Mt. Trashmore Tropical Kingbird
As the season winds down, I feel a sense of where did the season go? Didn’t I just get here? My stay here has been a whirl wind of various activities and events besides birding that has caused time to fly. Sue Little and Eileen Schwinn were here last month and Laurie Casserly, a friend from Vermont was here a few days ago. And as ever, on most of my outings are Pat Hayes and Larry Plotnick. When Sue and Eileen were here, Pat and I met up with them at a pocket park that was between our starting points. When that was a birding bust, I took them to one of my favorite places, DuPuis Wildlife Management area in Canal Point about 5 miles from the Big Lake. We had an amazing time!
The area around the visitor center was alive with avian activity and glad we had all those eyes and scopes to keep up with all the birds. A fence that ran along the edge of a weedy field attracted several sparrows species: savannah with their group behavior, a few vespers trying to hide, and one Bachman’s. Also present were blue grosbeaks in varied states of molt, one indigo bunting and the stars of the show, multiple painted buntings! There were more painted buntings than I’ve ever seen in my life! It was fun. All of us were armed with cameras but unfortunately the battery in mine died so I didn’t get any usable images. While we were there we also checked out the bald eagle’s nest which had young inside. We had some great views of both adults as they arrived and left, changing places and partial views of small fluffy heads.
When Laurie was here, we hit some local spots, a Palm Beach County Park called Okeeheelee so she could “get” her painted buntings, (there is a feeder in the back of the nature center) and to Green Cay and Wakodahatchee, Palm Beach County water reclamation areas with elevated and railed board walks. What started out as a public relations gambit turned into a boon for wildlife in an urban setting and for the people who live there, too. Both places are also very popular with photographers to get closer to wildlife, because as Pat Canning, a guide at Loxahatchee put it, we are in our cages! When people are behind the railings, the birds seem not to mind us being in their space. Birders can get good looks at purple gallinule, sora, and in nesting season, least bittern. Nesting now are great blue heron and anhinga, so it is possible to watch the babies grow up with relative ease. These two spots are also utilized by non birders as well and especially during school vacation times, the walkways are clogged with walkers, proud grandparents and strollers. Wakodahatchee was so successful that when Green Cay was created, an educational nature center was built, too. (Oh, by the way, the rest rooms are lovely and clean! First rule of birding: never pass up a rest room!)
In early March, Pat, Larry and I finally got to some spots in Dade County that Pat had been keen to visit because some great birds have been reported all winter long. ( I say finally because I had promised him we would go at the beginning of the season.) We found out about these sites from the Tropical Audubon Society (TAS) website. Its a great site loaded with all sorts of sightings, photos, tips, lively discussions and arguments but very light on good directions. Directions lacked whether a traveler would go off on the north or south exit off a highway and there were no indications as to the relationship of one site to another. Even a small area map would have been helpful because many of the sites are not shown on street maps. For example, a place referred to as Mt. Trashmore, an active land fill, wasn’t on any Florida map I have. Well, when we finally got there, we seemed to have missed all the great birds that had been seen there except for a tropical kingbird that over wintered. I did manage to get a few shots of the bird through my spotting scope. I’m starting to get the hang of taking pictures with my pocket digital camera through my scope thanks to Pat. We were able to talk ourselves into the landfill to look for a black-headed gull that had been seen there, but would you believe it, when we were inside the dump there was not one single gull of any species! The Universe must have hiccuped! There were, however, hundreds of cattle egrets and white ibis in breeding plumage. We seemed to have stumbled onto another mentioned site completely by accident, a small mitigation marsh in Cutler Ridge, where we found a few black-necked stilt and one avocet and short-billed dowitchers. As I usually say, one can always use better directions!
Got in the last hurrah with Pat and Larry to Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park before we all part ways. Kissimmee Prairie is one of the last remaining dry prairies left in the state. It was indeed very dry as the state wide drought has hit that area quite severely. One of the naturalists said that the park has only received 29% of the usual water totals this year. Recently, it has been the morning fogs that have been the saving grace for all the critters, as Paul, the park naturalist, phrased it. One of our most unusual sightings of the morning was a fog bow, something Paul, told us about that I had never heard of or seen before. Its a “rainbow” made up of water droplets and looks like a white rainbow. By far the best bird sighting of the day was a swallow-tailed kite that flew at us and above us, circling for quite some time. I was able to get several photographs. Also in the park are nesting white-tailed kites. Paul showed us on the map where the nest was, so off we trod, across the hot prairie to the nest tree. Other birders were coming back as we were on our way out, so we knew we were on the right path. The nest was well hidden but the adults were over head so we got some fine looks. The birds were there last year, but Pat and I never found them. Glad we were success this year. Another success for us was finally finding a burrowing owl. We have been going out there for many years now and never found any burrowing owls, in spite of knowing where to look. On our drive out, we got lucky when Pat spotted an owl! The heat shimmer was very intense, so my images shot through my scope were anything but successful.
This park is also known for its over wintering sparrows, and the non-migratory Florida grasshopper sparrows. One of the reasons to go to the park is for the Bachman’s sparrows that begin singing in the spring. We heard a few singing but got no confirmed sightings. We also had migratory grasshopper, vesper and savannah sparrows. Paul is doing breeding surveys of the Florida grasshopper and dotted throughout the saw palmetto are his breeding survey markers. I don’t envy him being out in the sweltering heat of the prairie during breeding! For more information on this park and the sparrows, read another of my Snow Bird Reports from March 2007, titled the Great Sparrow Hunt and Round Up, Yee Haw!
So, flocks of seabirds are moving north past my condo deck and soon, I, too, will be winging my way north, but on an airplane. I have to say goodbye to all my birding buds and fellow beach bums. Sad for me, but soon I get to say hello to all my friends and family at home. Can’t wait!
Kissimmee Prairie Swallow-tailed Kite