Observations by sarahmcconnon

Saw the tropical parula in a tree, pruning itself. It is small and flies similarly to a hummingbird, quickly and dipping low. In the tree it was cleaning its feathers and slowly rotating, perhaps to catch the wind.

Saw it in a tree- was holding a feather in its beak, probably to build a nest. It also responded to calls from one of the people in the group through its own calls. It looked around and then flew off.

It was a male because it had pretty distinctive blue patches on its ventral side. It squirmed quite a bit, running up and down the tree trying to escape us. It was showing its blue coloration for a display (possibly for a female). Most of its crypsis was tree bark colored, well adapted for its habitat.

Saw two of them, a male and a female probably. The male was making a lot of noise, puffing out feathers profusely. He did this in front of the female, where she jumped down and away from him and he followed her.

We saw a group of 30 females or so all perching on branches of the same tree. They seemed to be preening themselves. They were a little hard to identify because of the tawny coloration of the feathers, but the yellowish orange under their beaks helped distinguish them.

We saw two in total here. We stumbled across one in a clearing and were able to observe it very closely because it held very still for a while. Finally it got fully startled and made a run for it, revealing a second younger cottontail that had been shielded from view due to the grass and location of the first cottontail. The second one ran as well.

Saw it fluttering around in the trees on its own. It flew in and out of the trees for a moment and then flew up and away. It was noticeable by its distinctive red tuft (indicating that it was a male).

It was sitting on a telephone line. It has a distinctive black mask which makes it distinguishable. It was perched on a telephone line at first and then it flew into a bush below it where it proceeded to eat an insect and kill it by sticking it on a thorn. Following feeding, it cleaned its beak on the bush leaves.

There were several flying overhead for a while. Distinguishable from Turkey vultures is the white coloration on the tips of the wings only, not on the entire posterior half of the ventral side of the wing.

A group of Northern Shovelers were swimming across the freshwater retention pond. They were slowly making their way across the pond, many ducking underneath the surface for food under water. There appeared to be both males and females in the group, with respect to their coloration. None particularly interacted with another.

At this site (Hornsby Bend Nature Preserve), there was a proliferation of these yellow-rumped warblers. They were easily identified by the yellow patch they had on their dorso-caudal region. They have a smaller body size and flitted in and out of the trees quite a bit.

Saw a cluster of ruddy ducks together. Most of them were females, because the males with the distinctive blue coloration was absent from my observations. They were just sitting on the surface of the freshwater retention pond, some ducking under to feed.

It had a white bushy tail and a tawny hide. It was hiding under thick yellow grass and when it heard our approach it bounded away, startled by the noise. Weather was approximately 50 degrees F, humid and windy, spitting rain periodically.

Found an adult, about 6 inches long. It squirmed pretty fast when unearthed a large rock under which it was residing. It was about 60 degrees F in the middle of the afternoon and its hiding space was definitely cool and damp.