Photo: tour participant Linda Mack

FLORIDA WINTER ESCAPE January 14-23, 2005

A complete listing of all sightings from this trip, in PDF format, can be downloaded by clicking here.

Our first full day was spent enjoying Saint Petersburg’s beautiful Fort DeSoto County Park and nearby areas.  We began by crossing the Sunshine Skyway Bridge that spans the mouth of Tampa Bay, viewing Brown Pelicans and Royal Terns at eye level.  Upon entering the park tidal conditions were perfect and many shorebirds, terns, and waders were immediately present.  Large numbers of White Ibis fed nearby, probing the flats with their sickle-shaped bills.  Black-bellied Plovers, Semipalmated Plovers, and several Wilson’s Plovers provided excellent comparative looks.  Out on the bay Common Loons and a lone Horned Grebe dove for fish.  On our way to pick up lunch we were pleasantly distracted by three Black-hooded Parakeets perched on telephone wires.  We ate lunch overlooking the small but productive Tierra Verde ponds where 800(!) Redheads floated around.  Mixed in with them were Lesser Scaup, Ring-necked Ducks, and locally scarce Canvasback and Ruddy Duck.  Several Gulf Fritillary butterflies flitted about in tall grass near us.  We headed back into the park, spying a local winter resident—“Whimmy” the Whimbrel along the way.  Other enjoyable birds at Fort DeSoto included Reddish Egrets, loads of American White Pelicans, and Peregrine Falcon.

The second day of the tour began with a visit to the Sarasota Celery Fields—a park that is also a stormwater retention facility with acres of meadows and shallow ponds.  Several Limpkins were working the edges of ponds and canals there and a flock of Monk Parakeets seemed content to spend time in a grove of Sabal Palms.  There were shorebirds here too, with close looks at a few Wilson’s Snipe and our only Black-necked Stilts of the trip.  It was a chilly, damp morning and several Anhingas were basking with wings spread open along the canals.  A flock of 100 Sandhill Cranes eyed us warily from a field, bugling quietly and feeding.  From there we headed inland to Myakka River State Park with its beautiful Sabal Palms and Live Oaks draped with Spanish Moss and Resurrection Fern.  Perhaps the afternoon’s highlight was the canopy walk.  This “trail” is actually two wooden towers with a suspension bridge between them that allows one to walk through the forest at canopy level.  From the 76-foot high tower we enjoyed spectacular views of an unbroken forest surrounding the Myakka River.  Black Vultures, a Bald Eagle, and displaying Red-shouldered Hawks added to the experience.

After negotiating entrance to the Avon Park Air Force Range on our third morning we began exploring this well-managed Florida prairie habitat.  Red-shouldered Hawks called from groves of cypress and pine while White-eyed and Blue-headed Vireos joined mixed-species flocks that we spished in.  A family group of Florida Scrub-Jays entertained us at close range and allowed for some photographs.  Two Barred Owls responded to my calls with one individual flying right over our heads then perching in the open.  We were amazed at the numbers of Pine Warblers present: easily over a hundred lifted out of sunny fields as we drove along.  We saw our only frog of the trip here also: a Green Treefrog that seemed content to sit on the toilet seat of a warm port-o-john!  After lunch in Sebring we visited Highlands Hammock State Park, established in 1931.  The highlight was “The Big Oak”, more than 1,000 years old and 36 feet in circumference at its base.  Mixed species flocks of passerines here contained Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Hairy Woodpecker, and Blue-headed Vireo.  A walk along the cypress swamp trail allowed close looks at an intricately patterned and rather large spider.

The next day started out with a drive through more Florida Prairie habitat and agricultural fields, viewing Osprey nests on almost every telephone pole, Bald Eagles, and Sandhill Cranes.  The Archbold Biological Station offered a chance to learn more about the endangered prairie habitat, scrub-jays, and the importance of fire in this fragile ecosystem.  A perusal of back roads in the Venus area gave us a great look at a young Crested Caracara.  Late that day we joined local expert Jeff Bouton at Babcock-Webb Wildlife Management Area where he quickly showed us a Red-cockaded Woodpecker at a roost hole.  Scope looks at this bird were so good most of us were able to see the bird’s namesake—a tiny red spot on the side of the head.  We drove through expanses of Slash Pine and Saw Palmetto, sorting through flocks of Pine, Palm, and Yellow-rumped Warblers, Eastern Bluebirds, and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers along the way.  Jeff stopped at a roadside wetland and quickly produced a King Rail.  Spectacular looks followed in both binocs and scope as the bird called—it was so close even its tongue was visible!  It was hard to leave such a look at so secretive a species, but Jeff had one more stop for us before dark.  In Punta Gorda just after sunset we viewed a tough Burrowing Owl that managed to survive the worst of hurricane Charley.  He even sallied forth from his perch and nabbed a small lizard while we watched.

