Flamingo Campground, Everglades National Park - Site #54
Today—Ellen gets a cold, we take the Monday morning bird walk, and our screen house takes off.
It was 52° when we retired last night, but it warmed overnight and was 65°, sunny and windy when we had our morning coffee. It is certainly better than at home and we hope that all of our friends and family who are sticking it out come through the “historic” winter storm that is arriving as I write. (I also hope that our house fares well and we don't lose power for too long. We have the heat turned down so the interior temperature is about 50°, not a lot of wiggle room there.)
Ellen woke up with a sore throat and the beginnings of a cold and it seems to be getting to be a full-blown cold. She has filled up with drugs and we hope it begins to help. It didn't stop her from going to the first morning bird walk of our stay. The rangers at Flamingo lead a bird walk almost every morning at 8 am. Today it was Ranger Brian. We gathered on the visitor center balcony overlooking the bay. There were only four of us in addition to Ranger Brian, Ellen and I and a couple from the UK. A young Italian couple joined us along the way for part of the walk.
It was a high tide, so there were no wading birds or shorebirds about, only a few overflying pelicans and seagulls. We did see a pair of dolphin passing by. A low tide there are mudflats visible from the deck that attract a large number of birds, maybe next week they will be there in the morning. Aside from the ever present Osprey, we also saw American Crows and Red-bellied Woodpecker as we were passing through the parking lot
From there we headed down the path to the tent area of the campground, while listening to the constant calls of the Osprey overhead. Osprey have been a success story in the park and I counted at least eight active nests in the area just around the visitor center and campground. There are at least three at the visitor cents and marina that seem to be within 50 yards of each other. It is breeding time for the Osprey and there was a female in each nest, probably on eggs. All seemed to be calling at once, pleading with their mates to bring more food. Ospreys seemed to be continually overhead all during our walk...and they certainly are noisy.
Florida Bay is fishing heaven for the Osprey and we often see them flying over carrying fish. They always have them aligned head first parallel to the line of flight. As we were leaving the visitor center, one swooped down to the grass. That seemed unusual as they don't often come down to the ground. This one must have dropped his fish, since he just zoomed in picked it up off the grass while in flight and was off again.
The path to the campground follows the edge of the bay and is alongside a stretch of mangroves. Shorebirds and wader are often seen along the bayside edge of the trees and we were not disappointed, seeing White Ibis, Willet, Yellowlegs, Spotted Sandpiper and Little Blue Herons.
Th path comes out onto the open tenting area which is right on the bay. There are some wet pools near the water that fill with shorebirds, and the flats along the bay get shorebirds, gulls and terns. We spent a significant amount of time here. Ranger Brian's skill at shorebirds was no better than ours and these were new birds for the British couple, so it took us awhile to identify a mixed flock of birds that were feeding in a small depression. But we did get Black-bellied and Semipalmated Plovers, Ruddy Turnstones and Dunlin in the group along with Ring-billed and Laughing Gulls and Royal Terns on the beach.
From there we walked along the road looking for small birds on our way to the wastewater treatment plant. There not many to see today; Palm Warbler, Eastern Phoebe, Northern Mockingbird and a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher were about it.
The wastewater treatment plant is known for the profusion of birds that gather in its ponds. It is a restricted area and the only way to see it is with a ranger on the morning walk. It wasn't teeming today. Probably less than two dozen birds were there—but they were quality birds, especially the Black-necked Stilts, There were also Blue-winged Teal and Northern Shovelers along with an immature Little Blue Heron, a Snowy Egret, some Lesser Yelowlegs and a small group of Least Sandpipers.
From there it was back to the visitor center. Tomorrow we will probably do it all over again with a different ranger, assuming Ellen's cold abates somewhat.
After lunch, we were just hanging around our site in the screen house as a park worker was mowing the grass in the campground. Ellen asked if he'd like us to move the screen tent so he could mow our site. He replied affirmatively, so I pulled the stakes and we just picked it up, like we did yesterday and carried it across the road to a mowed spot. When he finished our site, we carried it back and set it down. Did I mention it was rather windy at this time?
As I went to grab the stakes to stake back down, the wind grabbed the screen house, rolling it into the filed of knee-high grass behind our site. This is a 10' x 10'x 7' high free-standing tent, so it was quite a sight as it rolled along through the grass with me chasing it and Ellen yelling "Watch out for snakes!" It was moving to quickly for me to watch out. After I caught it, I realized that I couldn't carry it back by myself and a very reluctant Ellen carefully came out into the field to help.
We got it back in place; Ellen held it while I put the eight stakes in the corners and the middle of each side; and I added four corner guy lines as well. It is going nowhere anytime soon. Time for an afternoon latte.
Here are a few photos from today's walk:
Full-size slide show
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