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Posted by Stan Chapman on 00:04:21 03/04/10
Patty McLean (who is a terrific birder), and I flew in from Atlanta this past weekend and early this week in hopes of finding some rarities and lifers. We were not disappointed and had a great run of luck. After seeing the LaSagra's flycatcher with many others on Sunday, Feb. 28, we headed out to Pelican Harbor Seabird Station in hopes of seeing the red-footed booby. We looked out from the parking lot along the side and I spotted an odd duck, and called Patty over. She said, "It has an eider bill," but we agreed that an eider in South Florida was inplausible, but what else could the bird be? I snapped some photos, and the bird swam toward the end of the concrete pier. We ran over there, but it was gone by the time we got near the pier. When we walked inside the center and showed the lady at the desk the photos, she told us that the bird indeed was an immature common eider and had been seen about a month ago, but not since. She then told us that the red-footed booby was sitting on top of a cage just outside the center building, which it was. How easy can birding be? By the way, we were very impressed with the great work being done in bird rehabilitation at the station. Patty had never seen a purple swamphen, so we then headed over to NW 202 St. along the Dade/Broward line, around where it would intersect with about SW 135 Av. in Broward County (though the roads don't meet). I believe the name of the gated community nearby is Vizcaya. There is a wetland lake there with a lot of aquatic plants and along the east end, we located one swamphen, after considerable searching. The wetland also held many great-looking purple gallinules. We then headed for the Fair Havens Nursing Home area and found a couple of flocks of confusing aratinga parakeets, and I identified some as likely crimson-fronted, green, red-masked and red-mitred, with possibly others mixed in. The next day (Monday) we headed to Lucky Hammock and Aerojet Rd., and were very impressed with the wide white crown stripe on the Florida race of the grasshopper sparrows, which is different from the bird seen in Georgia. Many were there in the field by the hammock. We met a birder looking for the smooth-billed ani, and I played the call so that we could recognize the bird if we heard it, and darned if Patty didn't hear an apparently identical call several minutes later, as we walked on Aerojet Rd. about 150 yards south of the hammock; however, we were unable to bring it into view, so we will call it a probable ani. After a stay with the very gracious Larry Manfredi (beautiful male and female painted buntings at his feeders, though no shiny cowbird while we were there), we then headed up to the corner of LeJeune Rd. and NW 7 St. to look up at the date palm trees in search of the white-winged parakeet, and we must have seen at least 20-30, making a racket and flying all around and flashing their white wing patches. A short-tailed hawk flew overhead as another bonus. Patty had to fly home, and we searched unsuccessfully for anis along Old Griffin Road near the Fort Lauderdale airport before she left. I got to stay one more day and had arranged with Peter Frezza to accompany him in his boat in search of the greater flamingo. He was very kind in taking me out before he went to work. We left at 6:50 AM from Tavernier, Florida in the keys to head out to Florida Bay, and after about 45 minutes (and after seeing an amazing flock of hundreds of peeps wheeling around the bay and then settling into a mudflat), Peter sighted the greater flamingo. He circled around it so that the sun was at our backs and the boat drifted toward the single flamingo, who allowed us to approach fairly closely and never flew away, just standing in shallow water. The colors were truly magnificent, and the lighting was perfect. I flew home very satisfied, your "cold" weather quite a contrast to Atlanta, which had accumulated snow on the grasses that day.
I have posted photos of a few of these birds on my flickr.com site, the link to which is http://www.flickr.com/photos/stanchap/
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