September 2025 Newsletter

Pileated Woodpecker in Starkey Park

Next Saturday, September 6th, we’ll take our monthly walk in Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park. We’ll leave from the Education Center parking lot at 7:30am. Fall migration is now underway and this time of year can bring interesting birds passing through our area. We’ll be hoping to see some. Our walk will likely be 1-2 miles and will probably last around 2 hours. Do bring binoculars if you have them. All are welcome.

Then the next day, on Sunday, September 7th, Bob Burkard will meet those who’d like to see some of the birds a little deeper in the park at the Education Center parking lot at 8:00 am. Bob will be leading cyclists back into the park (see more about this in last month’s report on page 3). This will be our last Birding-by-Bike outing in Starkey Wilderness Park in 2025 and I hope that you will join Bob. The Birding-by-Bike schedule for the rest of the year can be found on page 4.

This month our newsletter is slim, but includes information on our field trip to John Chesnut Sr. Park, a report on the August Birding-byBike outing and volunteer opportunities with EagleWatch for the 2025-6 breeding season. We hope that you enjoy it.

On Saturday, September 20th, do feel free to join us at John Chesnut Sr. Park. This is still early in migration, but some wonderful species pass through early, and John Chesnut can be a useful place to see them. John Chesnut is well known year-round for its owls, eagles and waterfowl, but we’ll also be looking particularly for migrating warblers and flycatchers. We’ll meet up in the shelter 8 parking lot at 7:30am and will begin our morning in the area around shelters 7, 8 and 9, which border Lake Tarpon. This is often a promising area for migrating warblers and flycatchers and was out-of-bounds to us in migration last year as a result of Hurricane Milton. We’ll then move on to another area of the park, based on prior scouting.

Studying eBird bar charts for John Chesnut, we understand that migratory species we can reasonably hope to see include Ovenbird, Northern Waterthrush, Yellow Warbler, Hooded Warbler, and Blackburnian Warbler, with a slight possibility of a few additional rarer ones. Additionally, Eastern Wood-Pewee are quite likely to be passing through and we can also hope for early migrating thrushes, (Swainson’s Thrush, Gray-cheeked Thrush, and Veery).

If you’d like to download a trail map of the park with shelters clearly marked, one can be located at https://www.wanderflorida.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Chestnut-1-770x1024.jpg 

We had an interesting Birding-by-Bike ride through Starkey Wilderness Park on August 16th.Braving the summer heat we biked seven miles back into the park, stopping at the Bird Blind on the return trip. We observed 37 species of birds. Highlights for the outing included five Bachman’s Sparrows, two Prairie Warblers, six Brown-headed Nuthatches, two Summer Tanagers, and numerous Eastern Towhees.

It can be difficult to recognize 1st year birds, especially warblers, in the field, and this time of year presents situations where active birds “disappear” before I can be confident of an exact identification. Luckily, in this case, I was able to take a picture of a young Prairie Warbler which allowed me to identify it when I returned home and studied the photo.

In addition to the number of bird species we encountered during our bike ride, it was fascinating to see a large area of the park that had just experienced a controlled (also called prescribed) burn, and it was strange to see over a dozen places that still had smoke smoldering up from stumps. Periodic burning is vital for the health of the forest and the continued success of Bachman’s Sparrows, Brown-headed Nuthatches and Northern Bobwhites. Check out this website for information on the benefits of controlled burns in our area of Florida. https://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/resources/florida-prescribed-burns-and-why-they-are-important

We stopped at the Bird Blind where Barbara Hoffman, wife of Ed Hoffman, the architect who designed the Bird Blind, was happy to see this plaque recognizing Ed’s contribution.

It's that time of year again - nesting season begins on October 1st! Florida's Bald Eagles are returning to their territories in preparation for the upcoming breeding season!

Audubon Eagle Watch needs your help to monitor existing and locating new Bald Eagle nests. Here in Pasco we attempt to monitor over 30 nests every breeding season, and the more volunteers who help, the more manageable it is. 

Training will take place in late September or early October. More information can be found at the following website: https://www.audubon.org/florida/projects/eaglewatch

October 4th -
8am - Monthly walk in Starkey Park
11am - The Black Rail Project by Tracy Muzycska - Tracy will brief us on the project to locate and support Black Rails in Werner-Boyce Salt Springs State

October 11th - Field Trip to Lake Dan Preserve in Hillsborough County

October 19th - Birding-by-Bike - Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area

October 25th - Field Trip to Cross Bar Ranch, Pasco County (reservations required)

Christine Rowland, President - president@pascoaudubon.com

Don Fraser, Vice President and Conservation Chair - PascoAudubonConservation@gmail.com

Joanne Chamberlain, Treasurer - treasurer@pascoaudubon.com

Kimberly Snaric, Secretary - pascoaudubon@gmail.com

Mike Kell, Web Master - jmike65@gmail.com

Patricia Goldberg, Special Projects - projects@westpascoaudubon.com

JoAnn Sinatra, At-Large

Ken Landry, At-Large

Other Important Contacts: 

Fran Sigurdson, Membership Chair - fsigurds@gmail.com

Bob Burkard, Birding by Bike and The Bluebird Project - robertburkard9@gmail.com

Hal Sigurdson, Photography Competition Coordinator - PascoAudubonPhotos@gmail.com