Birding South Florida
Feb. 28-March 7, 2006

Great Blue Heron, white morph Great Egret Snowy Egret

Black-crowned Night Heron Burrowing Owl Roseate Spoonbill

Brown Pelican Barred Owl Bald Eagle

Pileated Woodpecker Red-bellied Woodpecker Osprey

Loggerhead Shrike Eastern Meadowlark Red-winged Blackbird

Forster's Tern, Black Skimmer, Ring-billed Gull, Royal Tern

 
Anhinga male                                                                      Double-crested Cormorant

All the files on this page are in the 2k-99k byte range.

A Sampling of Other Species Sighted:

• Purple Gallinule;   Showing its light blue plate Shark Valley
.
• Limpkin
Shark Valley
• Painted Bunting ;  Profile;    Entering the protected feeder Corkscrew
• Pied-billed Grebe executing a turn;  Diving.
Everywhere.
• Red-shouldered Hawk Farmland near Homestead;   Showing his red shoulder at the Ding Darling National Wildlife Reserve
• Black Vulture
• Turkey Vulture
• Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Small birds were scarce, but this is one specie we saw repeatedly.
• Palm Warbler
was by far the most common warbler that week.
• Cardinal
• Northern Mockingbird  The Florida State Bird.  Also Texas's State Bird.
• Why did the Ibis cross the road?
• It figured 8 woodstorks can't be wrong.
• Monk Parakeets in the same neighborhood park in Cape Coral where we had the Burrowing Owls
• Forsters_Tern, non-breeding.     One in breeding plumage.
• Black Skimmer
• Royal Terns;   Another.
• Sanderling
• Oystercatcher  on a little beach off the causeway to Sanibel Island.
• Dunlin
• Tricolor Heron 
• Green Heron;  Another individual in another posture.   Another.   Herons are so protean!
• Reddish Egret.  The rarest egret, yet I photographed individuals on 4 different days.

Birds in Flight:

• Osprey;   Great feet.  I had many Osprey photo ops per day.
• Pelican
• White Ibis
• Little Blue Heron
• Tricolored Heron taking off.
• Black-crowned Night-Heron taking off.
• Ibises over the Everglades;   Glossy Ibis;   A moment later.
• Terns and Skimmers
• Black Skimmer flying;  Skimming
• Single Willet,  but we also saw them in flocks. In flight the wing pattern is diagnostic.

Breeding Plumage

• Ring-billed Gull with red orbital ring on the eye (breeding characteristic)
• Laughing Gull was overwhelmingly the commonest gull.
• Anhinga  male in breeding plumage has a blue eye ring.
• Double-crested Cormorant, crests apparant.;     Exchanging a twig  is  courtship ritual
• Eastern Meadowlark singing;   Rear view;
• This Snowy Egret has red lores. Sibley explicitly says the lores are yellow so I thought it was an aberration. But I found other examples on the web of breeding Snowies with red lores, such as (135k bytes)  http://www.pbase.com/garrettlau/image/28998972
• Boat-tailed Grackle displaying.

• Anhinga courtship

• Great Egret with green eye shadow. I photographed the green lores and the bridal veil in two separate birds. But supposedly in peak breeding plumage they concur in the same bird, as in this great picture elsewhere on the web (145k bytes):  http://www.pbase.com/jypsee/image

Nests and Juvenile Birds:

• Great Blue Heron feeding young.
• Barred Owlet
• Juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron
• Anhinga chicks
• Osprey pair on nest at Flamingo, FL
• Red-shouldered Hawk on nest at  Big Cypress Bend. We also had a Red-Shouldered nest at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Multiple Species in the Same Frame:

• Coots and Pied-billed Grebes at the Bailey Tract of the Ding Darling N.W.R.
• Black-crowned Night Heron and Great Blue Heron.
• Limpkin and White Ibis
• Anhinga and Great Blue Heron
• Double-crested Cormorant and juvenile Brown Pelican
• Grackle and White Ibis
• White Ibises and Snowy Egrets The observation tower at Shark Valley is in the background. 
• Little Blue, Snowy, Woodstork, Spoonbill
• White Pelicans, Semipalmated Sandpipers, and Ring-billed Gull
• Yellow-crowned Night Heron and Little Blue
• Shorebirds at Ding Darling. Herman was kicking himself for forgetting to take his scope that day, but other birders invited him to look through theirs.
• Black Skimmer, Forster's Tern, and Sanderling
• At Least 5 Species at Bunche Beach at the end of John Morris Road near the bridge to Sanibel Island.
• We both loved this beach
• Reddish Egret and Marbled Godwit