Our fifth day of the tour began with a morning spent at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, arguably one of the most famous in the refuge system.  Not surprisingly the wildlife drive was loaded with people and even more loaded with tame birds.  Large numbers of Little Blue Herons, Tricolored Herons, and three species of egrets entertained us with their varied fishing styles while Roseate Spoonbills and White Pelicans flew overhead.  We got great comparative looks at Black-crowned Night-Heron and Yellow-crowned Night-Herons practically branch-to-branch.  An “in-your-face” Red-shouldered Hawk perched a few feet over our heads, vying for our attention.  A walk through the Bailey tract of the refuge gave us great looks at White Peacock butterflies, Chicken Turtles, and hordes of Common Moorhens.  Lunch wasn’t apparently enough for most folks, with desperate cries for ice cream as we drove through Sanibel.  I missed the turn for the first available ice cream place to the dismay of the group.  Serendipitously the next ice cream place not only satiated everyone’s palate, but also had a pair of nesting Bald Eagles with two chicks visible from the parking lot!  To add to the excitement a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers hammered away on an Australian Pine in a case of competing scopes!  It was nice to see so many people there interested in viewing these two beautiful species and discussing them with us.  We closed the day looking for shorebirds at Bunche Beach where a large flock of Black Skimmers barked while Willets and a few Marbled Godwits snoozed next to them.  Finally, a Gopher Tortoise was seen well at the scenic Bowditch Point Park in Fort Myers Beach (photo by Linda Mack).

The next morning we headed off to the Immokalee area searching for elusive flycatchers.  Although they didn’t cooperate we did get great looks at another Crested Caracara and an obliging Great Crested Flycatcher.  The bulk of our day was spent at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary with its impressive boardwalk trail.  Anhinga breeding seemed to be in full swing here, with birds calling, defending territories, and incubating.  A wide array of herons and egrets were viewed along the boardwalk, often only a few feet away.  In the afternoon we visited Eagle Lakes Community Park in Naples where a series of water management ponds hosted a variety of marsh birds including more Anhingas, Green Herons, Blue-winged Teal, and a gorgeous drake Eurasian Wigeon.  As we headed back to the van a young Bald Eagle and an Osprey shared a thermal over our heads.

Our seventh day of the tour was spent exploring the northwestern corner of Everglades National Park.  The day began with an ongoing kingfisher count and more Anhingas.  A stop at the Miccosukee Cultural Center yielded several hunting Snail Kites, mostly males with their slate gray plumage and bright orange talons and bills.  These raptors hunt the river of grass in search of Apple Snails, which Jeff and his son Austin had shown us earlier in the trip.  As we entered the Shark Valley section of the park, a dark morph Short-tailed Hawk flew right over the van.  We relocated the bird during lunch, soaring with vultures and making steep, fast dives in pursuit of unlucky songbirds in hammocks below.  The observation deck behind the visitor center offered great looks at Alligators of various sized (including one older male bellowing), Purple Gallinules, and swimming Anhingas.  We took the tram tour to better experience the Everglades proper, viewing many Alligators, Florida Softshell Turtles, herons, egrets, and an unexpected Roseate Spoonbill.  The view from the tall tower was impressive, with the river of grass extending to the horizon and dotted with hardwood hammocks.  On our way back to Naples we took the long way home via the loop road in Big Cypress National Preserve.  This traversed scenic cypress swamps with Spanish Moss and tea-colored streams.  One slough contained almost fifty White Ibis and two calling Barred Owls.  It was a nice way to close out one of the warmer days of the tour.

Our last day together started with a morning at Tigertail Beach County Park on Marco Island.  A large shallow lagoon there provides important wintering habitat for an array of shorebirds.  Like much of the wildlife we observed on the tour, the birds here were exceptionally tame and included five species of plover.  A few Wilson’s Plovers ran right by our feet!  Great comparative looks at shorebirds were had here, including Red Knots, Least Sandpipers, Western Sandpipers, Black-bellied Plovers, Dunlin, Short-billed Dowitchers, and more.  Several Snowy Plovers were roosting on the far side of the lagoon.  Our only white morph Reddish Egret of the trip was “dancing” for fish.  Flocks of Brown Pelicans were actively fishing just past the breakers, plunge diving from high above.  Palms around the parking lot contained Yellow-throated Warblers and a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.  Our last stop of the tour was a return visit to Eagle Lakes, where we viewed not one but two drake Eurasian Wigeons along with many other waterbirds.  After a leisurely drive back to Sarasota we enjoyed our final meal together and prepared for our flights home the next day.

--Scott Barnes

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