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Posted by Brian Rapoza on 13:54:45 02/17/13
To celebrate the addition of Purple Swamphen to the ABA checklist, I ventured out to Broward County this cold and blustery morning to find my first countable swamphen. My first stop was Chapel Trail Nature Preserve on Sheridan Street in Pembroke Pines. A swamphen was standing there waiting for me at the canoe launch right at the boardwalk entrance! World bird # 2076, ABA # 709, Florida # 430. I continued to the end of the boardwalk, spotting a total of seven swamphens along the way. Curious to see if they were just as common at other known swamphen locations along Sheridan, I stopped at both Silver Lakes North Park and the Southwest Regional Library wetland, but failed to find a single swamphen at either location. I did find a tree full of Yellow-crowned Night-Herons at Silver Lakes. From Pembroke Pines, I headed up to Tamarac, where at the City Furniture wetlands on Hiatus Road, north of Commercial Boulevard and just east of I-75, I found four more swamphens. All of these swamphen locations are listed on the just-updated TAS specialties page; a link is below.
While in north Broward, I decided to pay a first-time visit to Tall Cypress Natural Area in Coral Springs, a location that's been the subject of a number of posts lately and was the starting point for a recent TAS walk, led by John Hutchison. I ran into Bruce Pickholtz while there; he pointed out a couple of rare orchids, then graciously provided a grand tour of the property. Except for a few Robins, it was a decidedly bird-less tour; the weather and time of day most likely had something to do with this. In spite of the paucity of birds, Bruce's enthusiasm for the place convinced me that this is a park that should be missing from the TAS birding locations page no longer.
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