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Posted by Bill Pranty on 13:32:50 04/10/14
Good afternoon,
I and three others recently spent four days birding in Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties (4-7 April). To avoid an excessively long post, and also to avoid disturbance to some of the nesting species we found, I will usually list only our visited sites and then a list of highlights.
Visited sites:
4 April: (traveling from the Tampa Bay area to Royal Palm Beach via SR-80, with stops at Sawgrass Lake Park and the Sarasota Celery Fields): Clewiston.
5 April: Green Cay Wetlands, Wakodahatchee Wetlands, the "exotic duck pond" at Tamarac (Commercial & University), Kendall Baptist Hospital, the neighborhood north of Kendall Baptist Hospital, and the University of Miami campus.
6 April: Matheson Hammock Park, the neighborhood north of Kendall Baptist Hospital, Ocean Bank along LeJeune, Larry Manfredi's yard at Homestead, the ag area southwest of Larry's yard, and the Cutler Ridge Turnpike overpass.
7 April: Matheson Hammock Park (then a 10AM departure to return home, with a stop at Fort De Soto Park).
Highlights among ~120 species total:
1 Fulvous Whistling-Duck (Tamarac)
1 Ruddy Shelduck (Tamarac)
Egyptian Geese at two sites
1 Neotropic Cormorant (Wakodahatchee, retains some philoplumes)
5 Least Bitterns
2 Short-tailed Hawks (both dark morphs; Sawgrass and along I-75)
2 Soras
2 Purple Swamphens
8 Purple Gallinules
30+ Mitred Parakeets
3 Red-masked Parakeets
4 Yellow-chevroned Parakeets
7 White-winged Parakeets
1 Nanday Parakeet (Sarasota)
2 Lilac-crowned Parrots
2 other Amazona (that sounded like Red-crowned Parrots)
6 Scaly-headed Parrots
1 Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Matheson)
1 Eastern Screech-Owl (roosting)
1 Crested Caracara (SR-80 in Hendry County)
1 Peregrine Falcon (harassing a Bald Eagle at Sawgrass Lake)
~5 Western Kingbirds
1 Cassin's Kingbird
5 Northern Rough-winged Swallows (probably nesting)
20+ Cave Swallows (nesting)
2 Red-whiskered Bulbuls
2-3 Hill Mynas
3 Common Mynas
1 Black-throated Green Warbler (singing at Matheson!)
3 Savannah Sparrows (Sarasota)
2 Indigo Buntings (Matheson)
3 Painted Buntings (Green Cay)
1 Shiny Cowbird (male)
8+ Bronzed Cowbirds
1 or 2 Spot-breasted Orioles
We spent three hours looking for the Yellow-breasted Chat at Green Cay, and two hours (over two days) looking and listening for the La Sagra's Flycatcher at Matheson Hammock, without success.
I wish we could have spent another week birding all the sites we never got to visit.
Thanks to Bill Boeringer, Robin Diaz, Alex Harper, and Larry Manfredi for offering advice, and to Larry for his hospitality. And it was nice meeting Judd Patterson.
Best regards
Bill Pranty
Bayonet Point, Florida
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