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Posted by Kenneth C. Schneider on 10:34:40 07/16/05
In Reply to: Greater Flamingos in Miramar posted by Kenneth C. Schneider
Last night we kept watch for the flamingos from about 7:00 PM until dark, but none appeared.
On the theory that the flamingos that we had seen on the evenings of July 12 and 14 were flying in the direction of the conservation and water preservation area to the west of our subdivision, Mary Lou and I started out at 6:00 AM this morning to try and locate the flock in hopes they may be spending nights there. We first hiked about a half mile to the large lake to the north (SW of the corner of Pembroke Road and SW196th Avenue). Once it was light enough we satisfied ourselves that there were no waders present, and certainly no flamingos there or in the adjacent flooded open area. We saw many nighthawks, shrikes and mockingbirds, and a pole-top buteo that flew away in the dark that looked like a Redtail. (No sign of the Least Terns that we suspected were nesting on some of the sandy spots. They engaged in courtship fish-offering displays on rooftops this spring, and only a few weeks ago we saw them catching fish in our lake and flying away to this general area)
Then we returned and walked south on the dirt road that follows the west bank of the SW 196th Avenue canal, south of Miramar Parkway. We immediately saw three good-sized Whitetail Deer and heard others splashing away. This spring this was a dry brushy area with some larger snags, nice for raptors, warblers, sparrows, Common Ground Dove, goldfinches and meadowlarks. Now the area is nearly entirely flooded, offering innumerable places for the flamingos to hide, if they were indeed there. When we reached the trail that cuts across the preservation area westward toward US-27, we found it flooded and impassable. The water was amazingly rich in small fishes. We saw two Common Moorhens and heard singing Northern Yellowthroats. In the spring we had seen as many as six large Cottonmouths in the borrow ditch that parallels this track, but not this morning. They probably have dispersed into the expanded marsh. We did see several Marsh Rabbits and some kind of rat.
With the sun beginning to bear down, we decided that we had finished viewing any accessible open areas and headed back. Since we were sweaty and slathered with mosquito repellant we decided to replenish our water bottles and head for the Chapel Trail Preserve in Pembroke Pines, which is located about two miles to the north.
At 7:15 AM we were halfway to the gate of our subdivision (roughly where 194th Avenue would transect the unpaved extension of Miramar Parkway) when we looked up to see a line of flamingos to our left, only about 30 feet up. They crossed Miramar Parkway only 20 feet in front of us! This time there were 6 birds (there had been 7 and 9 the previous times).
I digress-- Mary Lou was thrilled to get her 532nd Life Bird. Of course the flamingo did not add to her official ABA total of 488. It took me 52 years of birding to reach the 500 mark, while she has been compiling her list for less than 10 years and is approaching that milestone. In compensation, one of my great thrills as a lifelong birder and long time nature interpreter has been to share the thrill of discovery with others. As a kid I said I would certainly have to marry a birder, but hormones and maturity tend to change one s priorities. However, I got my wish during an Elderhostel in SW Arizona when Mary Lou sighted an Elegant Trogon that caused a late-in-life conversion! Her seeing the flamingos made up for my disappointment when, twice, I was unable to alert her in time after seeing them from our back yard.
Back to the flamingos. They flew in a staggered diagonal line, in straight level flight and headed approximately southeast. According to my maps, an extended heading would take them to the general vicinity of the intersection of I-75 and Florida s Turnpike Homestead Extension. Ten miles beyond that lies Hialeah Race Track. Closer by are two major lakes in the Sunset Lakes subdivision, then a lake in the quarry area south of the NW Miami-Dade County line along the Honey Hill Road canal. We drove into Sunset Lakes and explored all three lakes as best we could but did not see the flamingos. Assuming they came in on a straight line, their flight vector to the northwest would have taken them from or over the very pond we had just surveyed, and beyond that, quite near to the Chapel Hill Nature Preserve.
Since the size of the flock has varied between six and nine it is possible that these represented subsets of a larger aggregation, so we then drove to Chapel Hill Nature Preserve. It too had nice high water and there were no concentrations of waders and certainly no flamingos in sight. We will keep monitoring our neighborhood in the event that this flock, whatever its origin, may find our rich wetlands to its liking.
Ken
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