The cost for this new life-bird was about $25 for auto fuel. 

I am pleased to add this small elegant bird with a long streaming tail to my life-list, but sad that Anne concluded she could not break away to see it with me.  I waited a day in hopes she could find a means of escape before deciding to make the two-hour drive to Ruskin FL just south of Tampa  yesterday morning. 

The bird was first found on Wednesday afternoon by Kentucky visiting birders, Don and Phyllis Pelty, and posted on the Internet by Brian Ahern of Tampa Bay late on Thursday.  I saw the posting on Friday when I was showing this website to guests in the evening.  The fork-tailed flycatcher is a widespread species ranging from central Mexico to Argentina.   An individual or two appears every couple of years somewhere within the United States, most often in Florida or elsewhere in the Southeast.  Sometimes the vagrant stays at a location for a week or more.  Often it is “a one-day wonder.”    Needless to say, I was ready to chase it on Saturday, but I put off the trip until Sunday.  It was reported present on Saturday afternoon.

I departed Heritage Cove at 6:30 a.m. and arrived at Lost River Trail near Cockroach Bay at about 8:30.  This street and several side streets also with cul-de-sacs comprise a development stalled by the housing bust.  A couple of houses are built and occupied, but otherwise the development is a meadow adjacent to a strawberry farm and a state coastal preserve.  The developer continues to coarsely mow the vacant lots that line most of the streets.  This “hayfield” consist of a series of plateaus where houses will appear when “the economy recovers” and swales between the future lots.    Today this grassland adjacent to a state coastal preserve is fine open-land habitat.  I took exercise going up and down as I walked between the street and the water.

I found about a dozen cars and twenty birders at the designated location.  I glanced at the group of people before parking and concluded that the bird was not in sight.  People were wandering and binoculars and scopes were pointed in various directions.  Inquiry confirmed that no one had seen the bird.  It was last reported about 4:30 on the previous afternoon.  The assembly location was along one of the vacant side streets between Lost River Trail and the cul-de-sac.  A couple of large trees stood near the cul-de-sac.  The bird used one of them as a perch on the previous afternoon.  To one side between the development and the strawberry farm was a marsh.  Beyond that was a wire fence line at the farm.

I enjoyed watching a flock of cattle egrets and a few thousand tree swallows that were working the fields.  The swallows followed me as I coursed the fields and flushed insects.  I left the group and walked the length of the development first up one side and then back the other.  Lakes on either side sported various birds, but no fork-tailed flycatcher.  I found horned and pied-billed grebes, ducks, wading birds, and lots of savannah sparrows and palm and myrtle warblers along the way.  A few white-eyed vireos, red-winged blackbirds, a mockingbird, and a cardinal were singing.

Returning to the group, I found the scene still quiet.  Someone mentioned finding a clay-colored sparrow in a different direction, and three of us wandered there to look for it unsuccessfully.  We wandered to the end of that street and were returning when we saw the group coming to attention.  It was ten a.m.

I jogged and moved quickly across a ditch with a moist bottom to reach the birders who were all now looking in one direction.  I searched quickly with my glasses but could find nothing.  I asked where the bird was being seen and was told along the fence line across the marsh.  Looking there I spotted the bird as it took to flight, its tail streamers and black cap giving me a firm identification.  I watched as it returned to the fence to perch and dine on its booty.  Then I ran to the car and returned with the spotting scope.  In another minute I was seeing the bird well at 30 power.  Then I cranked the magnification to 50 power and took an even closer look.  I enjoy savoring a life-bird.

The bird was feeding.  Its strategy is to sit on a perch with a view, then spotting an insect fly up to grab  it and return to its perch to dine and resume watching.  So, I could leave the scope on the bird for minutes at a time.  I didn’t watch continuously and would have to redirect the glass from time to time when the bird changed its perch along the fence line on post or wire.  I watched the occasional sortie through binoculars. 

The group hung out, chatting and hoping the bird would fly across the water to us.  It did so in the afternoon, but I gave up the endeavor after about an hour.  I said I would be back at the condominium by mid-afternoon and wanted to explore Cockroach Bay before leaving.  So, after watching the bird for almost an hour, I left happy.  I had enjoyed another element of our avifauna and added other bird to my life-list.  Sixteen more to go to reach the milestone of 700.