Birding the Keys

Friday May 3rd

Mangrove Cuckoo seen on Key Largo

 Began birding this morning with a stop on Card Sound Road near the former toll booth. The old toll booth is gone now and replace by computer tag readers to digitally collect the toll.  When I arrived at the location I was greeted by a calling Yellow Warbler. Not much else was active though besides some gulls, brown-headed cowbirds and more curly-tailed lizards. 

Made my next stop on Carysfort Circle on Key Largo. On my last visit to this site, I was rewarded with Bobolinks. This was a goal for today, but dipped on  the bobolinks.  However there were several White-eyed and Black-whiskered Vireos calling, plus Palm, Northern Parula and Cape May Warblers. A female Brown-headed Cowbird popped up, Northern Cardinals were very active and a Great Crested Flycatcher was flitting about the canopy.  The best bird was the arrival of a calling Mangrove Cuckoo who would even give a couple of brief poses for he camera.

With a very successful stop here, it was time to head south to Marathon.

Least Tern found at Marathon, Florida 

Roseate Terns are nesting atop the local government building in Marathon

Roseate Tern seen at Marathon, Florida

 Next was a stop at the Marathon Government Center to check-out the Tern Nesting Colony using the flat roof tops of these buildings for nesting sites.  Least and Roseate Terns have arrived on site and can  be seen flying about the area. The access I used in the past to photograph these birds, at rest on the dock behind the buildings,  has now been posted. So from the parking lot I walked behind the building to the shore and found a spot to take my pictures.  Several huge iguanas did not appreciate my presence, as they scrambled into the mangroves.

Gray Kingbird photographed at Key Deer Refugee at Big Pine Key

From Marathon, I moved south on the Overseas Highway and past the Seven-mile bridge to reach Big Pine Key.  Big Pine Key is the home for hundreds of Key Deer who have benefitted from the creation of the National Key Deer Refugee and Protection as an endangered species. These small deer are a subspecies of the White-tailed Deer, but are isolated on the Lower Keys. These diminutive deer are examples of what is described as the Island Effect or Foster's Rule, were large animals will genetically reduce in size when isolated on an island.

I didn't stay around till dark to find any Antillean Nighthawks, but my friends were able to see and hear several of the birds as they staked out a spot at the north end of Big Pine Key.  

Key Deer are found living on the islands of the Lowered Keys 

and benefit from the protection at the Key Deer Refugee

Another popular activity here in the Lower Keys is Star Gazing. With the wide open skies and low light pollution, winter time astronomy can draw hundreds of amateurs and professional astrometry to the Keys   The Southern Cross Astronomy Society of Miami,  sponsors the Annual Winter Star Party at Big Pine Key The Lower Keys are one of the few places within the US were the Southern Cross Constellation can be observed. 

After locating a couple of key deer I began heading back to the mainland. Made a couple of stops at Curry Hammock SP and Long Key SP. Neither location was very birdy today. At Long Key State Park the damage from Hurricane Irma was still evident, as the camp ground structures were  still being repaired and acres of mangroves had been killed by the storm surge. 

Hiked the Golden Orb Trail at Long Key, despite the uncomfortable temperatures and lack of shade. Was interested in finding any Six-lined Racerunner Lizards to photograph.  Maybe another time as these guys can quickly scurry away.

 Also noticed a couple of other points of interest along the path.  One was the signage warning to avoid touching the Poisonwood Trees. Relatives of poison ivy, many people can have a bad skin reaction. The other were point of interest was the Miami Blue Butterfly introduction project. The Miami Blue is a species on the edge of extinction and biologists from the University of Florida are endeavoring to establish a population here on long Key.

Red-bellied Woodpecker nesting at Curry Hammock State Park on Florida Keys.

The Keys

Wednesday May 11th

Monday, I made my yearly stop in the Town of Marathon in the Florida Keys looking for the nesting Roseate Terns and the seasonal Antillean Nighthawks. Both of these species arrive in the Keys in the Spring. The Roseate Terns are a primarily pelagic species, but members from the Caribbean population will come ashore for nesting.

