Whip-poor-will initially on account of it 'dropping' the 'chuck' bit, which they sometimes do... apparently...

Now that lot was all nabbed by 4pm just by wandering around the woods and swamps by the field station. After that, things went up another gear. It was time to go Armadillo catching - see GRAND DAYS OUT #2 - Armadillos smell bad!