2004-5 PHOTOS PAGE 3
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That's another male yellowthroat on the left above. The males are much more reticent to come out onto an exposed perch than the females or immature birds. The little blue heron on the right is a year-round resident rather than a migrant, but numbers of these and some other egrets and herons increase in the marshes and impoundments during the fall and winter.
Two more migrant warblers that will remain in small numbers through the winter - a black-and-white warbler on the left, and an ovenbird on the right. Ovenbirds are especially shy and fond of cover - getting this one to sit for a second on an exposed perch was a rare treat.
A regular winter resident, orange-crowned warblers first arrive in October, and will remain throughout the winter. Never common, they are still fairly reliable - I see a couple on most weeks. I've only seen the orange crown on a couple of occasions.
Here's one that threw me for a loop - this bird was feeding along the edge of one of the main levee roads on November 13, and acted and looked different from any of the typical sparrows usually seen in those areas (most commonly Savannah and Swamp Sparrows). After following this bird up and down the road for about a half-hour and photographing it, I finally decided it was a first-winter female Lapland Longspur, a fairly rare bird in Florida. One or two turn up somewhere in the state most winters, most often along the northeast coast. I was pretty confident of my identification, but was elated to receive an e-mail from Eric Haley on Saturday afternoon, telling me that he had seen a Lapland Longspur at the same location several hours after I did. If truth is indeed the intersection of independent lies, then I think we have nailed the ID on this one. It's probably a first Lake County record, if anyone keeps track of such trivialities.
Another couple of first year male Common Yellowthroats. The beginnings of the black mask are becoming visible.
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher on the left, Orange-crowned Warbler on the right. Probing through clusters of dead, dried leaves is a common behavior of this easily overlooked warbler.
A couple of relatively late-arriving winter residents; the Swamp Sparrows (left) are common in the marshes and wet shrubby areas throughout the winter, but usually quite shy. Wish I had used a bit of fill flash on this guy, but they don't give you very long to make adjustments. The Yellow-rumped Warblers (right) are sometimes a bit more obliging, and at times, strikingly abundant.