October 31:  On October 24 an ABA 5 Variegated Flycatcher was discovered at good old Evergreen Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale, FL by Russ Titus, one of south Florida’s birders extraordinaire. Word spread fast and over the course of a week the bird not surprisingly drew enthusiasts from all over the US and Canada. While the species is common in South America, this was only the sixth documented sighting of this species in North America – a rare visitor indeed.

I was in Connecticut at the time the bird was discovered, but by coincidence happened to have some business to attend to in Boynton Beach on November 2, so I flew into Fort Lauderdale on October 31 and headed right for Evergreen Cemetery, which is only fifteen minutes from the airport. The bird was easily seen by various observers all afternoon, most often in one or the other of the two large ficus trees it favored, but by the very next day it was gone. Variegated Flycatcher represents the first new ABA species for this web site since the Colorado chickens trip this past April.

On November 3 around 5 PM I happened to spot a flock of some two dozen Nanday Parakeets on the west side of Lyons Road in Delray Beach about three hundred yards south of Atlantic Avenue in exactly the same spot where I saw some in May of 2012 at 5:30 PM. For out of staters looking for this species, this may be a good spot to stake out around this time of day.