I met Mary & Paul in Miami on 28th October. 193 birds & a lot of miles later, we flew back from Orlando on 16th November. We basically drove clockwise around the state, going as far South as Flamingo in the Everglades & almost to the Georgian border in the North. We had a fantastic time as usual, and also as usual, came home totally exhausted.
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| On the roof of the Kendall Baptist Hospital, Miami, looking for the local 'exotics'. The only 'countable' one we found was the Red-whiskered Bulbul |
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| Obsessive? Us? On the beach at Crandon Park. |
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| At 'Lucky Hammock' near the entrance to the Everglades National Park. It's by far the biggest birding car we've had! |
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| Really? In the Everglades NP |
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| Yes! They pulled out the rubber trim & wrecked the windscreen wipers. We covered up! |
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| The Everglades Mozzie uniform. |
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| On the Tamiami Trail Loop Road....we were about to get out of the car to look at a sparrow, then we looked in the roadside ditch a few feet away. We stayed in the car. |
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| Still on the Loop Road in the dark, we saw glowing eyes.... |
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| ......we managed to find, & Mary managed to digiscope the obliging Whip-poor-will. Luckily we didn't get eaten! One of 23 Lifers on the trip (or 26 if I include the officially non-countable birds) |
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| The Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary was a bit quiet, but it's an amazing place & well worth the visit. |
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| It did have some huge Lubber grasshoppers! |
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| We'd been looking forward to the J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge. It didn't disappoint. |
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| Our only Florida Scrub Jay, in Oscar Scherer State Park as it was getting dark. |
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| Not relaxing on the beach at Fort de Soto Park. Found a Long-billed Curlew, which is pretty rare in Florida. |
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At a Florida Twitch on Honeymoon Island State Park. We didn't change our plans to go, we just got lucky! Saw the Townsend's Solitaire & met Andy from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission. I'd emailed the FFWCC for information on the Great Florida Birding Trail. Andy replied & offered to take us out if we visited Tallahassee. We did, & he did, but first we bumped into him at Honeymoon Island after he left home at 3am for the twitch! (http://limeybirder.wordpress.com/2013/11/08/townsends-solitaire-in-florida/)
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| Townsend's Solitaire, it should be way out West. This is apparently the 2nd ever in Florida. |
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| Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park.....lots of scary alligators, far too close for our liking. |
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| Happy to oblige! |
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| It was worth running the gauntlet for fab views of a female Vermillion Flycatcher |
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| Highlight of the trip was a boat ride at Wakulla Springs State Park. Scenery was amazing (apparently some of the 1950's Tarzan movies were filmed here), but best of all were..... |
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| ...the manatees. We were lucky as it had been quite cold the previous night, causing lots more than usual to swim up river to the springs. |
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| We met up with Andy, his wife Julie, daughter Maisie & a few other members of the Tallahassee Bird Club for a morning at St Marks National Wildlife Refuge. |
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| St Marks was huge & produced 9 new species for the trip, at least some of which we would never have found or identified without the local assistance! A male Vermillion Flycatcher was the star of the show! |
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| Melissa from the Tallahassee Bird Club accompanied us to Tall Timbers Research Station early the following morning in search of Bachman's Sparrow. Unfortunately we didn't find one, but we did add another 7 species to the trip list, largely thanks to Melissa! |
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| Our least scenic birding site....Tredinick Pond in Jacksonville. The pond was home to Hooded Merganser, Ring-necked Duck, Black Scoter, Lesser Scaup (trip tick), & Canvasback (Lifer!). Not bad for a small pond in the middle of a huge construction site! |
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Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, a fantastic place. Met a very helpful local who gave us some tips & some rather nice Nikon lens cloths! (http://thomasjdunkerton.zenfolio.com)
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| Canaveral National Seashore, attempted sea-watch: we came, we got blown away, we gave up! |
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| A Snail Kite, our second but closest look at Joe Overstreet Landing |
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| The sign of a great bird trip......a filthy car! |
Here's the full list of birds seen on the trip. 3 of them aren't officially countable according to American Birding Association rules, but we did! Where we only saw birds in one or 2 places, I've shown where we saw them. My lifers are highlighted. (I have absolutely no idea why Wild Turkey is white....bizarre!!)
