I have to get creative with PTO at work since I have 2 weeks, and an appetite for birding that takes more than 2 weeks to satisfy. Too many birds to see and not enough time to do it. With this creativity I hatched a very ambitious plan to see 3 national parks in a long weekend, and Christina and I left in late April to attempt it.
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| Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas National Park |
Our first park was Biscayne. Most of the park is water, and there aren't a ton of birding opportunities. We booked a half day snorkel trip in the mangroves. The water was cool and clear, and we saw a ton of cool fish that I couldn't identify, although I could identify the barracuda that swam by us in four feet of water! We finished the tour on Elliot Key, where I got my first lifer of the trip, a Gray Kingbird! Cape May Warblers were abundant and we had a Prairie Warbler and female American Redstart. There was a likely cuckoo, which could have been a Mangrove, but the bird disappeared before I could take a look. It only could have been a cuckoo, but with 3 different kinds in the area I couldn't tell. Of all rarities a Cardinal got flagged. After we finished we headed to Key West, unsuccessfully stopping to chase the Black-faced Grassquit. We pretty much missed it because it was 6:30 PM, way too late to expect it show up, but we did get up close looks at a growling alligator and a male Black-throated Blue Warbler, which is a bird I always get excited for.
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| Gray Kingbird at Biscayne NP |
We stopped at the Marathon airport to look for one of my more sought after ABA birds, Antillean Nighthawk. The directions of where to be at the airport were a little unclear but we eventually got in the right place. The best way to compare Antillean to Common is by call. Antillean has a 4 note and common has a single note. I heard multiple commons, but one had 2 notes. One guy got a look at one and ended up reporting Antillean, and I would bet money he was right. With that said, I wasn't confident enough to count it, oh well.
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| Black-throated Blue Warbler |
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| Swallow-tailed Kite |
Saturday morning was the day Christina and I were most excited about, we were heading to Dry Tortugas National Park. This is another part that is almost exclusively water, but our 2.5 hour cruise would take us to Garden Key to visit the historic Fort Jefferson, where Dr. Samuel Mudd, the man who set John Wilkes Booth's broken leg after assassinating Abraham Lincoln, was imprisoned. The park also has incredible birding. The only nesting sites in the continental US for Magnificent Frigatebird, Sooty Tern, Brown Noddy, and Masked Booby are in the park, and the fort is very good for neotropical migrants heading north.
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| Black-and-white Warbler |
The first bird I saw on the ferry was a Brown Booby, a bird that will always get me excited. But the flying animal that really caught my eye was the flying fish, which we saw many of. I loved watching them jump out of the wake and fly into a wave. My first lifer was a Masked Booby on Hospital Key, where there is a breeding colony. Soon the Sooty Terns started showing up in force, and I'm sure there were a few Bridled Terns mixed in but they're very hard to separate and way rarer. Frigatebirds joined in, and then I let out a gasp when I saw my first Brown Noddy, my favorite bird of the day.
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| Brown Noddy |
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| Sooty Terns |
Garden Key had a very busy feeling to it when we pulled up, mostly as a result of the colony of Sooty Terns that were breeding there. There were thousands of them and they were calling nonstop. It's such a simple, but amazing experience to see these nesting colonies, and we would come back to enjoy it later, but first we ran into the fort to see what migrants were present. I knew it was going to be a good day when a male Scarlet Tanager zipped by us, and the migration bonanza would lead from tree to tree. It was impossible to keep with each bird. We would be enjoying a Cape May warbler when out of the corner of our eye we'd see a Prairie Warbler, but before we could settle on it a Yellow Warbler would snag out attention. Magnificent Frigatebirds hovered overhead the whole time while Peregrine Falcons swopped between us.
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| Hooded Warbler |
After lunch we walked along the nesting tern colony and got within feet of Sooty Terns and Brown Noddies before walking along the top of the fort and enjoying views of the island and water. We had a race against time, though. With only four hours on the island we were forced to cram in birding, a walk up top, and snorkeling. We made one last run through the fort, getting a lifer Veery and Gray-cheeked Thrush. We got very excited over a cooperative juvenile Summer Tanager and a Hooded Warbler that hung out at our feet. The finale was the Scarlet Tanager reappearing and bathing in the water fountain, which were the best looks of that species that I've ever had. We had just enough time to get a snorkel in, which was very refreshing with the heat. Our underwater birding was extremely productive and we saw a barracuda, snappers, and sergeant majors. Once we got back we walked around Key West and got White-crowned Pigeon before returning to Homestead.
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Summer Tanager, Christina's favorite
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We spent our last day visiting the Everglades, but we didn't have a ton of time. Smooth-billed Ani was an ABA bird I desperately wanted, and it was seen for the last time about an hour before we got there. We met other birders there who also didn't see it, and that sighting would be the last report of it. We made the long drive to Flamingo to look for Shiny Cowbirds and primarily to see the crocodile and manatees. While we missed Shiny Cowbird, we did get the crocodile and the manatees got so close to us we could feel their exhales. We were in awe getting so close to these amazing animals.
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| Scarlet Tanager |
The biggest takeaway from this trip was that it can't be done properly in 3 days. We had an incredible time but were frequently racing to our next destination. I can't wait to get back to back to South Florida to dive a little deeper, especially in Key West. There is so much to see down there, and coming back with longer life list made it more than worth the trip. May is gonna be a big month for birding, with Galveston migration this weekend, a San Diego pelagic next weekend, and SE Arizona over Memorial Day!
