TAMPA AUDUBON SOCIETY

“To conserve and re-store our ecosystems, focusing on birds, wildlife, and their habitats, through

education, advocacy, and community in-

volvement.”

Volume XXI. Issue 2 www.tampaaudubon.org February/March 2010

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

OFFICERS: Acting President - Pat Lewis Immediate Past Presidents– Carolyn Mckinney/Ann Paul/Rob Heath 1st Vice President– Tammy Lyons 2nd Vice President- vacant Treasurer– Roger Sheets Recording Secretary– vacant Corresponding Secretary– Vacant

DIRECTORS:

COMMITTEES & PROGRAMS:

ARC at the Park - Mike & Barbara Mullins Field Trip Committee Chair - Mary Keith Avocet Editor - Pat Lewis E-Mail Directory - Pat Lewis Membership - Jo Anne Hartzler Fund Raising - Joel Cleveland Web Site - Roger Sheets Christmas Bird Count - Dave Bowman Special Events/Tabling Events-Tammy Lyons Programs - Ann Paul

Directors

Tim Bonsack Susan Ogle Bill Lamoureux Joel Cleveland

February 11 - Matt Smith & Athena

Matt Smith, a local falconer and biology student at USF, will bring Athena, a red-shouldered hawk to share with us informa-tion about this ancient ‘sport’. He will tell us about the care and feeding of falcons and hawks and describe his adventures with his falcon in the field

March 11

Joel Cleveland

Adventures on the Beach

Tampa Audubon Member Joel Cleveland will discuss beach-combing in Florida, shells that he has discovered, and other signs of the fascinating wildlife of our special shore-lines.

April 8

Nanette O’Hara

Tampa Bay Estuary Program

Nitrogen and Tampa Bay

Nanette will speak about Hillsborough County and Tampa’s Fertilizer Ordinances and why it is so critical for citizens of our county to reduce the influx of nitrogen into Tampa bay. She will also share the innovative approaches that the TBEO is pro-moting and provide a scoreboard on how we are doing and what needs to be done in the future.

TAMPA AUDUBON SOCIETY FIELD TRIPS www.tampaaudubon.org

All bird-watchers, beginners to expert

Free and open to the public, check our web site for updates

Note: $2 entrance fee to most Hillsborough County Parks

Sunday Jan 31 - Mosiac Mine Lands & Peace River, - Mary Keith, 935-6115, keith-ma1@juno.com. 7:30 am Mc Donalds on Rt. 60 at I -75 in Brandon to carpool. Rough driving up the stacks, very little walking. Lunch is provided by Mosaic. This is a 100 species day! We will be led to the best spots on mine lands in Polk Co for winter birds, Eagles, Nesting owls, white pelicans, war-blers and lots more. Reservations required.

Saturday Feb 6 - Lettuce Lake Park, - 9 am at Visitor Center. Roger Sheets, rwsheets3@gmail.com or 677-6577.

Saturday Feb 13 - Merritt Island and Vierra Wetlands, Mary Keith 935-6115, keith-ma1@juno.com. & Bill Lamoureux 839-2742, wlamoureux@aol.com. Wintering waterbirds, cara-cara, eagles. 7:00 am IHOP on Fowler at I-75 to carpool. Return about 7:00 pm. Very little walking. Bring lunch and drinks, no food or drink available on Merritt Island. This is a 100 species day! Call if you would like to make it an overnight trip.

Saturday & Sunday Feb 20-21 - STA5, Clewiston, Mary Keith 935-6116, keithma1@juno.com. Release form required. Overnight trip to Clewiston, south shore of Lake Okeechobee to visit wetlands of Stormwater Treatment Area 5, only open certain weekends. Great waders, ducks. Fulvous whis-tling ducks, even a flamingo one year! Plus various flycatchers. Another 100 plus trip! Call for di-rections. Make you own motel reservations.

Sunday Feb 28 - Manatee Viewing Center, Apollo Beach ELAPP, Simmons Park - Carolyn McKinney 884-0578, cmckinney47@tampabay.rr.com. 8 AM , Manatee Viewing Center, Big Bend Road east of Rt 41. White pelicans, reddish egret, shorebirds. Bring water and snacks.

