Fort De Soto, 4/21/2013

Black-throated Green Warbler

My father and I had a fantastic time at Fort De Soto this morning.  We went hoping for some nice migrants, and we came home with twelve species of warbler, including my first Black-throated Green.  Here's a list of all the warblers we saw in the park: Black-and-white Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Hooded Warbler, American Redstart, Cape May Warbler, Northern Parula, Yellow Warbler, Blackpoll Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Palm Warbler, and Black-throated Green Warbler.

Hooded Warbler

Yellow Warbler

Blackpoll Warbler

On top of these we saw two Eastern Kingbirds, one Veery, several Indigo Buntings, a Painted Bunting, a Rose-breasted Grosbeak and a Blue Grosbeak. We found both a Scarlet and Summer Tanager.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Scarlet Tanager

But the biggest surprise was seeing two Whimbrel.  One was pretty far a way near the Least Tern breeding platforms.  The second landed about 15 feet away from me farther north on North Beach, then after a couple seconds it took off and flew around me allowing me to get some good looks and photos.  It's possible that this second sighting was of the same Whimbrel, if it flew north to where we were.

Whimbrel

And a Snowy Egret decided to go fishing in really nice light.  I was able to get down low to get a good angle on the egret.

Snowy Egret

My dad was there with me, and he has much better photographic equipment than I do. If you want to see his photos from today, he will eventually post them here. It may be a little while before he posts his photos, though.