For most of the year, the Forster’s tern lives on the coast. But on an afternoon in the middle of February, the sleek, black-capped bird could be seen at Depot Park’s pond in downtown Gainesville.
Tim Hardin lifted his binoculars to follow the crow-sized bird’s swerving movements. He watched as it danced through the air, occasionally diving down to the water in hopes of snatching fish from just beneath the surface.
“They’re so buoyant,” he said. “They’re like butterflies.”
The 40-year-old vice president of the Alachua Audubon Society didn’t start seriously birding until he moved to the county in March 2019. He was quickly enraptured by the diversity of birds and welcoming community of birdwatchers that make the county a unique birding environment.
A geographical ‘venn diagram’
Alachua County’s geographical location is partly to blame for its luck in drawing in a multitude of birds, Hardin said. At its position in North Central Florida, the county is “in that venn diagram” encompassing the ranges of both northern and southern birds, he said.
It’s also central enough to avoid extreme weather from hurricanes or tropical storms brewing in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean, the winds of which blow uncommon species into the county, Hardin said.
During Hurricane Idalia in August 2023, Hardin said he spotted a flamingo, a species not usually seen north of the Caribbean.
“The craziest stuff shows up in Alachua,” he said.
Most of the rare bird observations are due to “a lot of people detecting things,” Hardin said. If Alachua County didn’t have such a rich community of birders to spot rare species as they appear, he said, many of the birds the area draws in might never be noticed or shared.
Over 7,000 eBirders are registered in the Alachua County region. EBird is a website where birders report their findings to observe trends, track personal goals or compete for a rank in the site’s Top 100 for most species spotted, in which Hardin is currently fifth in the county.
Hardin considers himself a competitive birder, he said, and has broken Alachua County’s Big Year record for most bird species seen in a year five times in a row. Last year, he observed 284 species.
The birding community
If it weren’t for the birding community’s welcoming attitude, Hardin said he might not have gotten involved. He’s been low-income for the majority of his time in Gainesville, he said, but noticed birding “has a fairly low barrier of entry,” and the birders he’s interacted with are generous.
Hardin’s binoculars and scope, a telescope-like magnifying device often set up on a tripod for prolonged viewing, were donated to him by other birders in the county.
“Everyone just is very supportive in material and immaterial ways,” he said.
It’s a source of pride for Hardin to share the experience with new birders by offering scope views or teaching others how to identify species, he said. The county’s rich community also draws in birdwatchers from neighboring counties in an “extended family” of birders, he said.
Rex Rowan has been one of Hardin’s mentors since he started birding, having been involved in the hobby for 50 years — nearly 40 of which were spent in Alachua County.
The 68-year-old works with Hardin as one of the county’s resident eBird reviewers. It’s their responsibility to confirm observations on the website when they’re flagged by the site’s filters.
“If somebody reports, for instance, a dodo, an extinct bird in Alachua County,” Rowan said, “Well, that's something that the filter will catch, because it's been programmed to know that there are no dodos anymore.”
When an observation is flagged, Rowan said he or Hardin will ask the user to describe what they saw to determine if it’s an accurate identification.
A familiar face
One of the county’s most iconic species, Rowan said, is the sandhill crane. It serves as the mascot of the Alachua Audubon Society, with one dancing in the organization’s logo. A wall of the Alachua County Commission room is also decorated with artwork of the flying birds.
It’s recognizable because of its tall stature and trumpeting call, Rowan said, making it hard to miss.
“It is such an appealing bird,” he said. “We could try to make the sedge wren the most popular bird in Alachua County, and it wouldn’t work very well, simply because most people don't know what it is.”
The sandhill crane’s northern population spends the winter in South Florida, he said. Alachua County usually sees a mass exodus of the birds in mid-to-late February as they fly north again.
The week of Feb. 8 has been the birds’ most common departure time over the past five years. An average of 262 birds per hour were reported on eBird during the week this year. 2021 saw a slightly later peak week and the highest number in the last five years; the week of Feb. 15, 2021, reported an average of just over 333 birds per hour.
Approximately 25,000 sandhill cranes winter in Florida, Rowan said, anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 of which spend the winter on Paynes Prairie. The prairie is a popular “staging area” for the birds, providing enough resources for them to rest and feed between legs of their flight — a layover before they continue their journey north.
The prairie’s shallow, flat expanse of water also allows the cranes to remain safe from bobcats and coyotes, which are common predators, Rowan said.
While most of the cranes seen flying across Gainesville’s sky in February were heading to their homes up north, Florida has its own breeding population of the birds, said Scott Robinson, a professor of ecosystem conservation at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Ordway Lab. The Ordway Lab studies bird conservation and impacts of factors like habitat fragmentation.
The Florida sandhill crane subspecies stays in the state year round, and at least 200 can be found in Alachua County, Robinson said.
The subspecies was in shaky shape at the beginning of the 20th century because of habitat loss and hunting, according to UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Hunting the bird has been illegal since the passage of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, but the Florida sandhill crane still faces threats of habitat loss due to wetland drainage and urban development.
However, the breeding population is on the rise, Robinson said, and he thinks it’s because the birds are quick to adapt.
“They’re able to do pretty well in human-dominated areas,” he said. “They habituate to humans very, very well.”
Some residents have reported seeing the cranes at their birdfeeders, Robinson said, and the birds are commonly found crossing the street or walking through parking lots with their young.
A ‘great place’ for green space
Alachua County has a somewhat even mix of urbanized and conserved land, Robinson said. Even though development has increased over the years, especially in Gainesville’s Butler Plaza region, the county also offers plenty of green space.
Over 33,000 acres are protected by the county through its Alachua County Forever initiative as of May 2022, according to the website. The county has 11 preserves open to the public.
“It's really a great place to be for habitat conservation,” Robinson said.
According to the eBird hotspot map, Alachua County has dozens of marked hotspots, with three labeled as having over 250 species observed at each: Palm Point Park at Newnans Lake, Sweetwater Wetlands Park and Paynes Prairie’s La Chua Trail.
The next nearest hotspots of that magnitude aren’t found until the Gulf or Atlantic coasts.
Similar to Hardin, Robinson said the county’s avid birders account in part for the vast number of observations. With many coming from UF or Santa Fe College, Robinson estimates at least 100 “outstanding” birdwatchers call Alachua County home.
“Sometimes we simply see more,” he said. “We look harder.”
Contact Bailey Diem at bdiem@alligator.org. Follow her on X @BaileyDiem.
Bailey Diem is the Spring 2025 Metro Editor and a second-year journalism major. She has spent past semesters reporting for the university and metro desks. In her free time, Bailey enjoys playing guitar or getting lost in a book.
