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Posted by Alex Harper on 09:36:13 11/20/05
Again this weekend, Paul Bithorn, Juan Villamil and I birded Lucky Hammock, the Annex, Royal Palm in Everglades National Park, and Black Point Park in Homestead.
We arrived at Lucky Hammock at 6:40 when the birds were just starting to wake up. Toe and one of his buddies arrived just as we did. On the other side of the hammock, Trey had a Clay-colored Sparrow sitting alongside a Grasshopper Sparrow. We all got good looks at the bird, and a Swamp Sparrow popped up for a while with them. Savannahs were pretty much everywhere. A walk north along the east side of the brushy area produced a Yellow-breasted Chat and a couple Blue Grosbeaks. Trey got a call from Toe who was further south along the brushy area. He had the Vesper Sparrow from last weekend in the exact same spot, and a Lincoln's Sparrow. We got there too late, but at least three others got to see "my" Vesper, including John Boyd. A Blue Grosbeak was feeding out in the open at where the dirt road from Aerojet Road and Lucky Hammock heads east to the sparrow fields.
Toe said he had two Yellow-breasted Chats as well.
Lucky Hammock itself had a Least Flycatcher.
Down to the Annex, we had a Purple Gallinule, two Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, Least Flycatchers, Yellow-breasted Chat, both buntings and Swamp Sparrow. The flycatchers, chat, and sparrow were all seen along the first hundred feet or so of the Annex around the first dirt road to the houses on your right.
In Everglades National Park at last by 10:00, we were on our way to Research Road. On the drive over, we saw four Swainson's Hawks! Research Road was uneventful, but we had Yellow-rumped and Pine Warblers in the pineland areas. Toe had an American Bitterns and two large flyby sparrows that "had the potential to be something good."
A Red-tailed Hawk, white morph Short-tailed Hawk, Pileated Woodpecker, White-eyed Vireo, and a Swamp Sparrow were seen on Anhinga Trail, and a Cape May Warbler was feeding in the fig at the visitor's center. The entrance to Gumbo Limbo Trail hosted a large flock of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, a Northern Parula, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler and an Ovenbird. A dark morph Short-tailed Hawk flew over the inaccessible Old Ingraham Trail.
On our way to Cutler Wetlands, we decided to make a stop to Castellow Hammock County Park. A good idea, too, because we added a couple good day birds. We had White-winged Dove, a couple Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Blue-headed Vireo, Magnolia Warbler, and a Rose-breasted Grosbeak all around the visitor center. Leaving the park, we finally spotted Eurasian Collard-dove, our eighty-sixth bird of the day. We figured a 100 species day was easily in reach, and we were already on our way to Cutler Wetlands. We picked up a couple day birds on the way, including Monk Parakeet.
We arrived at Cutler Wetlands to see: absolutely nothing. Not one duck, not one shorebird, not one gull. Okay, so we back tracked to the wetland about five minutes away which had the Black-headed Gull last month. We found plenty of gulls, but we were too far off to identify anything but Laughing and Ring-billed.
At Black Point Park, we spotted Bald Eagle, Royal tern, and Herring Gull over the harbor. A mixed flock of warblers consisted of Palm, Prairie, Black-and-white, American Redstart, Ovenbird, and Common Yellowthroat. On the way back we swung by Cutler Wetlands, only to see a couple Mottled Ducks and a Northern Shoveler.
An American Coot was seen back in Miami to end the day. One hundred species were seen or heard, ninety-nine being ABA countable. I missed two of the species: Orange-crowned Warbler and American Redstart. We could have easily had more if we could have checked out Dump Marsh and if Cutler Wetlands was productive.
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