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Posted by Alex Harper on 12:30:41 12/22/09
Andy Bankert, his girlfriend and I birded Everglades National Park this morning. Our first stop was Lucky Hammock, where it was too dark to see the Short-eared Owl. A Whip-poor-will was seen in the headlights after the tun to Royal Palm. We hit the end of Research Road next, where we also failed to see or hear any owls. We did see two Wite-tailed Kites and a Sharp-shinned Hawk, as well as heard King Rails and Sedge Wren.
At Anhinga Trail, we looked for warblers for Andy's girlfriend, who is from Colorado, and hasn't seen Black-throated Blue Warbler. We were not able to find the male I saw there last week. We had to settle with Black-throated Green, American Redstart, and Ovenbird.
At the La Sagra's Flycatcher location, we split up to look for the bird. I eventually heard the bird calling as a visiting birder from North Carolina pulled up. I called for Andy and soon we were hearing the bird calling from the western side of the road. Andy walked down one of the trails leading into the hammock and found and photographed the bird. We arrived to late to see the bird. The four of us chased the bird all around the hammock, using the trails accessible from the road to find the bird. This worked the second time around, but the bird remained close but behind foliage. We often saw it flying away from sight only to hear it somewhere else, saying faithful to the flock of warblers. At one point I saw it fly over the road, have it land twenty feet into the hammock and start calling. This would be the best look I would have all day, but it was calling every ten minutes for over an hour. We were also able to see the panther tracks that Robin Diaz photographed and posted.
Leaving Royal Palm, Andy spotted two Short-tailed Hawks. At Lucky Hammock, I spotted two and he spotted three. We would spot one more each on the way back to Miami. He beat me 6-3 on the Short-tailed Hawks this time around, but I did spot a light morph Swainson's Hawk along SW 217 Avenue, about a mile north of State Highway 9336.
The Red-footed Booby was seen begging at the Pelican Harbor Seabird Station yesterday afternoon, but was not present when we returned in the evening.
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