Marion County bird watchers set 2024 records

Lesser scaup passing the moon [Photo courtesy Tom Hince]

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Posted February 18, 2025 | By Michael Warren, Special to the Gazette

Local birders soared past previous records in 2024 for the number of species spotted in Marion County. Tom Hince of Dunnellon spotted 268 species during the year and became the first person to record 300 species in the county.

“Tropical storms that roared through the county totally changed the game,” Hince said. “It brought a bounty of 15 or more additional species, greatly increasing everyone’s year totals.”

To date, 310 species of birds have been recorded in Marion County on eBird, an app from Cornell Lab of Ornithology that maintains a database of bird sightings.

In addition to the storms, the increased number of sightings can be attributed to the rapid growth of birdwatching since the COVID pandemic, as well as the proliferation of apps such as Merlin, which helps users identify species by photograph or sound.

Like many new birders, Tami Reece of Ocala took up birding during the pandemic. With a few years of experience behind her, she set out to make 2024 a “big year” by breaking Hince’s previous record for the number of species observed in a single year.

She started out with the goal of a “big day,” during which she recorded 107 species along with the help of a few friends from the Marion Audubon Society. Then she set out to complete a “big month” last January, where she recorded 152 species. But as the weeks stretched into months, finding new species became ever more challenging.

By the end of the year, she had logged 998 hours birding—not including drive time and research. Reece not only broke the county’s previous record of 251 birds, set in 2021, but surpassed it by documenting 253 species, including 18 that were entirely new to her.

“It’s kind of like a full-time job; maybe even two,” Reece said with a laugh.

So, what occupies someone’s mind during a thousand hours in the field?

“Birds, birds, and more birds,” she said. “I had hopes each day of finding a new rare bird. But by December I was preoccupied with ‘when will this year get over with!'”

Beyond simply identifying birds, Reece challenged herself to photograph as many as possible to provide visual proof of her findings.

“Birding is largely an honor system, but when it comes to rare species, documentation is key,” Reece explained. “A picture speaks a thousand words.”

Among Reece’s most exciting discoveries was a Vaux’s swift, a bird never recorded in Marion County. She spotted it at the Ocala Wetland Recharge Park, a favorite local hotspot, after noticing an odd group of swifts flying overhead. Carefully analyzing their flight patterns and coloration, she determined the swift was an out-of-place visitor.
For Hince, the most exciting bird of the year was the black-capped petrel he spotted on Lake Weir after Hurricane Milton had passed.

“This is strictly an offshore/pelagic bird that has only been seen in the interior of Florida a few times,” he said.

Hince’s record-shattering year didn’t come easily. He’s been birding for more than 60 years. In 2024, he spent more than 100 days hunting birds. And there’s far more to birding than merely “birdwatching.”

“My effort was very targeted and focused. I spent hundreds of hours studying weather and bird movements on the internet. A typical day started two hours before dawn making sure I was at my destination very early. On many great days, the best birding is early as birds orient themselves after a long night of migration or being blown around by storms. I rarely saw other birders until I was on my way out of a site, and when many of the best opportunities were over.

But not every quest was successful. Hince searched more than a dozen times before finding an elusive American bittern, an uncommon but regular winter visitor.

And Reece spent more than 40 hours searching for a yellow-crowned night heron, an uncommon but not unfamiliar local species.

“I kept hearing reports that people were seeing it, and I went back and forth so many times,” Reece said. “I never found it.”

For those interested in learning about birds and birdwatching, to go marionaudubon.org and click on the “getting started” tab.