| Black-bellied Whistling Duck | |
| Snow Goose | Merritt Island NWR |
| Canada Goose | |
| Muscovy Duck | |
| Wood Duck | Wakulla Springs & 3 lakes WMA |
| Gadwall | Everglades NP |
| American Wigeon | |
| Mallard | |
| Mottled Duck | |
| Blue-winged Teal | |
| Northern Shoveller | |
| Northern Pintail | Merritt Island NWR |
| Green-winged Teal | |
| Canvasback | Tredinick Pond, Jacksonville |
| Redhead | St Marks NWR |
| Ring-necked Duck | |
| Lesser Scaup | |
| Black Scoter | |
| Bufflehead | Paynes Prairie SP |
| Hooded Merganser | |
| Red-breasted Merganser | Merritt Island NWR |
| Wild Turkey | 3 Lakes WMA |
| Ruddy Duck | |
| Common Loon | Osceola National Forest |
| Pied-billed Grebe | |
| Wood Stork | |
| Magnificent Frigatebird | Fort de Soto |
| Northern Gannet | Cape Canaveral National Seashore |
| Double-crested Cormorant | |
| Anhinga | |
| American White Pelican | |
| Brown Pelican | |
| American Bittern | |
| Great Blue heron | |
| Great Egret | |
| Snowy Egret | |
| Little Blue Heron | |
| Tricolored Heron | |
| Reddish Egret | |
| Cattle Egret | |
| Green Heron | |
| Black-crowned Night Heron | |
| Yellow-crowned Night Heron | |
| White Ibis | |
| Glossy Ibis | |
| Roseate Spoonbill | Everglades NP & Click Ponds, Viera Wetlands |
| Black Vulture | |
| Turkey Vulture | |
| Osprey | |
| Snail Kite | Shark Valley (Everglades) & Joe Overstreet Landing |
| Bald Eagle | |
| Northern Harrier | |
| Red-shouldered Hawk | |
| Broad-winged Hawk | Kendall, Miami |
| Short-tailed hawk | Everglades (dark morph) & Paynes Prairie (light morph) |
| Red-tailed Hawk | |
| Crested Caracara | |
| American Kestrel | |
| Merlin | |
| Peregrine Falcon | |
| Sora | |
| Purple Gallinule | |
| Common Gallinule | |
| American Coot | |
| Limpkin | |
| Sandhill Crane | |
| Black-bellied Plover | |
| American Golden Plover | |
| Semipalmated Plover | St Marks NWR |
| Killdeer | |
| American Oystercatcher | |
| Black-necked Stilt | St Marks NWR |
| American Avocet | |
| Spotted Sandpiper | |
| Greater Yellowlegs | |
| Willet | |
| Lesser Yellowlegs | |
| Long-billed Curlew | Fort De Soto |
| Ruddy Turnstone | |
| Red Knot | Merritt Island |
| Sanderling | |
| Semipalmated Sandpiper | |
| Western Sandpiper | |
| Least Sandpiper | |
| Pectoral Sandpiper | |
| Dunlin | |
| Short-billed Dowitcher | |
| Long-billed Dowitcher | |
| Wilson's Snipe | |
| Bonaparte's Gull | Click Pond, Viera Wetlands |
| Laughing Gull | |
| Ring-billed Gull | |
| Herring GUll | |
| Lesser Black-backed Gull | |
| Greater Black-backed Gull | |
| Gull-billed Tern | |
| Caspian Tern | Huguenot Memorial Park |
| Common Tern | |
| Forster's Tern | |
| Royal Tern | |
| Sandwich Tern | |
| Black Skimmer | |
| Rock Pigeon | |
| White-crowned Pigeon | Everglades NP |
| Eurasian Collared-Dove | |
| White-winged Dove | Everglades NP |
| Mourning Dove | |
| Common Ground-Dove | Hagues Dairy |
| Monk Parakeet | |
| Nanday Parakeet | St Petersburg |
| Eastern Screech Owl | Miller Drive, Miami |
| Great Horned Owl | Guana River |
| Burrowing Owl | Everglades NP |
| Barred Owl | Everglades NP |
| Eastern Whi-poor-will | Tamiami Trail |
| Ruby-throated Hummingbird | SteinbergNature Centre |
