Posted by Brian Rapoza on September 10, 2016 at 21:21:48
Fourteen birders joined me for today’s TAS trip to the Islamorada area in the Florida Keys. We began the trip at the Cracker Barrel in Florida City. Locations visited included Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park, Long Key State Park, Lake Edna on Grassy Key, Curry Hammock State Park, Key Colony, Marathon Airport and Sea Oats Beach on Lower Matecumbe Key. Our visit to Curry Hammock included a stop at the Florida Keys Hawkwatch, where we saw only a couple of Ospreys. Good numbers of Ospreys were seen throughout the upper Keys, many of them likely migrating through right now. We tallied 53 bird species, including nine each of shorebirds and warblers. Here’s the list: Blue-winged Teal Magnificent Frigatebird Double-crested Cormorant Brown Pelican Great Egret Snowy Egret Tricolored Heron Yellow-crowned Night-Heron White Ibis Turkey Vulture Osprey Black-bellied Plover Semipalmated Plover Spotted Sandpiper Willet (Western) Ruddy Turnstone Sanderling Least Sandpiper Semipalmated Sandpiper Short-billed Dowitcher Laughing Gull White-crowned Pigeon Eurasian Collared-Dove Common Ground Dove Mourning Dove Peregrine Falcon Common Nighthawk Belted Kingfisher Red-bellied Woodpecker Great Crested Flycatcher Eastern Kingbird Gray Kingbird Loggerhead Shrike Red-eyed Vireo Black-whiskered Vireo Blue Jay Barn Swallow Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Northern Mockingbird European Starling Common Myna Northern Waterthrush Ovenbird Northern Parula Cape May Warbler Black-throated Blue Warbler Prairie Warbler American Redstart Worm-eating Warbler Common Yellowthroat Northern Cardinal Common Grackle Boat-tailed Grackle