Saturday March 13 - Lettuce Lake for Beginning birders, 9 AM Visitor Center, Pat Lewis, plewis8216@aol.com or 907-6542. Sunday March 14 - Weedon Island & Sawgrass Lake Park, Mary Keith, 935-6115 or keith-ma1@juno.com. 8AM at Weedon Island Visitor Center, or 7:30 am at Borders Book, Dale Mabry & I-275 to carpool. Easy walking on boardwalks and trails of Weedon Island, then on to Sawgrass Lake Park in St Petersburg. Easy Walking. Bring water and insect repellant. Sunday March 21 - Joe Overstreet and 3 Lakes WMA, Mary Keith 935-6115 or keith-ma1@juno.com. 7 am, McDonalds on Rt 60 & I-75 to carpool to east side of Lake Kissimmee, sev-eral locations. Some walking. Possible airboat ride, cost to be determined. Bring lunch, drinks. Saturday March 27 - Babcock Mgmt Area, Oscar Sherer State Park - Bill Lamoureux, 839-2742 or wlamoureux@aol.com. 6 am, McDonalds at Rt 60 & I-75 to carpool. Brown headed nuthatch, Red cockaded woodpecker, Bachman’s sparrow, Scrub jay. Long drive to be there early to watch the woodpeckers leave for their day of foraging. Oscar Scherer for scrub jays. Bring drinks and lunch. Not a lot of walking but some may be in soft sand.

Fieldtrips Continued

Saturday April 10 - Lettuce Lake for Beginning Birders - Pat Lewis, 907-6542 or plewis8216@aol.com. 9 am, at the Visitor Center. Sunday April 11 - Fort DeSoto Park, 8 am Visitor Center. Check website for leader information Saturday April 17 - Flatwoods Park, Bluebirds & More, Mary Miller, limpkin1945@verizon.net. 8 am, Visitor Center at park on Morris Bridge Rd. Easy walking to see bluebird boxes and Spring bird activity. Saturday April 17 - Chinsegutt Park and USDA research farm. Jo Anne Hartzler, usarealty@msn.com. Owls?

Saturday May 1 - Lake Park - Jo Anne Hartzler, usarealty@msn.com

Saturday May 8 - Lettuce Lake Park, Carolyn McKinney, 884-0578 or cmkin-ney47@tampabay.rr.com. 9 am, Visitor Center Saturday May 15 - Orlando Wetlands, Mary Keith, 935-6115 or Keithma1@juno.com Purple Gallinule, black neck stilt, least bittern. 7 am, IHOP on Fowler Ave. Off I-75 to carpool. Two mile walk on flat levees. Hot and sunny, great birds. Bring hat, water, sunscreen, lunch. We will eat there or at Ft. Christmas Park. Sunday May 23 - Venice Rookery and Babcock Ranch, Bill Lamoureux, 839-2742 or wlam-oureux@aol.com. & Carolyn McKinney, 884-2742 or cmkinney47@tampabay.rr.com. Lots of water birds at the rookery, then on to Babcock Ranch for a swamp buggy ride on an old Florida Ranch. Saturday May 29 - Gardening for Butterflies and Hummingbirds, Russ & Gail Kruetzman, 981-1003 or RKruetzman@aol.com. 9:30 am, Butterfly House at MOSI (Fowler Ave. & 50th St.). Learn how to attract and keep these lovely creatures in your garden. We will visit various butterfly gardens including the Kruetzman gardens on Lake Thonotosassa where 54 species of butterfly and 18 species of dragonfly have been recorded. Bring lunch and a drink. Saturday June 12 - Lettuce Lake Beginning Birders, Pat Lewis 907-6542 or plewis8216@aol.com, 9 am, Visitor Center.

Picnic Lunch at the Venice Rookery

November 19, 2009 By Pat Lewis

I was in Venice for an afternoon workshop and decided to take a lunch and go to the Rookery.

The birds were scarce, but several pair of great blue herons and great egrets were in the beginning stages of nesting.

Since I had not been there for many years, I was shocked to see that almost all of the Rookery area was made up of Brazilian pepper trees.

I enjoyed my lunch and watched a pair of great blue herons performing.

ARC at the Park

Visitor Center at Lettuce Lake

Volunteer training is available for those who are willing to invest four hours a month to

staff the Visitor Center. The only skills needed are a love of the environment and a

friendly smile.

