17th Annual Florida Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival January 22-27 2014

Florida's "Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival" starts January 22nd in Titusville, Florida. Its one of the largest such shows in the U.S. With some luck attendees will spot the most colorful songbird in all of North America, the Painted Bunting, which winters in the Space Coast of Florida. Generally holding in dense thickets of oaks and even Brazilian Pepper scrub they are very hard to spot in the wild away from backyard feeders. One of my favorites is the Brown Thrasher, another bird that generally holds to dense scrub thickets. It is also woodpecker season and while its always exciting to see the Downy Woodpeckers and the giant Pileated Woodpeckers - your goal should be to spot the exceedingly rare Red Cockaded Woodpecker. Of course raptors in wide open spaces and shorebirds and water birds by the score are a given! Come on down.

Video: Painted Buntings

Video: Brown Thrasher

Female Downy Woodpecker Calling

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Pileated Woodpecker Calls

Downy Woodpecker Visits the Backyard

Video of Female Downy Woodpecker Working a Chinese Tallow Tree

We remain on alert for the beginning of Screech Owl season, but in the meantime birding has been fairly active in the backyard. Had a chance to shoot some extended video of the smallest of woodpeckers, the Downy Woodpecker. The female is little bigger than sparrow size, moves quickly and is difficult to spot in the trees. She is all black and white and often overlooked. It is rare to get a good shot of them in their wild habitat away from feeders as they will visit suet feeders. This is a long range video at 800 mm. They have a unique and cute call that rarely last more than seconds. I managed to get two calls on the video. The male Downy has a very small amount of red on the back of its head.