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Posted by Alex on 17:22:03 06/20/04
Wednesday 6/16
David Simpson, Andy Bankert, and two young birders from up north (one from PA and the other from MI), arrived at my house at about 3:30 PM. We went to find Ross and Eric (the out-of-state birders) some life birds. We found about 10 Common Mynas, 2 Hill Mynas, 1 Red-whiskered Bulbul, 40 or so White-winged Parakeets (including some in Kendall), about 10 Yellow-chevroned Parakeets, 4 Red-masked and 1 Dusky-headed Parakeets, 2 Spot-breasted Orioles, and a few Gray Kingbirds. We ticked off all of the ABA area exotics in Miami.
Thursday 6/17
We left my house at 3:15 am towards ENP. We had a large owl along the way in Florida City. At first light, Andy and the others set off to find cuckoos on 3 occasions in ENP. They worked Snake Bight twice, and West Lake twice, and both times they were fruitless. I didn't want to donate blood, so I stayed in the van tied to them by walkie-talkie if they found something.
After coming out empty, we had to deal with White-eyed and Black-whiskered Vireo (lifers for Ross and Eric),
Prairie Warbler, and my life Shiny Cowbird south of the Flamingo visitor center. We also had a Brown-headed or two. Near Mahogany Hammock, I located a singing Seaside Sparrow with a scope after a few minutes of searching for a singing bird. We had Eastern Bluebird and White-tailed Kite on Research Road. We checked out the Cave Swallows in Homestead, and then headed back to Florida City for lunch.
Later on in the day, we had 5 adult Roseate Terns and two juveniles in Marathon at the Government Center. It was fun watching them chase the Least Terns. Lifer number 3 for me! Along the way, we had Reddish Egret, Willet, Semipalmated and Black-bellied Plovers, Key West-- we searched for Bahamas Mockingbird around City and Indigenous Park, and came up empty as expected. Short-eared Owl was nowhere to be found around Ft. Zach. White-crowned Pigeons were numerous. We had Brown-headed and Shiny Cowbirds again in Key West at a feeder where they have been seen in the past. Red Junglefowl were everywhere, and we were surprised to see a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk sitting on a telephone wire near Biggs Beach. He/she had a juvenile collard-dove half-plucked nearby. At 7:30 pm, we arrived at the Key West airport. In just a few minutes, David and Ross heard "pitty-pit-pit" just before a brief shower. We jumped out, and spotted two Antillean Nighthawks. We named one of the birds "Pitty", since he was the most generous in giving us great looks of him. At one point, he was diving through some insects at about 150 feet high or so, and then suddenly plummeted down to where we were all standing, and came within 5 or 7 feet from Ross and I at eye-level, and flared right in our faces. I felt the wind smack my face as it flared... now those are good looks. Greater Yellowlegs and a Black-bellied Plover were also seen. Overnight in Key West.
Friday 6/18
We woke up at 5:30 am and were ready and waiting at the Key West marina by 6:45 waiting to aboard the Fast Cat ferry to the Dry Tortugas.
Just out of the marina at around 8:10 am, we had Sandwich Tern. Along the way to the Tortugas, we had frigatebirds, a couple Loggerhead Sea Turtles, Spinner Dolphins, flying fishes, and two Sooty Terns.
At about 10:20, we arrived on Garden Key, and greeted with a couple thousand Brown Noddies and about 80,000 Sooty Terns. Around the fort, we found some interesting birds: Northern Mockingbird, Yellow Warbler, 2 Barn Swallows with white bellies, Common Yellowthroat, and four species of doves (Mourning, Eurasian-collard, White-winged, and Rock). Whimbrel, Black-necked Stilt, Cattle Egrets, and Willet were lingering around the North Coaling Docks. We searched for hours, but had no Black Noddy, and no Red-footed Booby in the evening. Yellow-crowned Night and Little Blue Herons were on Bush Key. Over a dozen Turkey Vultures and 2 Ospreys soared around with the many frigatebirds. Later on in the day, we had over 45 Masked Boobies, and about 18 Brown Boobies. Other interesting sightings were many tarpon, Southern Sting Ray, Eagle Ray, Electric Sting Ray, 3 HUGE Jewfish, Nurse Sharks (including a few mating near the former Bird Key), and an intense chase of a tarpon from a huge Bull Shark. We had great scope looks at the monster-of-a-shark thrashing a couple hundred feet offshore.
That night, we all heard a very weird nightjar call that fed around Garden Key. The call was a guttural "ahh ahh ahh ahh ahh agh agh agh" that was slower towards the end of the call. I am not sure what we were thinking, but we passed it off as a Brown Noddy. It was an uncomfortable, hot, humid, sweaty night, but I got to bed eventually, and only awoke a few times in the middle of the night. Dave had fallen asleep before the bird started calling over our area.
Saturday 6/19
I was woken up at 5:30 to set up a scope line focused on Long Key before first light to make sure a booby with red legs and drab gray breast didn't sneak off it's roost without notice. However, the such bird was not to be found. Dave joined us a few minutes later and told us that he had heard a weird nightjar call from around the bathrooms before it was light enough to see. It was a call not one of us had heard, except for similar calls from Chucks that Dave had heard. Because of the different quality compared to a Chuck, we suspect a vagrant nightjar, namely a Greater Antillean Nightjar. It is just a hunch, and we will all look up more on the bird later. We spent the majority of the rest of the day looking for the bird around the fort. We could not find it. The only other different birds were Ruddy Turnstones and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo that had us going as the Mangrove Cuckoo possibly seen a few weeks ago as it stayed in the interior of the trees. We joined our trip back on the Fast Cat at 3:00 and arrived around 5:00. Everyone besides me at least tried to get some shut-eye along the way. I just stayed on the deck and admired the flying fish and Loggerhead Sea Turtles. After a quick stop at Wendy's on Key West, we headed up to Sugar Loaf Key. We looked for the mangrove variety of cuckoo at the dead end of the CR-939, but only had a few Yellow-crowned Night-herons, Common Ground-doves, and singing Black-whiskered Vireos. Our only stop after that was gas on Key Largo before heading up to Florida City for the night.
Sunday 6/20
Up at about 5:10, and the lack of sleep caught up with me. We headed north back up to Chapman Fields near Matheson to look for cuckoos again. A little after arriving we could heard many cardinals, aratinga type parakeets, Hill Myna, and many Common Peafowl.
At about 6:30 or so, we played Eric's cuckoo tape a few times, and a cuckoo called back to us. We were never able to find it, but we were happy to at least hear it.
Ross and Eric wanted better looks at a bulbul, so we headed up Kendall Drive to the neighborhood across from the hospital. Within two minutes or so, we found a bulbul on a wire and shoved off to Tamiami Trail to try our luck with Snail Kite, which they missed at Markham Park. We looked and looked and looked, but it was hard finding them. I briefly saw a bird that looked like a kite just west of the Shark Valley enterance, but it ducked out of view before I could get the other guys on it. A Least Bittern called.
Dave dropped me off about 45 minutes later, and I got some sleep. The others left back up to Brevard, where Andy, Ross, and Eric prepare a pelagic and a Panhandle trip within the nest 2 or 3 days. A great trip with a ton of year birds and 5 life birds.
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