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Posted by Paul Bithorn on 13:02:38 08/30/10
The Tropical Audubon Society field trip on Saturday, August 28, 2010, to the sod farms and agricultural areas in Palm Beach and Hendry Counties, offered twenty-seven birders a mixture of lifebirds, yearbirds and beerbirds. The temperatures were in the mid 80 s and a light breeze and overcast skies kept us quite comfortable.
Our first stop, the Holeyland/Rotenberger W.M.A., produced a nice mix of species. We stopped at the water control structure west of the Chinese Fan Palm nursery and found Prairie and Yellow-throated Warblers, Northern Parula, Common Yellowthroat, American Redstart, Ovenbird and Northern Waterthrush, along with White-eyed Vireo, Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers, Great-crested Flycatcher and Eastern Kingbirds. Red-shouldered Hawk, Osprey, Bank and Barn Swallows and Yellow Warbler, were seen on the drive in and out. Returning to US 27, we checked several sod farms east of the canal and were treated to at least two, maybe three, Black Rails calling to each other in the low coppice bordering the sod. Belted Kingfisher, Purple Martin, Rough-winged, Bank and Barn Swallows were seen on power-lines as we drove north along the canal. We continued north to a small rock-pit west of US 27 that offered scope views of a Least Bittern along with Black Terns, a Yellow-crowned night-Heron and yet another Yellow Warbler. We pressed on to the Cypress Stand on Miami Canal, where three Barn Owls, Eastern Kingbirds, Yellow Warblers and White-eyed Vireos enthralled our eclectic group of birders.
After a hardy lunch in Clewiston, we hit SR 880 and headed to Brown's Farm Road. We crossed the first bridge and found fallow fields with nary a shorebird. Kevin Sarsfield, Andy Bankert, Rock Jetty, Judd Patterson and Tito, along with the 2010: The Year We Make Contact team of Toe, Bill Boeringer, Trey Mitchell, assisted by Angel and Mariel Abreu, Vince Lucas and Jose Padilla, all kept us informed via cell phones, as to where the shorebirds were congregating. I failed to mention that by 2:00 p.m. I had the surreal experience of not yet seeing a single shorebird.
We spotted Toe s group birding the first sod fields on 880 just east of the Brown's Farm turnoff. We soon were scoping Upland Sandpipers several hundred yards out, along with a large flock of Pectoral Sandpipers and a smattering of Kildeer in the field immediately in front of us.
Our caravan headed to Sam Center Road, where several small puddles had feeding Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, a White-rumped Sandpiper, Black-necked Stilts and a Wilson's Phalarope, our best shorebird of the day. Just to the east of Sam Center Road were the only fields with any decent amount of water that we could find, adding Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Ruddy Turnstone, Short-billed Dowitcher, Solitary Sandpiper, Stilt Sandpiper and Black-bellied Plover, Mottled and Fulvous Whistling Duck, Blue-winged Teal, Roseate Spoonbils and Glossy Ibis. A quick stop at Gladeview Road produced Gull-billed Terns and Laughing Gulls. On the trip back to Miami, the King Ranch Sod Farms along US 27 harbored Pectoral Sandpipers, Killdeer and Black-bellied Plovers.
We called it a day with a respectable 85 total species, including 8 warbler and 15 shorebird species. Kudos to all of the birders, who turned our shorebird famine into quite a feast! Life is good............ as we hoisted our celebratory libation of Shiner Bock, a tasty dark beer from Spoetzl Brewery, known as the "little brewery in Shiner", Texas.
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