Searching for Warblers

Bolen Bluff Trail as it opens onto Paynes Prairie

The last few days have been busy ones.  I've been out searching for warblers.  After all, this is migration season and the warblers should be coming through.  Others have reported double-digit species counts, so surely I could do better than the single Prairie Warbler I saw at Cedar Key last week.

On Sunday I decided to walk the trail at Bolen Bluff.  This is a well-known fall warbler trap.  Located on the southern rim of Paynes Prairie, the trail runs along the bluff and eventually turns down to the basin itself.  It's a pretty walk and I've had some really great days there with warblers landing in waves, so I had high hopes.  Silly me.  The forest was quiet and the birds absent for nearly all of my walk.  I occasionally heard a Northern Cardinal's chip or a Carolina Wren's booming song, but that was it.  Eventually, I came across a mixed flock and saw a flash of yellow.  I chased after it for a bit and eventually found three Yellow Warblers and a Prairie Warbler.  Yeehaw!  I had doubled my Cedar Key warbler species count! I finished the trail - perhaps about three miles in all - and added two more Yellow Warblers to the day's count.  I've had better days in my back yard.

Northern Parula (Click on the photo to enlarge)

Meanwhile, the internet was all abuzz.  I read Janet Leavens's post about Central Winds Park in Seminole County.  She and others had reported a mixture of warblers including some really nice ones like Blackburnian and Black-throated Blue.  I had never been to Central Winds, but its voice was calling me.  So the Big Red Van headed out on the long drive early on Tuesday morning, and after a very filling IHOP breakfast, we got to the park just after 8:00 AM.

Central Winds is a lovely little park.  Looking at a map, you might think it is way too small to attract a lot of birds.  You would be wrong.  It's a beautiful little patch of green in the midst of urban sprawl on the southern edge of Lake Jessup.  Any birds crossing that lake would look down and see this one attractive bunch of trees and head right for it.  So the park is small enough to bird in a morning, but if the winds are right, there may be birds everywhere you look.

Yellow-throated Warbler

Being unfamiliar with the place, we wandered away from the van looking for a trail to follow.  Instead, we ended up following the birds.  Within 50 feet of the parking lot we encountered the day's first American Redstart, a Yellow-throated Warbler, and a Prothonotary Warbler with a bit of an eye line.  Coincidentally, the same bird was photographed and became the topic of some conversation among the state's birders.  From reading the posts, I learned that a small percentage of Prothonotary Warblers do indeed have a prominent eye line.

Eventually we found the trail and followed it along the rim of a large open field.  We chased a few birds to one corner of the field (near the bleachers) where we encountered another mixed flock.  A few Tufted Titmice and Carolina Wrens were accompanied by a Black-and-White Warbler, another Redstart, and a Prairie Warbler. 

I think Red-eyed Vireos are beautiful!

We saw that the trail was simply going back to the parking lot, so we reversed direction and started toward the lake.  Along the way we met a local birder, Dennis O'Neill, who proved to be very helpful and a really nice guy.  He told us where some of the better birds had been seen the previous day, so we headed in that direction.  A few Northern Parulas and more Prairie Warblers were all that we saw.  The trail ended near the banks of a small pond.  Here were White Ibises, a Little Blue Heron, a Tricolored Heron and a plastic Canada Goose.  There was also a Red-shouldered Hawk swooping and diving around in the skies above the pond.  We walked up the hill and finally came to a stand of oak trees.  There were more Parulas, more Prairies, another Redstart and another Yellow-throated.  It seemed we were finding several small pockets of birds, but they were all the same species.

Again we saw Dennis, and this time he told us of a Yellow Warbler he had just seen back by those bleachers.  We wandered over there and after a bit of work we found another mixed flock.  This time there were Redstarts, Parulas, a Prairie and, finally, a Yellow Warbler.

The Nature Trail at Central Winds Park in Seminole County

At that point I just wanted to sit for a while.  We found a bench and sat for a bit.  Good plan.  Soon another flock flew in and landed above my head!  For a few minutes we were surrounded by Red-eyed Vireos, Titmice, Wrens, Black-and-white and Yellow-throated Warblers, and yet another Redstart.  Red-bellied and Downy Woodpeckers joined in the gang as well.  It's fun being among so many birds, even when they are "the usual suspects."

We wanted to take one more shot at the area under the oaks near the butterfly garden, so we headed back there next.  We exited the trail emerging into the more open area under the trees to find a Red-shouldered Hawk sitting quietly on a low branch.  It kindly posed for several pictures, something I wish that warblers would learn to do.  We looked around for several minutes but the only new bird we saw was a Bald Eagle that circled over us a few times.

For the day we counted 36 species overall, with seven different warblers (and lots of some of them).  Certainly it wasn't a great birding day, but my numbers are heading in the right direction.  From one warbler (Cedar Key), to two (Bolen Bluff) and now seven ... could double digits be just around the next bend of the trail? 

Red-shouldered Hawk looking for lunch

Same Red-shouldered Hawk from the rear

Central Winds Park, Seminole County