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Posted by Hawker on 23:54:45 08/29/07
The urge to see the white-tailed kites again had been rolling around in my brain for a week, and I finally caved into the overwhelming desire. I was off work at 11:00 pm Saturday, asleep by midnight and up Sunday at 6 am, busting it west to the Holey Land.
I saw no kites along the paved road. Drat, temporarily thwarted, but I still had a chance to make a good day out of it. I snapped the old Thundbird into second gear and crossed over to the high road on top of the south dike. No sooner than I gained the crest of the embankment when two white tailed deer bolted in front of the car. Archery deer season had opened Saturday, and a few hunters were working the area. I traveled out to the western pumping station and then continued north on the high road.
When I am working this sort of terrain solo I do it at a slow saunter, stopping from time to time glassing the road, way ahead, as well as both sides of the trail.
Through the Vortexes I noticed a pair of turkey vultures feeding far up the trace. Well beyond the birds were two mammals casually walking on the road, moving in the same direction as my travel. They were so far out even my 10xVipers could not resolve them.
My first thought was they were a pair of foxes. I crept the car forward and was slowly gaining on them but, every time I stopped to glass them I of course lost ground. Eventually they slowed their pace and the gap closed. After what seemed liked an eternity they finally noticed my car, turned sideways, paused for a few moments staring directly at me, then they slowly eased off the levee into the melted into grass. I noted the time, 7:50 am. They were a pair of bobcats.
Upon arrival at the north SFWMD structure I turned around and headed back to the cross over at the bridge and took the lower trail. I saw about a dozen eastern kingbirds, scads of barn swallows and another swallow species I could not identify along with mottled ducks and ospreys. Once back on the paved road I spotted a hatchling Florida soft shelled turtle, and scooped up the little pancake placing it safely in the ditch across the road.
Once I arrived at 27 I had to make a decision; head home or sally to STA-5. I turned north stopping at the King s Ranch Sod Farm. There were some shorebirds there. I have no earthly idea what they were. I am notoriously inept at shore bird and warbler identification. I did however blunder helplessly into a half a dozen killdeer standing on the road. With pride I did successfully identify them! That is the very reason I joined the TAS. It is my fond hope that some kind hearted people in this fine organization can help me attain a higher level of identification skills than my present meager ability.
Before taking on STA-5 I made side trip out Highway 880. Along the way to Roth Sod I noticed a large number of wading birds in a flooded field and pulled over. It was cluster of wood storks, spoonbills, black necked stilts, undifferentiated shore birds, mottled ducks, egrets, glossy and white ibises.
From there it was east to Roth Sod, and more black necked stilts, snowy egrets, killdeer, glossy and white ibises. In two locations I came upon large concentrations of group feeding wood storks, great egrets and cattle egrets. I also rescued a peninsula cooter turtle near the entrance at 880, and then headed for Sam Senter Road. The only new species picked up there was the common night hawk.
I had a quick lunch and headed to STA-5. After reading the accounts of the TAS trip on 8/25/2007, my report pales by comparison and I won t put you through the grueling ordeal of reading the paucity of common species I found. I did however nearly tread on a mid sized corn snake while there.
I headed down 846 and came across a pair of caracaras and some crows. Cannon Hammock Park produced nothing save two gray squirrels. Limpkin Lane (Mott) was totally devoid of the crying birds as the Seminoles call them. I have seen groups of over dozen of them there on occasion. Look in the canal just east of the water control structure.
The Holey Land was not far piece out of the way once I hit 27 coming off the Alley so I give it one more shot. The kingbirds were still there and so were a brown water snake and a fine cottonmouth which also got rescued from a pair of turkey vultures that were tormenting the unfortunate reptile.
I hit my house at 10 pm, dogged out by 17 hours of drive by birding. I landed in the bed with a thud. The next thing I heard was alarm clock going off at 6 am Monday for another round of birding, but first I had to drive to Palm Beach for two scuba dives and some sea birding while above the water.
I will bypass the narration on the dives both of which were outstanding. The sea bird life however was unusually sparse.
I am working on converting some of the dive staff into birders which has been surprisingly easy task. Earlier this year I took one of the crew members and his girlfriend to see the swallow-tailed kites on 846. She enrolled in the Florida Master Naturalist Program soon afterward. Why is it that STKI have an almost magical ability to spark an interest in birding?
On the way home from the dives I detoured to the Holey Land for another shot at the WTKI. No kites, drat again, they are being their normal elusive and taunting selves. I did get three rough green snakes, another cottonmouth, and a brown water snake. All of them were urged to safety off the road. No kingbirds, two deer, a shrike, two osprey, red shouldered hawks and my first kestrel of the season.
You have to love this state. Where else can you dive with sharks, rays and sea turtles, watch iridescent squid mate and lay their eggs inside the reef, see a kingfish skyrocket straight into the air and crash back into the sea, save pugnacious reptiles from becoming road kill, and espy stately raptors all in the same day?
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