Suzanne Erickson

Michael Stalder

Margaret Fox

Ann & Joseph Debaldo

Greg Clarkson

Century Buick for sponsoring our meeting place

Suzanne Erickson - $25 donation for Florida Scrub Jay

Ann & Joseph Debaldo - $55 donation

Greg Clarkson - $25 donation

Joel Cleveland - bat house, IBM stock

Bluebird Brochures: Tim Bonsack Pat Lewis Mary Miller Roger Sheets

ARC Report for December - January, by Mike Mullins, ARC Director

We are a couple of volunteers short, but have a new volunteer, a USF doctoral student. She is a very “people” person and loves wildlife.

Diana Kyle is doing the Family Nature Programs. She is planning some great programs for the spring.

Our cooperative venture with the artist Terry Klarren is paying benefits, he has done three art workshops at the ARC. From each of these he has made a small donation to the ARC account. Terry was on the cover of the January Tampa Bay Magazine. He will be part of an art auction held April 16 at the Tampa Bay Art Museum. I will be going to set up an ARC display and talk about our programs. He plans to donate a small portion of any proceeds from the auction to the ARC.

We have an eagle scout who is planning a native plant garden. Hopefully he can get a grant from the Florida Native Plant Society to create a planting and low volume watering display around the center.

We are working with the park staff to set up new wading bird signs on the boardwalk. We will be using funds from Friends of Parks.

Thanks, con’t

Gary Krotz for building and installing the Bat house post at North Lake Park with the aid of Tim Bonsack and for the post at Lake Park.

In Search of Ducks - January 16, 2010

By Ceci LaDuca

Mary Keith, Bill Lamoreux, Pat Lewis, Tammy Lyons and I set out from University Mall on a mild, overcast Saturday morning to visit several ponds in the USF/Temple Terrace area, including Adventure Is-land, Tacoma Park and Riverhills Park, where two pair of elusive wood ducks were seen in a beautiful wooded setting on the shore of the Hillsborough River. Mary and Bill spotted them from a great distance but the rest of us did not. Mary persisted until she found them again and we all got the benefit of seeing the pair gliding along. I was thrilled, as this was the first time I’d seen wood ducks, and I got a good look. I’m not sure which was more beautiful, the ducks, or the setting. A touch of magic.

Ducks and birds seen at the various ponds were: pie-billed grebe, canvasback, mallards, hooded mergansers, ring-necked ducks, blue-winged teal, ibis, wood stork, glossy ibis, tri-colored heron, little blue heron, snowy, cattle egret, great egret, shrike, grackle, blackbird, reddish egret, moorhen, coot, cormorant, scaup, kingfisher, phoebe, red-tailed hawk, red-bellied woodpecker, palm warbler, starling, turkey vulture and robin.

After leaving the Temple Terrace area, we headed for Cypress Point, near the airport, to look for ducks and shorebirds. We spotted one horned grebe along with ducks and a variety of shorebirds. The wind was blowing hard and fresh, the beach vegetation was varied shades of brown due to the recent cold weather, and many dead fish were washed ashore due to the same.

The outing ended at noon with the sky still overcast, but luckily no rain.

Bat House at Lake Park

January 17, 2010

Sunday morning started out overcast with the threat of rain, but turned into a glorious day as Gary Krotz and Joni Hartzler, Pat Lewis and I erected a bat house at Lake Park on North Dale Mabry, assisted by Ranger Brian, Manager of the Park. In all fairness, Gary and Brian did the work, while we ladies took pic-tures and watched the proceedings.

The bat house, constructed by Gary and decorated on the outside with a black bat by Joni, contains enough room for two to three hundred bats, and is complete with vent holes and a shingled overhang. We hope the bats will find it a cozy spot to call home.

Once the bat house was securely in place, we took off in search of birds. A downy woodpecker was our first sighting, followed by a red-bellied woodpecker and several gnatcatchers, ruby-crowned kinglet, white-eyed vireo, yellow rump warblers, robins, osprey, red-shoulder hawk, turkey vulture and a brown thrasher. No ducks were spotted on the lake, just a solitary anhinga with outspread wings, and several large turtles. Sandhill cranes were heard several times, but never seen.

At one point on the trail we bravely traversed a small creek via a 4’ long fallen log (whew), and en-joyed a few moments of rest and sunshine at the Scout campground at the park before calling it a day.

NOTICE

We are in need of someone to help us redesign our website. Please email Pat Lewis at tasnewsletter@aol.com or Roger Sheets at rwsheets3@gmail.com

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