Since I was pretty close to the original author of the Florida Birds field card, I can tell you the difficulty of assigning status to birds that really don’t exactly match any particular seasonality. Of course, Ovenbirds are normally spring/fall migrants (never summer breeders), but they are seen wintering rarely in North Florida (I saw one as a boy at Black Lake). Obviously these are a species with less than 1% of their population wintering in the Deep South and the rest trans-Gulf migrants.
It isn’t too hard to think of a few more, so I’ll (admittedly) estimate several: ~30% of Blue-winged Teal winter south of the US; ~75% of the Peregrines do; ~96% of Black-and-white Warblers do; ~80% of the White-fronted Geese; and so forth.
I *am* convinced that there is a higher and higher percentage of birds wintering in the States and NOT heading to the Tropics, perhaps due to climate change. Given the number of songbirds that perish each year in the migration, they might unwittingly save themselves.
I hope all my friends in Tally are doing well.
Jim in Galveston
From: mchill7 via NFLbirds <nflbirds...>
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2026 4:06 PM
To: NFLBirds <nflbirds...>
Subject: [NFLbirds] PUFI
Went to the Leon County / Jefferson county border out Hwy 90 today. At a friend’s house we counted 5 female purple finch and one male PUFI! With that awful weather north of us, I have been expecting more interesting birds at my house. Also, there was an ovenbird lurking around the native azaleas. (my green card lists ovenbird: 8b-5d) I’m looking for juncos!.. Michael Hill, Tallahassee
