October 2025 Newsletter

L to R: Tracy Muzyczka, Karen Strawn, Michael Faustini, Christine Rowland, Pamela Graber, Mike Kell and Joe Colontonio

We kick off our 2025 season on Saturday, October 4th with a presentation by Tracy Muzyczka of Florida DEP Division of Recreation and Parks. Tracy has been coordinating work between a team of our members and a team from Werner-Boyce Salt Springs State Park. The purpose of the project is to locate endangered Black Rails in the park, with a view to preserving and enhancing their habitat. This is the first of a multi-year project and Tracy will share the results to date, along with our next steps. As always, this will take place at 11am in the Starkey Environmental Education Center. Light refreshments will be provided, it is free, and all are welcome to attend.

Also, Noriko Buckles will introduce the camera club that will become a part of our Pasco Audubon umbrella of activities. Interested in photography? This may be just your speed.

Finally, we will, as always, have our morning walk in Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park beforehand. Meet in the education center parking lot for an 8am departure. We should be in the height of fall migration, so hopefully we’ll have some interesting birds to see.

Lake Dan is a Preserve located in Hillsborough County. The address is 19116 Huckavalle Rd., Odessa, FL 33556. It’s a lightly used preserve, and in recent times we’ve only held one walk here - in February 2024, when we found 63 species - a really good variety of birds. October will be rather different, with many of our winter residents not having arrived yet, but some of our migratory birds as possible sightings.

This location has a small parking lot at the address given in the previous paragraph, but should be more than ample for our needs. We’ll begin here at 8am. We’ll be taking a walk out to Lake Dan and back, so do bring plenty of water and sun screen. While we will experience woodland in the area near the parking lot, we’ll also be walking over open land, so please dress accordingly. The walk will likely take 3-3.5 hours. This event is free and all are welcome.

Cross Bar Ranch is always a popular field trip, and it is the only location in Pasco where it is relatively easy to see Burrowing Owls. The owls are well protected in this location and they thrive here, with 14 young owlets banded this spring. It’s also the only location in Pasco to find Florida Scrub-Jays, although sadly there is only a single family in this location. But they did successfully raise a youngster this year. The Florida Scrub-Jays are in habitat that is hard to access when there has been a lot of rain, and I cannot guarantee our being able to reach their area. But these are just two species among many we will see on our visit. We typically find over 50 species on this field trip, and will drive about 17 miles through Cross Bar and AI ranches. 

We are limited to 10 vehicles on this trip, so pre-registration is essential. We currently have 3 spots still available. Please also note that a high clearance vehicle is a must, as the trails are deeply rutted in places and we often go off-road for a period of time. If you want to come but do not have a suitable vehicle, we’ll do our best to place you in a car with available space if a driver is willing, so do let me know.

Cross Bar Ranch is actually operated by Pinellas County. We will be accompanied by the manager, Dave Adams, and by a representative of Quest Ecology, who work with the Burrowing Owls and Florida Scrub-Jays to help ensure their success on the property. As this is private land, it can be hard to gain access here, and we are very grateful for Dave Adams’ support in helping to make this trip happen. 

Red-headed Woodpecker by Bob Burkard

For our Sunday, October 19th Pasco Audubon Birding-by-Bike outing, we are returning to the Chassahowitzka Wildlife Management Area (CWMA). This has been a very productive site for our Birding-by-Bike outings this year. In addition to great birding, this outing should provide opportunities to see the autumn wildflowers that bloom at this location during October. Barbara Hoffman, a friend of mine and botanist who is extremely knowledgeable about Florida native plants, will be joining our outing and will help identify the wildflowers and other plants, mosses, and lichens, we encounter. What a terrific addition to our birding activity.

Reminder that the trail surface is hard-packed (not paved) and is an easy ride. Please bring water and snacks. This website is a good source of information on biking in the Chassahowitzka Wilderness Management Area: https://www.100floridatrails.com/eco-biking/chassahowitzkawma.htm#section1

We will meet at 8:00 AM at the Chassahowitzka Wilderness Management Area. We are starting at the access point off US 19 near Centralia Rd. There is a hunter's sign-in and day-fee pay station with parking, restrooms, and picnic facilities. There is a $6 fee per vehicle for parking at the check-in station. Questions? Reach out to Bob at robertburkard9@gmail.com. 

