One of the very great things about simultaneously living in Tallahassee and embarking upon a Big Year is the fact that Tallahassee is about as good as it gets in terms of being near avian diversity in the United States. Within a five hour drive, so many different habitats are accessible including mountains, ocean, subtropical forest, marsh, upland pine forest, and extensive wetlands. Tallahassee itself contains a number of habitats and, as a result, birds.
Heather recently moved back down to Tallahassee for the summer and so we have been picking up some species here, some species there (including our first Mississippi Kites of the year from our driveway)! We also enjoy looking for snakes and, while road-cruising the night after Heather moved back, we picked up Common Nighthawk and Chuck-will's-widow. We couldn't rely only on incidentals, though, and decided to head to a local park to see what else we could pick up.
One of the best local birding hotspots is Elinor Klapp-Phipps Park. This park protects lake, upland pine, bottomland forest, and wetland habitat and is widely-known as a place to see birds that are otherwise difficult to find in northern Florida. On this day, we hoped to catch some straggling warblers and any other loitering migrants.
The trails/trail map leave a lot to be desired, but we did the best we could to pass through habitat that we thought would maximize our chances to see cool birds. Right off the bat, in an upland slope forest, we heard the unmistakable call of the Great Crested Flycatcher. Heather and I both had heard these in our neighborhood, but never together. Shortly thereafter, yet another distinct sound echoed through the canopy. The sound of someone giving a two-toned whistle alerted us to a nearby Acadian Flycatcher! We ended up hearing several more on our walk.
Cluck, cluck, cluck. When we heard that along a nearby stream, we knew that our first Yellow-billed Cuckoo was nearby. Both Heather and I love cuckoos so we put in some time searching for the bird. Seeing this elusive skulker, however, proved too difficult.
Though we missed the cuckoo, I did spot a very cool critter near the trail. A large cottonmouth was splayed out on a log in a nearby creek. The snake never moved until I took two steps toward it, at which point it perked up and looked straight at me. It was basically saying, "You'd have to be really dumb to come any closer."
The heat began to get to us and we started wrapping up our hike. On the way back to the car, a peee-wee let us know that we had our first Eastern Wood-pewee nearby. Although we missed most of our targets, four new species isn't bad for only traveling a few minutes from home.
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