Swallow-tailed Kite at Wirz Park

Swallow-tailed Kite

This month eBird is encouraging birders try new places this month. Their challenge for this month is to visit 15 new locations this month.  I thought that sounded like a good challenge and set my sights on finding some new places to visit.  Wirz Park is on my way home, and it's already listed as a hotspot on eBird, but I've never been there before. It was the hotspot with the lowest total in Seminole Co. (16 species). I wasn't expecting much when I visited.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised.  It's a nice-looking park, and there was a nature loop that includes a boardwalk and a trail that follows a stream. If you walk the loop and walk around the park itself, you'll walk about a mile. In my one visit on March 15 I recorded 37 species for eBird, raising the total for the hotspot up to 43. I think there's a fair amount of potential here, and it may even be a decent place to look for migrants over the next month or two. Highlights were: Eurasian Collared Doves, White-winged Doves, Painted Buntings and Swallow-tailed Kites. The kites were flying low over the canopy, and when they flew over the path, it made for some good photos.  There were two there, so I suspect they may be nesting there.