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Posted by Joe Edwards on 14:59:42 05/17/05
In Reply to: Re: Key Largo Bird Walk posted by Joe Barros
Thanks to Joe B for an excellent trip and also to Brian Rapoza for putting me on to it and to Paul and the guy with the beard whose name I am embarrassed to have forgotten for picking up some of the nice birds.
I came to Miami for six days from the UK on business hoping to get any of 10 lifers. We got four on the trip: Least Tern, W-C Pigeon, Prairie Warbler and B-Wh Vireo.
I am interested to see that Joe has 9 Fish Crow on the list and no ordinary crows - were all the crows we saw fish crows? I can only clearly remember some on wires and flying over as we drove along the causeway.
On my last day but one I have got 9 of the 10
lifers (I suspect I will not get to a Clapper Rail site) thanks to info on the trip. I finally managed to get the yellow billed cuckoo that had been bugging me for a while. One female snail kite was showing well near the loop road. Swallow tails came in their droves yesterday in the Everglades, including excellent views of a pair preening early in the morning on dead trees.
I reckoned I was getting lucky until I found a rail on the Tamiami trail hard shoulder, which allowed me to get within four feet of it. I wished I had a camera. But when I got back to my car I had locked myself out! No cellphone, ten miles from a landline, all my stuff in the car etc. etc. I asked for help but they only spoke Spanish. In despair I circled the car one last time only to realise that I had wound down the window to see the rail when I first went past. I really did get lucky.
Maybe tomorrow I will go for the thick billed vireo.
If Tropical Audubon members are in London and want some local knowledge I would be happy to try and help. I am not a professional but I know what's about most of the time.
Joe E
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