Posted by Bryant Roberts on December 10, 2002 at 17:58:00:
This weekend I went down to Everglades National Park for two
days of birding and camping. Saturday morning my first stop was
Lucky Hammock where I ran into John Boyd who was headed
down to Flamingo for a day trip. We waited around the south side
of the Hammock to see what would show up and were rewarded
with a fair amount of bird activity along with good looks at a LEAST
FLYCATCHER and three SANDHILL CRANES (more cranes were
calling from the fields east of the road) as well as a very brief
glimpse at a YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT. John had already been
to the east side of the road where he'd seen SAVANNAH and
GRASSHOPPER SPARROWS so I went across the road while he
headed for the Cole Visitor Center to look for hummingbirds. I soon
found the sparrows along with a couple of PAINTED BUNTINGS
along with a rather late BOBOLINK. I caught up with John at the
visitors center where he had located an adult female
RUFOUS/ALLEN'S HUMMINGBIRD but there was no sign of the
Black-chinned. The next stop was Royal Palm Hammock where
the best birds were two dark morph SHORT-TAILED HAWKS
soaring over the parking area and AMERICAN BITTERN, PURPLE
GALLINULE, and YELLOW-CROWNED NIGHT HERON along
Anhinga Trail. We then headed down to Snake Bight with a brief
and unproductive stop at Paurotis Pond and a slow down at
Mrazek Pond. The walk down Snake Bight Road was unusually
birdless, except for the frequent flocks of AMERICAN
GOLDFINCHES calling as they passed overhead, as they had
done on all our previous stops. Warblers were few and far between
on the road as they were all weekend. When we reached Snake
Bight the tide was unusually low, not a good thing when looking for
Flamingos there, but that day we were lucky. Off to the east
southeast we spotted seven adult GREATER FLAMINGOS resting
and preening. My next birding stop was at Eco Pond where John
had already seen a GULL-BILLED TERN hunting over the pond, a
walk around the pond turned up the usual waders and marsh birds
along with a small flock of PAINTED BUNTINGS and at least a
couple of INDIGO BUNTINGS. I had to break off from the birding to
set up camp but John kept watch at the pond for LESSER
NIGHTHAWKS, when I checked with him after dark as he was
adding up his day list I learned that he had seen six over the pond
at about six PM.
Sunday morning started off with a cuckoo flying across the
campground, at this time of the year mangrove would be the most
likely suspect but the look was brief and the lighting bad. I walked over
to Eco Pond for the sunrise bird show, which was spectacular as usual,
ROSEATE SPOONBILLS seeming especially numerous. Some unusual flight notes
drew my attention to a tight little flock of five CHESTNUT
MANNIKINS/TRICOLORED MUNIAS one adult/male and four immature/females.
These were moving actively around the exotic plant removal area southwest
of the pond and were easily located by their calls that were given every
time they took to the air. Another bit of excitement occurred when a
PEREGRINE made a few passes at a flock of waders in the coastal prairie
north of the pond. The rest of sunday was spent visiting various areas
from Paurotis Pond south and dropping in on old friends and former
co-workers but not much new was seen, a late afternoon walk out a little
way on the Coastal Prairie Trail produced another dark morph SHORT-TAILED
HAWK and a flock of BARN SWALLOWS, but the high point for me was finding
that a little colony of EASTERN PYGMY BLUE butterflies that I'd found last
year was going stronger than ever. My last stop was after sunset at Eco
Pond to try to see the Lesser Nighthawks but this didn't go so well, at
about 5:40 it started to rain and it continued until it got to dark to see
anything.