Roseate Tern

In Marathon the small number will join with Least Terns to nest atop the Marathon Government Center building. I arrived about 5:30 pm and sited at least six of the Roseate Terns as well as the Least Terns, White-crowned Pigeons and Double-crested Cormorants. Next was a long wait at the nearby Marathon Airport of sundown to await the appearance of a pair of Antillean Nighthawks.

They began calling right at sundown and took flight shortly after. Other species seen during my wait included Gray Kingbirds, more White-crowned Pigeons, a Common Myna and Chimney Swifts.

Prior to reaching Marathon, I made a stop at the tollbooth area on Card Sound Road to look for any Yellow Warblers or Black-whiskered Vireo. But all was quite. Next stop was Carysfort Key Largo. Here were seen a flock of Bobolinks, White-crowned Pigeons and calling Black-whiskered and White-eyed Vireos. 

Gray Kingbird

Down the road was Dagny Johnson Hammock Biological State Park were I had planned to connect with Mangrove Cuckoos. But OOPS!!. The park is closed for renovations. Seems they're stripping the property of man made structures built prior to acquiring the hammock. 

This gave me more time to stop at Long Key State Park. Earlier in the year the Golden Orb Trail here was active with birders looking for the Zenaida Dove and Key West Quail-Dove. Both extreme rarities. Bob Pelkey and I made a try back in January on the dove but dipped. Neither bird have been reported for some time, but I was very pleasantly surprised to sight a pair of Connecticut Warblers on the trail.  Lifers!!. Florida birders have a very small window as they migrate north and even then counts are low as they are hard to locate.  This year seems folks are have better success. Also seen here were an unidentified thrush, Magnolia Warbler, Prairie Warblers, American Redstarts and lots of Ovenbirds. This would be my best stop of the trip.

Pigeon Plum is a common tree at Long Key State Park.

Tuesday was spent exploring in Dade County. Made stops at Kendall Baptist Hospital area and found a couple of Monk and Yellow-chevroned Parakeets, but no bulbuls, spot-breasted orioles or mitred parakeets. Additional stops at Matheson Hammock Park in Coral Gables and A D Barnes Park  were a total wash-out. Very quite. Last stop was was at the Snapper Creek Canal Cave Swallow site, were several Cave Swallows were observed, but were much too fast for my photography.

Yellow-chevroned Parakeet

South Florida is not just a place to look for wild exotic birds, but also a place to find exotic lizards.

Green Iguanas are found everywhere

At Mathesson Hammock I spotted several exotic lizards sunning themselves. Including Green Iguana, West African Rainbow Agamas, Brown Basilisks and a Puerto Rican Crested Anole. Mexican Spiny-tailed Iguanas were seen at Snapper Creek Canal.

Northern Brown Basilisk

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West African Redheaded Agama

West African Redheaded Agama

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Puerto Rican Crested Anole

A Visit to the Conch Republic and Vicinities - Part 2

Saturday, May 23rd

Saturday morning we headed out very early to make a run all the to Key West by 8:30. Before starting out Florida City,  Bob Pelkey could hear  a calling Chucks-will-Widow. The first bird for the day.

We did reach Ft Zachary Taylor Historical State Park on Key West by 8:30. Noted that there lots of feral jungle fowl (chickens) in the lower Keys. Another non-native that is found here were large numbers of invasive Green Iguanas. Some quite large.

We spent the remainder of the morning birding the park. White-crowned Pigeons were numerous, here and all through the Keys. Also present today were a few Eastern Kingbirds, Grays Kingbirds, Least Terns, Grackles and Magnificent Frigatebirds. Bob was able to add Bald Eagle, Barn Swallow and American Redstart.  

Green Iguana in Key West

 By noon we were heading back toward the Upper Keys. Made a stop at on Middle Torch Road on Summerland Key. Last year, at this spot we were getting good photos of Black-whiskered Vireos. The vireos continue to be active at this location, but today they would stay deep in the brush.  This would prove to a theme for the rest of the day.