Our Pasco Birding-by-Bike group went back to Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park for our September outing. This is an excellent location, and I always enjoy seeing Brown-headed Nuthatches andBachman’s Sparrows. We were a little early for the fall migrants but did identify 37 species of birds. 

We began our trip from the parking lot for shelter 8, and took in the boardwalk adjacent to shelters 7 and 8. It was a lovely place to start, with Green Herons posing, and a delightful family of Purple Gallinules foraging among the lilies. For a moment our interest was piqued by a mixed group of ducks off to our south on Lake Tarpon. But we soon realized that they were, in fact, decoys rather than live ducks, a reminder that it is now duck hunting season in the region.

We searched for migratory warblers in the areas of shelters 7-10, and although there was a fair bit of activity, there were few warblers passing through. Walking along the north loop there were lots of the usual suspects in evidence: Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Chickadee and Northern Cardinal at extremely close quarters - obviously having been fed by previous visitors. We were also very fortunate to have a good sighting of a Barred Owl. As Pat Misajet pointed out, they can be tough to find in the park at this time of year. 

Our list can be found at https://ebird.org/checklist/S274462281. Our basic list was 36 species, but 7 additional species were seen by various members of the group. 

Dr. Geoffrey Hill

October 6, 2025 at 6:30pm at Moccasin Lake Nature Park

Clearwater Audubon Society welcomes back Dr. Geoffrey Hill to our first program of the season! He is an Auburn University professor, ornithologist, and author of National Geographic Bird Coloration. His special interest is coloration, so this talk will be enlightening and educational. Why is a cardinal red or a bluebird blue?

Trained as an evolutionary and behavioral ecologist, Dr. Hill leads an integrative research program investigating the function and evolution of animal ornamentation. He has been a professor at Auburn for 27 years and holds a PhD in Biology from the University of Michigan. His current research interest is the co-adaptation and co-evolution of mitonuclear elements within eukaryotes.

At the program on October 6th, we will be doing a giveaway of 3 copies of Dr. Hill's book, National GeographicBird Coloration.

It’s that time of year again. Each year 2-3 of our Board members are up for re-election. This practice allows for continuity and a chance to refresh the Board. Board members serve for 3-year terms. The executive members (President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Secretary) are selected annually at the January Board of Directors meeting.

This year we have 2 current Board members up for re-election: Patricia Goldberg and Christine Rowland. Both Pat and Christine have served on the Board since 2018. Additionally, we have a member who needs to step down - Kimberly Snaric, our current Secretary. Kimberly and her husband moved to Tallahassee back in June, and with increased responsibilities for their business she feels unable to continue in her role at this time. She has been a wonderful addition to our board for the short time she’s been with us, with great technical savvy and know-how, as well as a bright and positive attitude at all times. Thank you, Kimberly, for stepping up and helping us, as our previous Secretary, Peter Day, needed to step down after many years of service.

So, even if we re-elect Pat and Christine, we need 1 or 2 new members, one of whom would hopefully be able to step into the role of Secretary. According to our bylaws, we will work with the following schedule:

• October - accepting nominations. Nominations must be received by the end of the month.
• November 1st - Nominations will be announced at our monthly meeting.
• December 6th - Election will be held at our Annual Membership Meeting, which will follow on directly from our featured presentation.

To nominate someone (or yourself) as a Board member, please reach out to our Nominating Committee.

Chair: Joanne Chamberlain - treasurer@pascoaudubon.com
Joe Colontonio - jcolontonio@verizon.net
Pamela Graber - pamela.graber@gmail.com

If you are new to the area or find yourself with a little more scheduling freedom these days, you may want to join our Birding 102 group. Originally started to support new birders, it has morphed over the years into a group of birders of all levels of experience. We bird at hotspots that are mostly in west Pasco, although we do venture further afield upon occasion. For most of the year the start time is 8am, and we bird for 2-3 hours. 

Each week a different location is selected, and an email goes out to those on the list on Mondays, with details on Wednesday’s walk. Come whenever you can make it and feel like it. If you’d like to be added to the list to receive location details, please let me know at president@pascoaudubon.com. 

November 1st -
8am - Monthly walk in Starkey Park
11am - iNaturalist by Don Fraser - Learn how to make the most of this amazing app with this practical introduction. This will be a practical presentation that will help you learn to identify any flora and/or fauna that you see

November 8th - Field Trip to Honeymoon Island in Pinellas County

November 9th - Birding-by-Bike - The Pinellas Trail

November 22nd - Field Trip to Lake Apopka Wildlife Drive

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