Everglades Birding Festival

We are hoping that plane tickets will be cheaper but in fact we cannot find any good roundtrip flight to Fort Lauderdale so we have to fly to Miami and return fom Fort Lauderdale. As we don’t intend to rent a car we have to use shuttles and taxis to get around. The hotel has a shuttle to the Fort Lauderdale airport but from Miami we have to take a taxi. It is a weird ride as the taxi driver doesn’t know the destination and has to stop multiple times on the interstate just to check where we are going on his phone. But finally after an hour we are at the Holiday Inn, the room looks good but it is next to the dining room which we usually don’t like due to noise. This time we are going to be gone by the time there is noise so we don’t care that much and soon we are in bed as the next day we have to wake up quite early in the morning.

The breakfast is quite interesting as given that we are so close to the breakfast room we can take everything we want to the room and eat inside which is good given that the dining room is full with other birders. We register and then soon after breakfast we are on our way with the first stop being at a small pond near a college. We are excited to see our first Canada Geese in Florida before looking more carefully – they are fake! At least the osprey watching them is more real.

As we are part of an exotics tour we look for exotic birds and a trumpeter swan is the most exotic we see, blue jays for certain are not exotic but lots of fun to watch.

Next we stop at the Richardson HIstoric Park and Nature Preserve, to the surprise of our guide the parking lot is closed so we park nearby at a shop and walk from there.

There are quite a few typical Deep South plants like Spanish Moss and Ball Moss, they are quite interesting and can take over a tree very quickly.

The first interesting bird we see is a yellow-crowned night-heron and everyone is quite taken by the bird especially as it poses over a canal for some time. But the big attraction is yet to come as the guide notices a few parakeets flying above us and one lands in a nearby tree, it is a blue-crowned parakeet and it sits there for a while allowing us to watch it unimpeded.

We take one more loop through the preserve and find another very friendly yellow-crowned night-heron, this one even less scared as it sits there letting us take photos of him. Nearby we notice an interesting spider, a Spinybacked Orbweaver, a very beautiful spider in its own scary way. And then it is time to move on to the next stop on our tour.

Next stop is slightly weird, we park at the Vista Park and the guide tells us there is a lake nearby with some rarities. But as much as we search we don’t find one and he mentions that he knows about it only from online reports with no live scouting, likely the reports were misplacing the lake and the birds. However even though there is no lake there is a beach to the ocean complete with yoga instructors creating videos for their followers.

Where there is an ocean there are gulls…and squirrels apparently?

After watching the gulls for some time we go to the shore and examine the many shells, they are colorful and even find a weird coral type skeleton, that we tentatively identify as a Sargassum Sea Mat

From Vista Park we continue on to the Topeekeegee Yugnee Park whose name comes from a Seminole term for meeting place. It is a large park and one in which we are going to spent the most time including having lunch and we hope that the ratio birds/time will be good as in the other locations we haven’t seen really that many exotics or even native. And we are not disappointed with the first tree that we study more carefully being full of interesting birds

After some time the birds moved on to different trees so we decide to also move on in search of the major goal of our visit to this park, the flock of parakeets that has a base here. While searching the group splits with the guide and a group of birders suddenly sprinting in one direction and another group slowly moving in a slightly different direction with us a bit confused in the middle. In the end everyone follows the guide to a different parking lot where we are greeted by the sounds of parakeets but what we see first are woodpeckers, some of them hard at work at destroying a parked car.

And then we see the parakeets, they are everywhere in the trees and even though it takes a bit to find a good spot for photos they are quite trusting of humans allowing relatively close photo opportunities.

We then have lunch at a picnic table while continuing to keep an eye out in the nearby trees for additional parakeets, some of them are quite sleepy after a half day of perching.

After this very successful stop it is time to move on towards our next stop which while short and near a shopping complex is also quite successful. Here we are able to see another exotic, a Ringed Teal, which is a beautiful duck. However it is good to be careful while taking photos as while we were photographing from the shore the other birders started shouting “Be careful!” and so on and taking the eye away from the lens we noticed a swan rushing us. So we retreated a bit back and had an opportunity for good swan photos.

While waiting and walking around there are some fun discussion regarding some of the birds that we see including one about a ring necked dove, whether it is real or not. We decide also to have some icecream as it is hot and the parakeets appear to be avoiding the area at least in the short term.

A mockinbird decides to stop near us to mock us so we move on ashamed and then on a wire we see a ring-necked dove and something more powerful – we have found our parakeets!

The wire is a major attractor of parakeets now with multiple landing in different formations and then either going to sleep or starting to groom themselves – quite fun.

The second day is forecasted to be a bad day for birding and in general for being outside, 90% chance of rain especially at noon with serious showers being expected. The guides (three today) talk between them and then decide on an order of visit they think will maximize what we can see before the rain comes. And after the breakfast onwards we go towards the Everglades with the first stop being at gas station to buy gas and we get one more US exotic but common bird otherwise, the common myna. Many people are ignoring the Myna for a Shrike but then suddenly there is a rush for the overlooked Myna when someone mentions it – quite fun.

The first Everglades stop is near a trailhead, we watch a while for raptors but we do not take the trail in an organized manner due to time constraints. But while everyone is searching unsuccessfully for anything special we follow a band of cattle egret that impersonate a great jail escape by flying over a nearby barbed wire fence.

The next stop is at the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center, which is very busy. There are shuttle buses running and little sense there is a pandemic raging in Florida.

