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Posted by Angel & Mariel on 10:36:25 07/09/09
On Saturday we stumbled upon a large Purple Martin roost in north Dade. We had been doing some summer birding in Miramar and Pembroke Pines and on our way back from birding we found this roost. We had seen some Martins flying over County Village Park on our way north but on our way back we noticed a couple hundred Martins feeding on the wing over the same park. We pulled into the Taco Bell across the street from the park to see the Martins and that is when we noticed that we had discovered a post-breeding roost. It was about 7:30 pm when we arrived, we followed the chirping to the Burger King where we found thousands of Purple Martins. As we sat there observing them we started to see hundreds of Martins coming in from all directions, soon after the entire top power line was filled with Martins. It was interesting to see the Martins choose the top power line over all others; they would fly as far as they had to in order to find a spot on the top wire.
As the sun set the roost increased by the minute, we estimated the number of Martins at ~5000 birds. It was rather difficult to estimate numbers due to the sheer numbers of birds coming in and others taking off in large flocks, circling and then coming back in. Fifteen to twenty minutes after sunset most of the Martins were jockeying for position in the tree, seems that most of the Martins use one large tree as Grackles and Starlings roost in the other trees. The tree was filled with Martins chattering, the limbs even started to sag from the number of Martins that were using the tree. It was truly amazing, we had been to the Davie roost two years in a row and were planning to go visit again but now we have our own roost to tend to. We will be making stops periodically to check up on the roost, we will also try to post some video of this awesome roost when we have a chance. The roost is located at the intersection of NW 186th St. and Ludlam Rd the Martins were roosting in a large tree on the south side of the BK parking lot.
During last week we noted down some migrant movement during the late afternoon hours.
Monday- 7 Least Tern (2 juvies) and 8 Chimney Swift flew over heading south
Tuesday- 3 Least Tern, 2 Chimney Swift, 20 Purple Martin heading south
Wednesday- rained out
Thursday- 6 Least Tern (3 juvies), 12 Purple Martin heading south
Friday- 11 Chimney Swift, 8 Purple Martin heading south
*A clear sign that migration has begun in the sunshine state.
While out birding in Miramar and Pembroke Pines we saw the following birds:
Mottled Duck (M, PP)
DC Cormorant (M, PP)
Anhinga (M, PP)
Great Blue Heron (M)
Great Egret (M, PP)
Snowy Egret (M)
Tri-colored Heron (M, PP)
Green Heron (M, PP)
Yellow-crowned Night Heron (M)
White Ibis (M, PP)
Black Vulture (M)
Osprey (M, PP)
Red-shouldered Hawk (M)
Red-tailed Hawk (PP)
King Rail (M)
Purple Gallinule (M, PP)
Common Moorhen (M, PP)
Purple Swamphen immature (M)
Limpkin - immature (M)
Killdeer (M, PP)
Black-necked Stilt (PP)
Laughing Gull (PP)
Lesser Black-backed Gull (PP)
Least Tern (M, PP)
Mourning Dove (M, PP)
Monk Parakeet (M)
Common Nighthawk (M, PP)
Chimney Swift (M, PP)
Red-bellied Woodpecker (M)
Loggerhead Shrike (M, PP)
Blue Jay (M)
Fish Crow (M, PP)
Purple Martin (M, PP)
Northern Cardinal (M)
BT Grackle lots of immature birds around (M, PP)
Nature is Awesome
Angel & Mariel
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