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Posted by Alex Harper on 22:15:24 06/18/05
Here is Andy Bankert's own trip report that I copied and pasted to this bird board from the Brdbrains Listserv. Hopefully this report will help out those planning on a trip to Florida this summer.
"For the past week I led a group around Florida. The group left Michigan last Friday and arrived at our hotel in Titusville late on Saturday. After picking up Red-cockaded Woodpecker in Georgia, Jim (our driver), realized he left his scope in the hotel room. This caused the group to get down here about five hours late. Jim brought his non-birding family along, so we usually birded for a few hours in the morning then returned to pick up his family.
Sunday morning we saw the Limpkin at his little pond in Cocoa near 520. Several people also saw their first Anhinga. On the way to Viera some spotted a Caracara on the side of the road, but not everyone saw it. Once we got to Viera a pair of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks flew over. We only had time to bird the wetlands and saw most of the herons along with more Whistling-Ducks, several Least Bitterns, and a pair of Caracaras on the large tower. We headed back to the hotel to pick up the family and headed south towards Belle Glade. A stop at a Fulvous Whistling-Duck spot produced Spoonbills, a lifer for many. The Barn Owl roost was impressive and held a lifer for almost everybody. It was getting a little late, so we decided to head towards our hotel near Miami Shores. I wanted to make a quick stop at the Ft. Lauderdale Airport for Smooth-billed Ani, but the birds made the stop about an hour. We did find a pair all of the way at the western end of the park near the road. After a few minutes at the hotel we birded with Alex Harper in Miami Shores. We were able to locate two Spot-breasted Orioles, but no White-winged Parakeets.
The next morning we tried for White-winged Parakeets in Miami Shores, but were only able to find Monks. I knew there were some White-wings in Kendall, so we fought the traffic to get there. It took us 45 minutes to find some White-winged Parakeets, but we missed Red-whiskered Bulbul. From what we could see all of the parakeets were White-wings and not Yellow-chevroned. We had to go back to pick up the family in Miami Shores and then hit the Cave Swallow spot near 216th street. We observed the swallows for about 30 minutes and found a perched bird that everyone was able to photograph. Mary Krome Park had some cool butterflies including a Ruddy Daggerwing. A long drive down Tamiami Trail produced almost nothing except lots of Alligators. I was afraid that this would be the second year in a row that this trip missed Snail Kite. No Kites were flying around and the sun was going down, so we went back to Kendall to get Bulbul out of the way. This time we only spent 5 minutes looking because they were on the first side street we drove down. By getting the Bulbul we were going to have more time later in the trip to pick up other misses like Snail Kite.
I just got back today, so I will send out the second part later.
Andy Bankert
ravenboy@cfl.rr.com
Melbourne Beach, FL"
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