Florida 2009 – More Exotics and the Everglades

With the tour designed to give us a little leeway should a Caribbean vagrant show up, we had the opportunity to head to Bill Baggs State Park, at the tip of Key Biscayne, for a LaSagra’s Flycatcher that was banded the previous afternoon.

Other birders had also come to look which always helps, but the birding was slow. Where was migration this spring? All we could find was a Northern Parula, Black-and-white and Worm-eating Warbler along with a summer resident Gray Kingbird (above).

It is always a wonderful feeling when we go after a target species and it obliges. Driving a neighborhood block a pair of Red-whiskered Bulbuls (above) were spotted, their crest making them distinctive. It was soon obvious that they were courting – following each other into bushes and trees, onto wires and finally away to another location. It has taken many years for Common Myna to officially make it onto the North America list. I’m not sure what took so long as they are commonly encountered in Homestead. especially around fast food and convenience stores! The ones we saw were hanging around the McDonalds, Denny’s and Hess station that line “the Gateway to the Keys”.

There is little in the way of noticeable avian activity at this time of year, along the 38 miles stretch of endless sawgrass, cypress, hardwood hammocks, pinelands and mangroves that makes the Everglades National Park unique. One has to stop at designation sites such as Paurotis Pond to view the raucous nesting colony of Great Egrets, Wood Storks and Roseate Spoonbills. As we watched them fly back and forth from the colony our attention was diverted to Eastern Kingbirds making sorties and a White-eyed Vireo foraging amongst the buttonwoods.

At the southern tip of the Everglades is the Flamingo marina which happens to be the best place to see basking American Crocodiles (above). The Florida Bay is shallow as it is, but at low tide a sand bar is viewable from the visitor’s center breezeway. As Ospreys (below) dove for fish, two Caspian Terns were amongst a dozen smaller Royal Tern, 50 Black Skimmers and Laughing Gulls on the sandbar. Brown Pelicans stood out and waders included Semipalmated Plover, Black-bellied Plover, Red Knot, Willet and Whimbrel. Along the edge of the mangrove islands, Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons were patiently hunting as a Reddish Egret danced about. We also found our first Great White Heron.

Next…..The Keys