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Posted by Bryant Roberts on 20:54:20 01/07/07
I was able to get down to Everglades National Park for three days and two nights from the fourth to the sixth of this month, with stops on the way down and the way back at Lucky Hammock. Among the most interesting birds seen were Short-eared Owl, Lesser Nighthawks, Least Flycatcher, Western Kingbirds, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, Clay-colored Sparrows, Nelson s Sharp-tailed Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrows, Dickcissel, and Orchard Oriole. Other birds of interest observed included Short-tailed Hawks, Peregrine Falcons, White-crowned Pigeons, Barn Owl, Yellow-throated Vireo, Magnolia Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat, and Baltimore Orioles.
Things got off to a slow start at Royal Palm Hammock on Thursday morning but there was a Yellow-throated Vireo with a nice little warbler flock in the Strangler Fig south of the parking area. A heard but not seen Yellow-breasted Chat at Lucky Hammock and my first Short-tailed Hawk of the trip soaring over the Annex were the highlights of that stop. All the usual pineland birds were seen at the Long Pine Key Campground and I was able to photograph a Florida Leafwing Butterfly north of the picnic area. Other than a Peregrine Falcon flying fast and low near the spur road to Mahogany Hammock and a beautiful antique Ford at Pa-hay-okee those stops and a stop at West Lake were uneventful. There were only a few Roseate Spoonbills in the rookery area at Paurotis Pond, the water levels in this part of the Everglades are high, and it does not look like a good year for nesting wading birds.
It was late afternoon when I arrived at Flamingo and after a quick check of the area across the road from the west end of the Visitor Center parking lot to see the Western Kingbirds and Scissor-tailed Flycatchers I set up camp. Afterwards I made a quick walk around Eco Pond then headed out to the B and C Loop camping areas to catch the sunset. In the twilight, I saw a large owl hunting low over the coastal prairie, which seemed too dark for a Barn Owl, at that time I was not certain, but events the following evening convinced me that it was a Short-eared Owl.
I got to Eco Pond at about sunrise on Friday morning, other than the Greater Scaup the only unusual bird seen was a very cooperative Nelson s Sharp-tailed Sparrow on the north side of the pond. Since the storms last year the pond has changed from being the only accessible freshwater habitat in the area to an unusually rich saltwater basin and it will remain so for the foreseeable future. There are no plans at this time to restore the flow of fresh water to the pond. The American and Least Bitterns, Purple Gallinules, and Soras are gone, but have been replaced for now by spectacular numbers of wading birds and larger numbers of ducks. All that remains of the Cattails and Ludwigia are stubble poking out of the mud.
After an unsuccessful search for the Vermilion Flycatcher at T Loop, I went back to the kingbird area across from the visitor center. The Western Kingbirds were easy to find but it took some walking into the brush to find the Scissor-tailed Flycatchers along with Painted Buntings, Baltimore Orioles, an Orchard Oriole, and a Least Flycatcher. My main birding project that day was a walk to the end of Bear Lake Trail. Eleven species of warblers were seen there including Northern Waterthrush, Worm-eating Warbler, and Magnolia Warbler. Several White-crowned Pigeons flushed from the treetops and were the only ones seen on this trip.
Sunset was spent back at Eco Pond where at 6:15 PM a large low flying owl whose body was darker than its underwings put in an appearance, the clincher that it was a Short-eared Owl were the lighter patches visible at the base of its primaries. At 6:30 PM, a Barn Owl made a higher pass west of the pond silhouetted against the twilight. On my way out, I ran into Andy Bankert and his party who had also seen a Short-eared Owl north of C loop that evening.
On Saturday morning, I got up early enough to see the top three stars of the Southern Cross poking over the low cloudbank over Florida Bay and made it to Eco Pond before sunrise where little new was seen. The female Vermilion Flycatcher finally cooperated and I was able to spot her about 75 yards northeast of the turnoff road to sites 28-36 on the T Loop.
My main objective that morning was to check the Coastal Prairie Trail and especially the old Cotton Pickers Camp area directly southwest of where the Bayshore Loop goes off southward from the Coastal Prairie Trail a few hundred yards west of end of C Loop. Don t look for trail markers, they are long gone, but there are a few colored ribbon blazes. I had found good numbers of sparrows and buntings in this area in late October and wanted to check it again for wintering birds. Along the trail towards the bay, I encountered several dozen Savannah Sparrows, about a dozen Indigo Buntings, a few Painted Buntings, and a couple of Swamp and Grasshopper Sparrows. After leaving the trail near where it reached the shore and heading northwest through the brush things got more interesting. After flushing up a few Chipping Sparrows and Clay-colored Sparrows three immature White-crowned Sparrows came up and perched with the others in the brush piles. A little later, a female Dickcissel joined them and allowed excellent views. The final treat was an adult White-crowned Sparrow. There is no telling what else may turn up in this area.
After breaking camp, I finally took my scope out to Eco Pond to get a really good look at that darned Scaup, which naturally wasn t there for the first time during my stay. After a stop at the Visitor Center to check the sandbar and make some notes in the wildlife sighting book I headed north towards home. My final birding project of the trip was to see if the Lesser Nighthawks were still flying at dusk around Lucky Hammock. The dove hunt was just ending as I arrived a little after sunset and I parked at the end of the line of parked vehicles a bit south of the hammock. The first nighthawk appeared over the western edge of the field at 6:00 PM and by 6:05 the number had risen to eight. By 6:10 they began flying east and passed a couple of hundred Yards south of me. At that range in the twilight the wing patches were barely visible so the identification had to be made on the basis of their overall shape, erratic bat-like flight, silence, and their flight time and path. I feel safe calling them Lesser Nighthawks.
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