Posted by Tina Odenbaugh on December 05, 2001 at 22:13:46:
Smooth-billed anis still easy to find at Fairchild Tropical Gardens. After walking around the entire gardens, Matt Fagan and I saw 7 anis as we were leaving the grounds. They were feeding in and under the Bird-of-Paradise plants just beyond the main entrance about 20-30 feet from the pay booth. They moved off into the mowed grass area to the left of the paved walk and then flew to the small man-made concrete pond in the courtyard about 20 feet in front of the main entrance pay booth. You could actually see and hear them without even going into the park itself. Good looks at eye level and on the ground, within inches of your face - no need for binoculars here. Could even see fine details of the powder blue border of the individual wing coverts. Fabulous situation for photos.
The only other birds we saw in the entire park were:
blue-gray gnatcatcher
palm warbler
tri-colored heron
great egret
common moorhen
american coot
pied-billed grebe
yellow-bellied sapsucker
and lots of swimming iguanas