BIRDING FLORIDA
SPECIALTIES, THE FLORIDA KEYS AND DRY TORTUGAS
2010
Saturday May 1 to Sunday May 9
Guided by Gary Rosenberg
Price: $2300
Short tour run weekend to weekend that concentrates on South Florida specialties. Visits Three Lakes Wildlife Area for Red-cockaded Woodpecker and Brown-headed Nuthatch. Evergaldes National Park. Florida Keys to Key West. Day trip to fort Jefferson and Dry Tortugas National Park. South Florida highlights include White-crowned Pigeon, Mangrove Cuckoo, Gray Kingbird, Black-whiskered Vireo, Florida Scrub-Jay, and at the Dry Tortugas, Sooty Tern and Brown Noddy. Chance for rarities such as Black Noddy and Western Spindalis. Florida exotics including Red-whiskered Bulbul and Spot-breasted Oriole. Excellent photographic opportunities at Wakodahatchee.
Birding South Florida in Spring is always fun. Resident birds will be in full swing nesting, and it’s always a treat getting up close and personal views of egrets, herons, and Anhingas in their full breeding plumes, usually feeding young at this season. In early May migration is still occurring, in fact this is the best time of year for rarities from the Bahamas, and late migrants such as Connecticut Warbler. Our short tour from Saturday to the following Sunday begins and ends in Fort Lauderdale, and concentrates first on specialties found in the marshes and Everglades. We then move north to just south of Orlando to Three Lakes Wildlife Area where we will search for pine woods birds. Returning south we will visit Everglades National Park before heading down into the Florida Keys, where there are several specialties to look for, and will serve as our base for our day trip to Fort Jefferson and the Dry Tortugas National Park.
Just north of Fort Lauderdale we visit both Wakodahatchee and Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. Both these venues are wonderful for close studies (and photography) of all the egrets and herons, including crowd favorites such as Purple Gallinule, Limpkin and Snail Kite. Working north we’ll stop for Crested Caracaras, Sanhill Cranes, and Florida Scrub-Jay, as we head toward our main destination, the Three Lakes Wildlife Area. Here we will have an entire afternoon and full morning to search for all the pine specialties, including Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Brown-headed Nuthatch, Pine Warbler, Bachman’s Sparrow, and the “White-eyed” form of Eastern Towhee. We’ll return back south, spending a night near the entrance to Everglades National Park, where we’ll likely see the Cape Sable form of Seaside Sparrow. It is then down to the Florida Keys for a three night stay at Key West. The Keys are unique in North America, and hold a number of specialties mainly restricted to mangroves, including Mangrove Cuckoo, White-crowned Pigeon, Gray Kingbird, and Black-whiskered Vireo. Migration will still be in full swing, and we should see a variety of warblers and thrushes, including a chance for Connecticut Warbler. Perhaps the highlight of the trip will be a day trip out to the Dry Tortugas and Fort Jefferson. We are certain to see the Tortugas specialties, including Sooty Tern, Brown Noddy, Magnificent Frigatebird, and Masked Booby, with an excellent chance for rarer species such as Brown Booby, or even a Black Noddy. Early May also seems to be a good time of year for rarities such as Western Spindalis or LaSagra’s Flycatcher, and the various parks in Key West are the best places to find such birds. We’ll finish the trip with some stops in the Miami area in search of exotics such as Red-whiskered Bulbul and Spot-breasted Oriole.