Others of the 81 species of birds I photographed on this trip:

• Boat-tailed Grackle female Boat-tailed Grackles in Florida have brown eyes.
• Phoebe   I had daily photo ops on  Phoebe.  Our only other flycatcher was the Great Crested, which we heard a lot, but I only had one photo op and failed to capitalize on it. Sometimes I have to choose between looking through my binoculars or my camera. I see a lot more through my binoculars.
• Moorhen
• Willet
• Black-bellied Plover
• Cattle Egret
• Glossy Ibis
• Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
• Yellow-crowned Night Heron  from a boat out of Everglades City;      Another at Shark Valley.
• Belted Kingfisher  These were common.
• Collared Dove   We called this a Collared-Dove in the field but Sibley says that species is pale.
• Ruddy Turnstone
• Common Myna Atop the Super 8 Motel on Krone Ave. in Homestead.

Other Perspectives on Species Already Covered Above:

• Brown Pelican  with something large in its mouth.
• Great Blue Heron  with a fish.   
• The Reddish Egret likes salt water, in this case the Gulf of Mexico. This  Reddish Egret was in Card Sound near Key Largo.  But this one was in the Caloosahatchee River.
• Anhinga female
• Red-bellied Woodpecker  One of the guidebooks says, "If you don't see a Red-bellied Woodpecker in Florida turn in your binoculars."
• Roseate Spoonbills
• Snowy Egret, Glossy Ibis, and Great Egret
• White Ibis
• Snowy Egret hunched posture
• Painted Bunting female
• Red-shouldered Hawk front; Along the Tamiami Hwy back
• One of the 5  Burrowing Owl burrows  in a colony.

Sinage:

• Sign at the Burrowing Owl site
• Elevation 4 ft.    Actually, every foot difference in elevation changes the habitat. Hardwoods need a bit of elevation.
• The Fakahatchee Strand is a panther reserve
• This panther sign was on the approach road to Royal Palm.
• Tortoise Crossing
• The Fifth Third Bank
• Manatee Area at the Lee Manatee Park in Fort Myers.

Non-avian Wildlife:

• Alligator and Black-crowned Night Heron;   Gators have rounded snouts and are found in fresh water. And we saw a ton of them.
• Crocodile We only saw this one croc. Its lower teeth show, it has a pointy snout, and it is found in salt water
• Bottle-nosed Dolphin.  We saw quite a few on a boat trip out of Everglades City.
• This Frog at Corkscrew was the size of my thumbnail.
• Zebra Longwing
• Monarch;   Another.
• Butterfly
• Turtle
• Fish

People and the Spring Training Game

• Nancy and Jeff  on the right field lawn.
• Herman at the ballgame
• Herman and his nephew-in-law Jeff
• Trot Nixon  played right in front of us
• The right field lawn scene
• City of Palms Park
• The Gate
• Bob,Eva, and Herman's sister Eileen
• Lee Manatee Park, Fort Myers. The Gulf was above the 72 degree threshhold so there were no Manatees warming by the power plant. There were little dolphins there.

Miscellaneous:

• White Flower
• Morning Glory
• Pelican Mailbox
• Manatee Statue
• Panther Statue
• Sand Castle
• Our B&B in Everglades City It was built as a bank in 1923. There was usually a Red-bellied Woodpecker in sight on those palms.

Florida trip list
Florida trip report

Birding Massachusetts 2014
Birding Massachusetts 2013
Birding Massachusetts 2012
Birding Massachusetts 2011
Birding Massachusetts 2010

Birding France 2019
Birding Phoenix 2018
Birding Ireland 2016
Birding Yellowstone and northern Utah 2015
Birding Hawaii 2011
Birding Arizona 2010
Birding Utah 2009
Birding Guatemala 2008
Birding Kansas 2008
Birding Mexico 2007
Birding Texas 2005
Birding Nantucket, annually, at New Year's
Birding Panama 2005
Birding Belize 2002
Birding Colorado 2001
Birding Ecuador 1999
Birding Trinidad 1998
Birding Peru June 1995
Herman's Birding Page

Wildlife sketches

Herman's Home Page
Eva's Home Page

The photos on this page were taken with my Canon Digital Camera w/ 12X zoom lens.

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Last revised: August 8, 2019