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Posted by Angel & Mariel on 22:46:08 08/01/08
This past Sunday we took a trip to Three Lakes WMA in hopes of finding our lifer Red-cockaded Woodpecker and Bachman s Sparrow along with some more year birds. We drove up I-75 to US27 and saw many of the usual wading birds. Occasionally we would spot a Bald Eagle soaring up in the skies and at one point we were treated to 3 Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks in flight. We arrived at Three Lakes around 8:30am and turned down Canoe Creek Rd. As we drove down Canoe Creek Rd we observed several Eastern Bluebirds as we searched for the RCWO. We found some marked trees close by the road so we stopped and walked along the street. To our surprise when we looked up there was 2 Red-cockaded Woodpeckers in the tree in front of us calling out. What a beautiful bird! As we enjoyed the company of the RCWO a Bachman s Sparrow perched up on a bent trunk of the same pine and began singing. It was almost as if it calling Look at me too! We couldn t believe how easily we picked up 2 lifers almost immediately after we arrived. The pine tree was popular because a few minutes after that Angel spotted 2 Brown-headed Nuthatch working the same tree. It really was amazing to see these birds at a fairly close range than we had even expected.
After enjoying the company of several RCWO we left them in peace and headed down Joe Overstreet in search of the Whooping Crane & Wild Turkey. Finding neither we reached the end of the street and scanned the skies above Lake Kissimmee. Along Lake Kissimmee we saw many Egrets & Herons. We admired the many dragonflies as we swatted off the mosquitoes and decided to ask someone inside the small store if they had seen any of the two around the area. A man & lady answered that either of them are spotted occasionally but recently one Whooping Crane has been hanging around close by associating itself loosely with a group of 3 Sandhill Crane for the past week or so. So we walked down the dock and watched the fisherman fight his catch for a while. As we watched the fisherman we heard some Sandhill Crane calling so we turned to locate them and sure enough we saw 3 Sandhill Crane with 1 Whooping Crane leading them. It was awesome to get a side by side comparison of both in flight. That would be our only one of the day and it was an AWESOME lifer! With that we continued on our way back towards Three Lakes down Joe Overstreet.
On our drive back, Angel spots a different bird out in the field so he stopped the car. The both of us put our binoculars on it and both exclaimed YES finally Wild Turkey for the year! Shortly after the Turkey, a beautiful Bald Eagle soared right above our sunroof giving us killer views. Not too bad 3 lifers, a year bird and it's still early in the day!
On our drive back down Canoe Creek Rd we decided to walk the Sunset Ranch Interpretive Trail that leads to an observation tower on Lake Marion. Although the most variety of birds found all day were found on this trail so were the most mosquitoes, deer flies, wasp... Seeing that we had forgotten to pack our bug repellent we never made it to the observation tower. Along the trail we did find many interesting birds to enjoy including many Great Crested Flycatchers that were quite rowdy, a Barred Owl, Pileated Woodpeckers, several Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, a stunning Yellow-throated Warbler, Black-and-White Warbler, Tufted Titmouse, Swallow-tailed Kite, many Black Vultures in a vortex above the trees and a possible Summer Tanager (which we could not relocate). After donating blood to the many mosquitoes and several deer flies we quickly headed back to the car to eat a much needed lunch break and cool down from the heat.
After lunch we ventured down Road 16 off of Canoe Creek Rd that led us to the Lake Jackson boat ramp. We scanned the area from the boat ramp in search of anything interesting. We were happy to see a Belted Kingfisher perched, which we always love seeing. As we admired the BEKI, I spotted a duck in the distance. We both checked it out in the binocs and we were extremely happy to see a lone male Wood Duck, which was awesome! Another year bird! We were having a great day!
We got rained out for about a half an hour and drove to the entrance of Williams Road. Unfortunately the road conditions due to the rain and the lack of any birds we didn't drive too far in this area. For our last stop we returned to the area that we observed the RCWO and found them returning back to the marked tree that we originally spotted our life bird. What an amazing way to conclude our trip to the Three Lakes area!
We decided to head towards the Barn Owl spot on the Miami Canal. Shortly after we turned into the road we spotted our first of three Barn Owl we saw while on the road. Two of the Owls were seen while on the paved portion of the road which was nice because we did not know what we were about to drive into. After about 2 miles on the unimproved road the potholes were everywhere and our car was starting to ask for mercy we spotted our third and final Owl of the day. We turned around and headed back towards US27 with a storm riding our coattails we only took one more stop down the road to observe the many Common Nighthawks that were in the air and one single Black-crowned Night-Heron was perched on a tree on the side of the road.
With that we headed home as we talked about having to give our dusty car a wash the following day. On our drive back the storm hit us like a freight train and gave us an incredible FREE carwash. NATURE IS AWESOME! What an AMAZING way to bring our adventure to a close. Thanks to some tips from friends and Pranty's book. We managed to get 6 year birds with 4 being life birds.
Nature is Awesome
Angel & Mariel
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