Not on the Prairie

Howdy everyone, been a bit of time since I last posted. Big thanks to Brad for leading the ship while I was preoccupied. I have two quick running updates to give you before we get to tonight’s featured feathered friend. The first is I want to wish Jan and Brad best of luck on their St. Jude run. They headed down to Memphis, TN this week with the rest of the St. Jude runners to make their annual charity run ALL THE WAY back to Peoria, IL – and you think ultras are hard! Luckily the runners are given segments to run so there is rest involved, but I believe at least one group is running on the road at all times with an accompaniment of chase vehicles. Jan is the one doing the running and I just got a report from Brad she completed her first segment in the rain and will be up bright and early for her next stage tomorrow morning. Brad has a chase vehicle role making sure everyone has the support they need to make it all the way back home. It is a wonderful charity event and wish them all the best. I am sure Brad will be able to give us an update in one of his future posts.

The second running update is … hmmm.. damn, I forgot what the second one was. Let me try my trusty mnemonic I’ve used since my freshman days in college to remember things (see end). Nope, sorry. Anyway, let’s get to our “purdy” bird.

Hit the jump to learn more about this rather stupid officially named bird … and details on my mnemonic if you are interested.

Pretty stunning looking bird eh!?! You are looking at a Prairie Warbler and one of my favorite birds as I like to claim that it is “my” bird, but more on that in a bit. As a starter, I want to comment on where this bundle of yellow was photographed. To be honest, I am a bit apprehensive as I am starting to get into a territory a number of our regular readers are very familiar with. Kind of putting a toe in their domain so to speak. Definitely correct me if I get out of line as this is probably one of the few times yours truly has made a post from the sunny state of … Florida. I did make a quick check and there were a couple of posts made of tins taken while visiting my parent’s condo in Ft. Myers, but definitely the first time Linda and I have chosen to take a vacation there.

We had already made plans to take in the migration again at Dauphin Island in April last year. We really enjoyed our previous trip down there before my mother passed away (link here). This was a reschedule from that year. There were some extra days available, so Linda added a few stops in the Panhandle and a toe dip into the Florida proper. One of those stops was Gainesville. There was an agility show near there she wanted to catch and neither of us had been there before. While looking for places to bird there, we found Sweetwater Wetlands Park. This is an engineered wetland to improve the water quality of water leading into Paynes Prairie and the Alachua Sink. It would take me too long to go into the interesting details on how this was put together, but there is a pretty good description here – Sweetwater Wetlands Park FAQ. To be honest, finding that info was way too difficult and ended up locating it off their Facebook page SHUDDER (link here). The key thing to note is this effort established one incredible wetland birding site with various ponds, retention waters, boardwalks and nice walking paths. Caution, there may actually be more Alligators at this park than actual birds and that is saying a LOT. You will be hearing more about this place in future posts as there were several +1s both lifers and annuals collected there. This little Warbler was definitely a surprise.

The Prairie Warbler is one of those encounters you will probably never forget although you might get confused on the ID front as I tend to get it confused with the Kentucky Warbler (link here) and from afar they could be mistaken for Yellow Bananas (link here). The Kentucky’s are not as bright as these Prairies, do not have the streaking and have a solid black cheek on their side of their face. The Yellow Warbler sports a similar stunning yellow, but will have chestnut streaks and no markings on the face. Hmmm, maybe it is just me that has problems keeping them straight as that sounds fairly straightforward. Quite frankly, there are just TOO MANY Warblers hehehehe.

I did solve this problem though and that was by officially declaring it MY bird per my comment above. It’s now the Doerfler Bird or the D-Bird for short. You can look at it, photograph it all you want, make posts, whatever, just remember it is MY bird and all will be fine. Why is it MY bird you ask (you know you did ha), well that is easy, it has my initial on it – notice the large D on the side of the face (line through face, half circle underneath). You can’t get more evident than that! For the record, that name is just as good as the ABA name as they don’t even live in the Prairie. According to Cornell’s website, they “breed in shrubby habitats with open canopies ranging from pine forests, scrub oak barrens, regenerating forests, and borders of forest and” and then you get the “prairie” reference. ABA..”Well it is close to the prairie, Prairie it is!”. Maybe it is really D for dumbass name……no, no, it is clearly Doerfler.

Some interesting tidbits on our little ray of sunshine before I get into the wrap up. IT appears there are two distinct groups of this species. One migrates up from the Caribbean wintering grounds through southeastern portion of the US. The other is a Florida subspecies that resides year round below the Panhandle. Gainesville appears to sit very close to the permanent resident’s line and since these were taken during migration, I cannot be certain which group it belongs to. The non-migratory variety are larger than the migratory subspecies and have a large white spot on their tail. Relative size doesn’t help much if the other one isn’t next to it and my shots are somewhat inconclusive on the spot as I was taking them in some pretty harsh light. Note to Cornell, it would be very helpful if you had at least one reference shot of the Florida variety so I could visualize the differences.

Lastly, they have a very interesting call – two calls as a matter a fact. One for winning over the ladies and one for interlopers. The courtship one is an ascending buzz that starts low and extends above our hearing threshold. The “Get the hell away from my sexy mate” call is a set of clear notes followed by more raspy (cussing) notes.

I’ll finish with a quick note on my trusty mnemonic that got me through some very hard test over my academic career. Not sure where I first learned it, but basically you memorize in order an object/concept for as many things as you are able to recall. This is constant and should rarely change. From there you simply map whatever it is you want to remember to that object by visually associating the two. Close your eyes and imagine the two directly interacting. At recall time, simply run through your objects and the mapping will mentally reveal itself. For reference this is my pattern for the first 10 positions.

One ’cause you left me
Two for my family
Three for my heartache
Four for my headache
Five for my lonely
Six for my sorrow
Seven no tomorrow
Eight I forget
Nine for lost god
Ten is for everything

The musically inclined out there may know why this is so easy to remember – another hint “Did I happen to mention that I’m impressed?”

I did remember the other thing. I failed my 50K attempt. To my credit I did leave everything on the course…literally.

Take care everyone.