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Posted by Alan Bromberg on 09:47:44 02/21/06
My wife and I are Maryland birders who visited Everglades National Park on February 19. Late in the afternoon, we stopped at the Long Pine Key campground to look for Pine Warblers. While we were there we spotted both a Brown-headed Nuthatch and an Eastern Bluebird. I have birded quite a bit in South Florida since my parents retired there and have visited the park several times, but I couldn't recall ever having seen the nuthatch there before. My curiosity got the best of me, and we stopped at the visitor's center to check some of the books in the gift shop. All of them indicated that the nuthatch shouldn't have been there, and the latest edition of the ABA guide states that both the nuthatch and the bluebird were extirpated in the park in the 1990's. Is this sighting of any significance, or have these birds been reappearing in the park recently?
One other sighting that I'm curious about. On the 18th, we went to Wakodahatchee, and on the way there spotted a flock of Black-hooded Parakeets along Atlantic Avenue right after we got off the turnpike. What is the status of this species in Florida? A comment in the latest issue of "Birding" indicates that the ABA's Exotic Species subcommittee is considering adding it to the checklist.
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