Month: October 2016

Once again we are heading south in search of Florida’s only endemic bird – The Florida Scrub-Jay. This bird lives in scrub habitat and prefers the Florida Scrub Oak which rarely exceeds 8 feet tall. According to Wikipedia, ‘they routinely cache thousands of acorns a year, burying them just beneath the surface. The acorns are typically buried in the fall and consumed during the winter and spring. Acorns that are forgotten or missed may germinate, making the Florida Scrub-Jay an effective agent for the dispersal of a variety of oak trees’.

Before going to Venice we made our fourth trip to Siesta Key #5 to look for the Pectoral Sandpiper. This will probably be our number one miss for the year. Pectoral Sandpipers are not common in Florida but it should have been a relatively easy find. We stayed an hour and found 11 shorebirds including Red Knot, Dunlin and the usually present Snowy Plover.

Next we were off to meet friends Suzanne and Gary for lunch at Oscar Scherer State Park. We did our birding first while it was still pretty cool out. We took the green trail and heard, then saw two Florida Scrub-Jays. We have observed Florida Scrub-Jays in five counties and usually see a sentinel bird first who will either signal danger or all clear. They must know we are friendly because we usually see more than one. While on the green trail we found 14 species including American Kestral and Red-tailed Hawk.

After lunch we drove down to Babcock-Webb WMA in search of Brown-headed Nuthatch and King Rail. It was the middle of the afternoon which is not the best time for birding but at least it’s mostly car birding. On the drive in we quickly found a group of warblers including Tennessee Warbler, Pine Warbler, and the winter resident Palm and Yellow-rumped Warblers.  Just past the warblers we found the Brown-headed Nuthatch which sounds like a squeaky toy (you can listen to it here). No luck on the King Rail but we did find 26 species including a Western Kingbird .

Next stop was the Anchor Inn & Cottages in Sanibel which has cute A-frame cottages. We didn’t stay in the room long before heading to Gulfside Beach where we heard the unmistakable trill of the Eastern Screech-Owl. On the beach we found 100 Royal Terns, 30 Sandwich Terns and a lone Snowy Plover. We also saw the biggest sunset ever! For dinner we walked across the street from the hotel to Il Cielo for a salad with prosciutto and baked brie and grouper with crab and asparagus along with a bottle of wine from the ‘cleaning out the cellar’ list.

Sunday morning, while having coffee at Bennett’s Fresh Roast we decided to drive across to the east coast to look for the Variegated Flycatcher reported everyday for the past week. It was going to be a long day so we ordered Maple Walnut and Coconut Orange donuts to go. Off to San Carlos Bay -Bunchee Beach Preserve to see the lighthouse and look for a White-rumped Sandpiper. We stayed 40 minutes and turned up 25 species but no year birds. A Piping Plover was a nice find.

Next stop was the Evergreen Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale. We arrived to find many birders already looking for the Variegated Flycatcher which had not been seen since the evening before. The target bird has been reported near the pines along the water and Sharon was there when a Spot-breasted Oriole (life bird) flew in. We decided to have lunch at Southport Raw Bar for outstanding oysters and Dolphin tacos. Back at the cemetery, we dipped on the flycatcher but did see many Iguana. While following a nice flock of warblers we sat on a bench and noticed Leslie Nielsen’s plot with ‘Let ‘er Rip’ on the headstone. Neilsen loved gags about gas and whoopee cushions and promised in a 1996 interview that the line would be his epitaph.

So this was a lot birding to add three year birds, but that is how it will be now that we have already seen 470 birds in the United States. We didn’t include three other birding trips we took since our owling adventure: Ft. DeSoto Park, Maximo Park and another trip to Richard DeKorte Park in New Jersey for Sharon. The most noteworthy bird from these trips was a Bufflehead at Richard DeKorte Park.

 

Next up: Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival

Trip : Total Species: 74 Year Birds:  3  Life Birds: 1

2015 : Year Birds: 470   Life Birds: 75

Here’s the list: 2015 Bird List