Just Another Couple Of Days In The ’Glades

Flamingo Campground, Everglades National Park - Site 54

Morning bird walk, coffee, lunch, read, coffee, afternoon bird walk, shower, dinner, retire...repeat.

Yesterday, Ellen's cold symptoms were continuing to abate, so we rode to the visitor center for the morning ranger-led bird walk. It was cool, sunny and breezy; jackets were in order. After looking out over the bay counting the hundreds of pelicans, gulls, terns, cormorants and skimmers on the low tide flats, we headed off to Eco Pond by car. Ellen and I hitched a ride with another birder. The highlight of Eco Pond wasn't a bird on the pond, although there were the usual egrets and herons, but a trio of Painted Buntings in the bushes near the entrance. The bushes were pretty active, with several warblers as well.

Female Painted Bunting

Shy Male Painted Bunting

After Eco Pond we drove over to the wastewater treatment plant. many of the same birds were there, the teal and the stilts, but they were joined by a group of sandpipers and an American Avocet.

American Avocet (non-breeding plumage)

Black-necked Stilts

Yellowlegs, Blue-winged Teal, Northern Shoveler

The group broke up there and we walked back to the visitor center and biked back to Speedy for coffee and lunch and some time reading. During the afternoon, Ellen spotted a group of sparrows behind Speedy. We were hoping for the Everglades-unique “Cape Sable” Seaside Sparrow, but these were just some strongly colored and fairly common Savannah Sparrows.

Fuzzy Photos of Savannah Sparrows

Later in the afternoon, I decided to get out our bigger spotting scope and ride up to the visitor center to check out the flats again. Ellen's Nikon scope is small, and an excellent telescope, but is limited to 30 power. The big scope is much bulkier, with a 90mm mirror lens and has several eyepieces, a fixed one giving 39 power and a zoom eyepiece that can go to a bit over 100X (not that it is useful at that power, by about 80X it gets too dark and the image is obscured by the magnification of the floaters in my eyes). Ellen and I hoped on the bikes and took the seaside trail.

Once again, we saw hundreds of gulls, herons, egrets, terns, pelicans and skimmers...a bit more clearly this time. We were even able to pick out Herring and Ring-billed gulls among the horde of Laughing Gulls.

We aren't able to photograph through the scope, but this guy hung around right next to us on the dock.

Laughing Gull

We were also able to spot a good-sized flock of Willets out there and distinguish the Great Egrets from the Great White Herons (a white morph of the Great Blue Heron, fairly common here).

This Anhinga was drying itself out right next to the seawall and a rather cheeky crow hoped up right next to us. The crows around here have no fear and walk right up.

Anhinga

American Crow

By this time it was getting late, so it was back to Speedy for the evening.

This morning arrived much the same as yesterday, sunny, cool and breezy. Ellen is feeling even better, except for a cough. Her theory of colds is that it incubates for three days, you then feel miserable for three days (and contagious), then it fades, hopefully quickly. This seems to be accurate, Ellen’s symptoms began three days ago and are fading...mine are beginning now! Who can I pass it on to?

Once again, we rode up to the visitor center, looked out over the low tide flats (even lower today). Today's ranger (there is a different one each day) seemed the most knowledgable of the ones we've gone with so far. The group had more beginners though and we didn't cover as much ground. We started out along the Bradley trail, which goes along the water, then bushwhacked over to an area where the hotel used to be (wiped out by Hurricane Andrew and not rebuilt). From there it was to the road and Eco Pond. We hunted vainly for the buntings again, but they were not to be found. Our most colorful bird was a good ol' Northern Cardinal. That was actually as far as we got today. It was the least productive of our walks, except for raptors. We had an American Kestrel fly right past, good views of two Northern Harriers hunting and an obliging Red-shouldered Hawk posed for us right next to the road.

Red-shouldered Hawk

Once again it was back to Speedy for coffee, lunch and rest. Later in the afternoon, Ellen decided to hunt for the nearly mythical Mangrove Cuckoo. This is a bird whose northern limit is here and occasionally seen. We went looking for it two years ago and were unsuccessful. Last year, our friend Sally did see it. She went to the morning bird walk and was the only person to show up. The ranger asked what she wanted to see—Mangrove Cuckoo, of course. He knew where it had just been seen and there it was.

No such luck for us. Sightings have been rare so far this year. There was one about 10 days ago on the Coastal Prairie Trail; the only previous one was in Coot Bay about a month ago.  The prairie trail starts from the end of C loop, so that's where we went. We had our best sightings of the day on our way out to it. First, a sleepy juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-heron right next to the road in A Loop.

Yellow-crowned Night-heron

Then, a group of Killdeer in B Loop.

Killdeer

The Coastal Prairie Trail and the Bayshore Trails were a bit of a bust. It was deadly quiet along the trail. We peered hard among the mangroves of the Bayshore Trail, but spotted only lone Red-bellied Woodpecker. We did come across a Coconut Palm in the making. Mostly, we saw mosquitoes.

When they got too much, we headed back to the open spaces of the empty C and B Loops.

B Loop

B Loop is in use, but practically empty, two tents and a trailer used by a volunteer. C Loop is totally overgrown. It looks like the grass hasn't been cut in years. You can still see the loop cross roads, but the sites are totally obscured. Budget cuts, I've been told.

Finally, on the way back, Ellen looked over and there was another obliging Red-shouldered Hawk, sitting on a branch, right at eye-level and only about 10 feet away. It just looked at us and even ignored to the two dogs that came by (on leash of course) while we were standing there.

Yet Another Red-shouldered Hawk

When we got back from that walk, I took a ride over to the Marina store in search of cold medication as we have exhausted our supply of Sudafed. Nothing was to be found, so I had to sooth the throat by getting a couple of ice cream bars for tonight's dessert.

Tomorrow, it will be a provisioning and laundry day. We'll be heading out of the park to Florida City. I'm sure we will find medication there...at least a comforting Key Lime shake from Robert Is Here on the way back.