We go into the visitor center which has multiple displays and we hope to leave as fast as possible given that the rain still hasn’t started so we have some more time to visit outside. To our surprise the main guide stops at a map of the Everglades after everyone is gathered and gives a long speech. While it is interesting it really doesn’t make sense as we are losing time that we could use to birdwatch before the rain comes in.

After the speech we continue towards the end of the road that goes into the Everglades interior and stop at Flamingo Visitor Center, where we take a break to look at the gulls.

There aren’t that many gull species here so we try to take some better photos of the laughing gulls that are used to humans as well as of the ospreys that care more about the hunt than us.

We have been here before, many years ago, when we rented a canoe and went up the canal for a while so we rest a bit and reminiscence about that time. While waiting we hear someone cry out that a manatee has been sighted and even though suddenly our group has an urge to leave we are lucky and see the manatee when it comes up for air under the dock.

We try to stop at the end of the road and look for shorebirds however none are in sight and then it starts to rain, heavily. We wait for a time in the van before driving back to the visitor center area to the picnic tables, some of which are covered. In a lull in the rain we take the coolers to the tables and then eat while it continues to rain. We also keep an eye on the crocodile that is inching closer to us while looking quite nonchalant.

The decision from the guides is to take another break in the rain and run to the van and then go further north to the Long Pine Key Nature Trail to try our luck there. When we arrive there is no rain so we go outside looking for birds while trying to avoid poisonwood which is relatively common here.

We watch for birds both here and then on the road as we explore the area. Sometimes the vans are parking on the road which leads to the admonishment of a ranger that was passing by.

Some of the birds we find along the way were red-shouldered hawk and gnatcatchers as well as a few duck species with blue jays always crying from the trees.

On the return trip we make a stop at “Robert is here” a relatively famous stop on the way to Everglades or in our case when returning from the Everglades. There is a hope to see purple martins but they haven’t returned yet so in we go for our milkshake.

The milkshakes are why we have stopped here and you can choose three ingredients, we chose one that we know and two that we don’t randomly from the list and while waiting we look through the fruits you can buy and even find our mystery fruits, they look quite weird so we are curious how they taste. And they taste quite good at least combined in the milkshake.

After this stop we are quite cold and still wet after the rain so happily we return to the hotel to warm ourselves and then relax as we prepare for the last day in Florida.

The third day follows the same basic schedule as the previous days with the added difficulty that we have to leave our luggage at the hotel reception and the be back in time to catch a shuttle to the airport. We did our best to ensure we have enough time but as usual the best plans don’t survive any encounter with the reality. Even leaving the luggage is an issue as initially they say there is limited space but finally they take it and on we go on towards the Upper Keys, the destination for today.

The first stop is near a long bridge in the Keys, the hope is that we will be able to see the rare Cuban subspecies of the Yellow Warbler. Looking over the water everything seems calm and quiet but we have to ignore the cars driving at high speed on the highway behind us.

The guides have some trouble hearing any birds due to the cars so everyone is forced to rely on their eyes. And after a bit we see quite a few birds including the desired subspecies (probably), a few warblers and even a Northern Waterthrush.

Walking along the highway to the beginning of the bridge and crossing the highway carefully allows us to scan the bay. This is quite successful also as it allows us to see one of our target birds, the Magnificent Frigatebird, in the distance.

Next stop is also near a highway, one that is slightly more quiet, as the guides noticed a gathering of vultures in the sky and want to scan it for short-tailed hawks. Happily one is seen and it even gives us a close fly-by for easy identification.

The major stop today is at Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park where the hope is that we will see some South Florida rarities like White-Crowned Pigeon and Mangrove Cuckoo that we missed till now.

The trail is quite nice and large and easy going but the vegetation is very dense making seeing any birds very difficult. Not that many are heard as we continue on the trail. At some point one guide goes forward with the majority of the group while we stop with the other guide to search for the pigeon and then when we try to catch the main group there is a fork in the trail and we have no idea where to go. We go in one direction and reach a lake but estimate that we should have caught them already so we backtrack and find them on the other branch.

While birds are difficult to come by during this portion of the trail we enjoy the plant life which is very abundant and even find a few possible fossils in the stones near the trail.

There are also a few butterflies, we really like the Julia Heliconian, a butterfly that we haven’t seen before. And then when we catch the group there is a lot of noise from the forest and while squinting and jostling around for views we discover there is a White Ibis colony here, they are quite fun to watch.

Returning we get good views of a red-shouldered hawks and then suddenly one person from the group asks: “Is that an owl?”. Everyone gets excited but it takes quite a bit to discover where it sits and even more to get good views of the Eastern Screech-owl resting in the middle of the thicket. Still quite a cool find especially as we struck out on the other specialties.

Last birding stop of the day is at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park. Here we visit the aquarium and take a hike on the Wild Tamarind Trail which is quite nice. However we start to get a bit worried and ask our guides if they are going to respect the times in the program, we are supposed to be back at 3PM and it is already around 1:30PM and there seems to be no movement towards the return trip. We know there is one more stop planned to eat a congratulatory meal so getting back at the expected time when we are 1 hour out from the hotel starts to be a bit of a stretch. The guides are a bit surprised, not sure why given that until now every day they were back on time or earlier but they say there shouldn’t be an issue.

But it is fast becoming an issue after we arrive at Alabama Jack, we expected a fast food restaurant but it is sit-down and we have to wait 1/2 hr just to get seated. At the time we are getting our food it is already 3PM when we should have returned, we have about 2 hr buffer time but we see it disappearing in front of our eyes. The guides seem thoroughly unconcerned that they are possibly making us miss the plane and we cannot find anyone else to take us back to the hotel, it is like quite unnerving.