CARROLL COUNTY BIRD CLUB Volume 4, Number 4 Winter 2017 The Whooosletter At Last Issue A Quarterly Publication of the Carroll County Bird Club At last! The Young Artists are baaacckkk! Another issue of The Whooosletter. I wish I could Carroll County Bird Club will be sponsoring this tell you why it took so long. It would be easy to use endeavor for 2017 to help youth in Carroll Coun- the “busy at work” excuse, but most of our ty connect with birds and nature through art. The members still work for a living. And many of them exhibit will run from April 22nd until May 19th at lead exciting lives in spite of it. Bear Branch Nature Center. The opening reception, awards, and silent auction to benefit Bear Branch will Case in point would be Craig Storti. His continuing be held on April 22nd at 5:30 P.M. Please come out search for the Snail Kite while on vacation in and enjoy this event. Florida has appeared in the last two issues. Will he finally bag this rarity? Read his article on page 2 to This year is particularly exciting as the MOS has find out. awarded us a grant to support the youth art exhibit. Bowman’s Home and Gardens is happy to provide Dave and Maureen Harvey were probably our most items such as bird feeders as prizes, and the libraries well-travelled birders even before they retired. That and schools are enthusiastic about partnering with us hasn’t changed. They recently went to Cuba. Dave again. has kindly shared the details on page 6, along with some great photographs he took there. Of special note: The award winning medical and scientific illustrator as well as bird artist, Ikumi Of course, you don’t have to travel the globe to see Kayama, has very graciously agreed to teach a class good birds. We have some excellent ones right here as a first place prize. Other students will have the in Carroll County. Just go to page 8 and take a look opportunity to sign up for the class at a nominal fee. at the results of our Fall Count. For further information, please contact Mary Jewell at Naturalist Bernd Heinrich knows how to enjoy the [email protected]. birds found right in his own back yard. He even shares his home with some of them. Read a review of his latest book on page 5. In this issue: Art Show...........................................1 This issue also includes some information on our Florida Birding................................2-3 upcoming second annual Youth Art Contest and Green Heron....................................4-5 Exhibition. This was a big success last year and the Book Review....................................5-6 MOS has even agreed to subsidize it this year. Cuba.................................................6-7 A copy of the flier is included on page 11. If you Fall Count....................................... 8 know any budding artists living in or attending Hashawha.........................................8-9 school in Carroll County, pass it on. Upcoming Events............................9-10 Art Show Flier..................................11 The Last Laugh.................................12 1 Birding Southern Florida: (you met him in Part II) had casually mentioned to us as a possible spot for the kite. As it happens, there Stalking the Elusive Snail Kite - Part III were a couple of birders at that spot with binoculars, by Craig Storti so we pulled up and started talking. They were from Pennsylvania but came south every year, and they said The story thus far: John and Craig are now on the they had seen Snail Kite at this very spot every year next-to-last day of their annual birding trip, this year for seven years, within 10 minutes of pulling in. This to Southern Florida where John stood to get approx- was in all likelihood our very last chance for this bird, imately 15 life birds if he was lucky. His three target so this was very good news, until they added that they birds, birds he would be disappointed not to see, were had already been there 30 minutes and seen nothing, Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Swallow-tailed Kite, and “probably because there has been so much rain this Snail Kite. He now has the first two and a total of eight winter and the water level is just too high.” We chatted new life birds, but he’d very much like to get that kite for 10 minutes or so and then the wife said, “I think and also get to what he calls “double digits” for the trip I’ve got a kite.” She explained that it was far out over (10 or more lifers) so the visit will have been “worth- the marsh but that it had just gone down. We waited w h i l e .” for an agonizing 10 more minutes and then she had the bird again. John got it in his scope, actually two Our next-to-last day dawned sunny and warm (like birds, a male and female Snail Kite! (#9) every other day in Florida). The pressure was really on today because it was our last good chance for the You’re probably thinking “mission accomplished,” but Snail Kite as we drove east along the Tamiami Trail you’d be wrong, largely because I haven’t told you yet (back toward Miami) which goes right through the about Larry Manfredi. It all goes back to our first night Everglades. The ABA guide book had several spots for in Florida when we met that young couple at Frog the kite along the trail, but we had checked them all Pond (see Part I). They told us about this guy Larry out on our way over and come up empty-handed (or Manfredi, a local bird guide who had several feeders “dipped” in birder language), so we were worried. We in his back yard where you could get the Shiny Cow- checked each one again, in vain, and at the very last bird (among others), and they gave us Larry’s contact possible spot, just before we turned off the trail and information. At the time we thought we might engage headed south, we found the place we had heard about him for a day or even just half a day at the end of our on our very first night in Florida when a young couple trip, depending how well we did on our own. So that we had run into said they had seen Snail Kites at a evening I emailed Larry and also left him a voice mail boat ramp near this intersection. We stumbled on the asking about his availability for the coming Saturday. boat ramp by accident, but there were no kites. There Six days later, he had not responded. was, however, a young woman sitting in an airboat at the edge of the ramp. I thought she was probably just But now, as we turned off the Tamiami Trail and head- a concessionare, waiting for someone to hire her boat, ed back down towards Homestead (Larry’s patch), my but I decided to approach her anyway. (John thought cell phone went off, and it was Larry. He was available I was wasting my time.) I asked her if she knew the next day and we could also come by his house that anything about Snail Kites and she smiled and said: afternoon and get the cowbird at his feeders. Actually “We’re actually out here monitoring Snail Kites.” We he asked us where we were and said it was easier if he were excited, naturally, until she added, “But you’re just came by and led us back to his house. I was begin- too far east. If you go back along the trail, maybe 15 ning to really like this man. miles, there’s a place called Tippy’s. We saw them foraging there earlier this morning.” Larry’s backyard was alive with birds, mostly cowbirds; in fact Larry said his back yard was the only place in I had noticed Tippy’s on our way over, so we drove America where you could get all three cowbirds— back 15 miles and pulled up. But there was nothing. Shiny, Brown-headed, and Bronzed—in the same (You might say we dipped at Tippy’s.) On our way place. And we did. (The Shiny was #10 for John, and there, though, John said he had seen something “act- we were finally in double digits.) He also had Painted ing like a Snail Kite” as we drove past one spot, so we Buntings (John and I had seen them in Texas) which turned around headed back east again to that spot. It I had never had good views of and was thrilled to see turned out to be a small picnic area that Ken Hodgson Continued on page 3 2 Continued from page 2 so close. I somewhat excitedly pointed a male out the Cayman Islands years ago), and we could go. to John, who took one brief look and simply said: But Larry, being the man he is, wouldn’t hear of it. “Too gawdy.” After we sat there a while, John asked He tried to describe where it was and as I was look- Larry how much he would charge to take us out for ing where Larry pointed, the bird actually moved half a day. Somehow—to this day I don’t understand to a spot where it was much easier to see (bird #12). it—Larry had figured out I was not much of a birder. “I charge $100, plus $50 for every extra birder.” He Larry asked what we needed next, and John then, paused, looked at me, rubbed his chin, and mentioned a Short-tailed Hawk, and darn if Larry then added: “But I don’t think I can charge for you.” didn’t have a place for that, too.