After this April, I've decided we need a season between winter and spring. The trees were pretty late to bloom, I'm curious if that will affect the migrating birds.
The biggest thing that happened in April was my Florida trip. While the main purpose of this trip was to compete with my school bands at Disney World, I managed to squeak in 8 lifers. I forced myself to part with my birding gear, and set off with only my phone and my knowledge to assist me in seeing as many new birds as I could within the strict schedule. That's what you gotta do when you're a young birder!
(all photos from this trip taken with my phone)
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| The performance venue at Disney |
The best part (bird-wise) was Gator land. When I heard there was a free-flight aviary and a breeding marsh there, Gator land instantly became the thing I looked forward to most. When we arrived, I dragged my friends right to the marsh and pointed out all the species, explained the difference between snowy, great and cattle egrets and snapped millions of photos all while they smiled and nodded, pretending to have and idea of what I was talking about :)
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| A Wood Stork. Most of the birds there were pretty tame, which prompted my friends to take selfies with them. |
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| A Little Blue Heron. |
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| There were many nests very close to the boardwalk, like this Great Egret. This bird spurred some research about Great "white" herons. |
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| Anhinga |
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| Check out those little fluff balls! |
If we didn't have to meet up at a certain place 15 minutes after we arrived, I probably would've never left the breeding marsh. I picked up these species there
- Little Blue Heron
- Tricoloured Heron
- Wood Stork
After meeting up to watch "gator wrestling" (which was very dumb in my opinion. It wasn't educational at all and made the gator obviously uncomfortable), I dragged my friend to the aviary. On the way there, we saw a baby Gallinule. It was just an adorable ball of fluff the size of a golf ball, zipping around the water behind it's parent.
The aviary had budgies and two Eastern Rosellas. For $2 you could buy a stick of bird seed to feed them. Obviously, I did.
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| Me with two budgies. That's the fourth species i've hand-fed. |
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| Me with a budgie. |
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| My friend with a bird on his hat. A bird on the hat is worth two in the bush? |
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| An Egret on a Gator |
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| A Victoria Crowned Pigeon at Animal Kingdom. I knew this was a big species, but I wasn't expecting it to be that big! |
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During our Jazz performance, one of my friends ran in asking me to identify a "duck" they found. Fair enough.
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Back home:
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| A picture from a "misadventure" |
The above picture is from a neat birding spot I found near my house. I have no idea if it's private property or not, but there are no signs so I'm assuming its safe.... It was a great walk, with plenty of spring arrivals such as Meadowlarks, kestrels and sparrows. The highlight of that walk would be either getting a response from a White-throated sparrow or seeing five sparrow species in one bush (White throated, song, chipping, Savannah and american tree).
Lifers for April
- Little Blue Heron
- Tricoloured Heron
- Wood Stork
- Fish Crow
- Eurasian collared dove
- Carolina Chickadee
- Boat tailed grackle
- Red-shouldered Hawk
Coming up for May is the "big day". Unfortunately I may have to sit out of this year's big day because of pit band, but I'll see what I can do. Happy birding!
Bonus bird pun: What do you call a Phoenix on the move? A Flame-n-go!