| Belted Kingfisher | |
| Red-headed Woodpecker | Tall Timbers Research Station |
| Red-bellied Woodpecker | |
| Yellow-bellied Sapsucker | |
| Downy Woodpecker | |
| Red-cockaded Woodpecker | Osceola National Forest |
| Northern Flicker | |
| Pileated Woodpecker | |
| Eastern Phoebe | |
| Vermillion Flycatcher | Paynes Prairie Preserve SP & St Marks NWR |
| Great Crested Flycatcher | Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary |
| Loggerhead Shrike | |
| White-eyed Vireo | |
| Blue-headed Vireo | |
| Blue Jay | |
| Florida Scrub-jay | Oscar Scherer SP |
| American Crow | |
| Fish Crow | |
| Tree Swallow | |
| Barn Swallow | |
| Carolina Chickadee | Tall Timbers Research Station |
| Tufted Titmouse | |
| White-breasted Nuthatch | |
| Brown-headed Nuthatch | |
| Carolina Wren | |
| House Wren | |
| Marsh Wren | |
| Blue-gray Gnatcatcher | |
| Red-whiskered Bulbul | nr Kenwood Elementary School, Kendall, Miami |
| Ruby-crowned Kinglet | |
| Eastern Bluebird | |
| Townsend's Solitaire | Honeymoon Island SP |
| Swainson's Thrush | A D Barnes Park, Miami |
| Hermit Thrush | Tall Timbers Research Station |
| American Robin | Merritt Island NWR |
| Gray Catbird | |
| Northern Mockingbird | |
| Brown Thrasher | Everglades NP |
| European Starling | |
| Common Myna | Tamiami Trail (Miccosuka Restaurant) |
| Ovenbird | Bill Baggs Cape Florida SP |
| Worm-eating Warbler | A. D. Barnes Park, Miami |
| Blue-winged Warbler | A. D. Barnes Park, Miami |
| Black-and-white Warbler | |
| Tennessee Warbler | A. D. Barnes Park, Miami |
| Common Yellowthroat | |
| American Redstart | |
| Northern Parula | |
| Magnolia Warbler | |
| Black-throated Blue Warbler | Matheson Hammock County Park & Florida City |
| Palm Warbler | |
| Pine Warbler | |
| Yellow-rumped Warbler | |
| Yellow-throated Warbler | |
| Prairie Warbler | |
| Black-throated Green Warbler | A. D. Barnes Park, Miami |
| Eastern Towhee | Honeymoon Island SP |
| Chipping Sparrow | Tall Timbers Research Station |
| Savannah Sparrow | |
| Nelson's Sparrow | Huguenot Memorial Park |
| Song Sparrow | St Marks NWR |
| Swamp Sparrow | St Marks NWR |
| White-throated Sparrow | Tall Timbers Research Station |
| Summer Tanger | A. D Barnes Park, Miami |
| Northern Cardinal | |
| Rose-breasted Grosbeak | A.D Barnes Park, Miami |
| Blue Grosbeak | A.D Barnes Park, Miami & Tall Timbers |
| Indigo Bunting | Everglades NP |
| Painted Bunting | Southern Glades WEA |
| Red-winged Blackbird | |
| Eastern Meadowlark | |
| Common Grackle | |
| Boat-tailed Grackle | |
| House Finch | Hernando Beach |
| House Sparrow | |
| Mitred Parakeet | Miami (Not officially countable) |
| Orange-winged Parakeet | Miami (Not officially countable) |
| Whooping Crane | Three Lakes WMA (not officially countable) |
As an annual visitor to the Sunshine State I enjoyed reading about your Florida trip. I hope you appreciate how lucky you were, some of your "Ticks" are brilliant…. Vermillion FC for example. You did fantastic.
ReplyDeleteCharles
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments, I'm glad you enjoyed the post. It's a great place to bird....and yes, we do appreciate our luck!
Thanks! It was another great trip.
ReplyDelete