White-crowned Pigeon

Part of the moat surrounding the bastions of Ft Zachary Taylor
Least Terns were active all around the fort

I believe that these blossoms are a species of Indian Blanket. Seen at Ft Taylor

Gray Kingbird

Coast Guard Cutter Thetis is stationed out of Key West

Royal Tern

                                                                                                                At the Marathon government center, Least and Roseate Terns have returned to nest up on the roof . 

This Roseate Tern is sporting a set of legs bands
Unable to read the leg bands code 

Roseate Tern

Roseate Tern

Next, at Key Largo, we stopped at Dagny Johnson State Park. This site contains the largest tract Caribbean Hardwood Hammock left in the Keys. We found the park to be very quite. Only heard Northern Cardinals, White-eyed Vireos and a pair of Mangrove Cuckoos. The cuckoos refused to leave the dense hammock for a photo op.

Lastly was a stop at the toll booth on Sound Card Road to look for Cuban Golden Warblers in the mangroves. We could hear the yellow warblers, but could only coax a Prairie Warbler to pose for the camera.

Red Junglefowl (Domestic type)

Magnificent Frigatebird

Double-crested Cormorant

Brown Pelican

White Ibis

Black Vulture

Turkey Vulture

Osprey

Bald Eagle

Common Gallinule

Laughing Gull

Least Tern

Roseate Tern

Royal Tern

Rock Pigeon

White-crowned Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

White-winged Dove

Mourning Dove

Mangrove Cuckoo

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Eastern Kingbird

Gray Kingbird

White-eyed Vireo

Black-whiskered Vireo

Fish Crow

Purple Martin

Northern Mockingbird

Common Myna

European Starling

Yellow Warbler

Prairie Warbler

Northern Cardinal

Red-winged Blackbird

Common Grackle

Boat-tailed Grackle

Birding the Florida Keys and Miami

June 9th

Day One - The Keys

Bob Pelkey picked me up at Three AM for our annual birding trip to the Florida Keys.  This year we added a day to visit Dry Tortugas National Park. Our goals for this trip were for birds primarily found in the Keys including White-crown Pigeon, Rosette Tern, Antillean Nighthawk, Black-whiskered Vireo, Brown Noddy, Masked Booby and Shiny Cowbird.

Card Sound Road

White-crowned Pigeon

Our early start was timed for an arrival at sunrise at the Card Sound Road toll booth. This location can be an excellent location for finding Black-whiskered Vireo and Cuban Golden Warblers.  This warbler is a Caribbean subspecies of the Yellow Warbler and its only U.S. range is in the mangroves of the Florida Keys. So we expected to find and photograph these birds, but upon arrival found that the location had been taken over by KZK Productions for filming a new series forNetflix. We did manage to hear Prairie Warbler and a Black-whiskered Vireo as we moved on.

The next stop was three down the road just before Sound Card Road meets 905. Here we were looking for a neotropic cormorant that had been reported at this location for the past three days. We didn't see any cormorants at all, but had good showings of White-crowned Pigeon, Green

Common Nighthawk

Herons, Gray Kingbird and a very cooperative Common Nighthawk.

Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park 

Next stop was on Key Largo near were 905 intersects with Highway 1. Dangy Johnson can be a good location for Mangrove Cuckoo and Black-whiskered Vireo.  I've seen both here in the past, but not today. Did sight White-crowned Pigeon,

A young White-eyed Vire

White-eyed Vireo and heard a Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Bob also located an interesting lizard called a Bark Anole.                                                                                                                                  

Bark Anole

                                                                                           

Marathon Government Buildings

Nesting Rosette Terns along with nesting Least Terns can be found this time of year around the Marathon Government Complex. We were succesfull, finally, in locating a targeted species with seeing the Rosette Terns. Magnificent Frigetbirds, Least Terns and Laughing Gulls were also seen here.

Rosette Terns in Marathon

Curry Hammock State Park

Curry Hammock is a small park with access on Little Crawl Key and is know for the annual Fall Hawk Watch located here. We did not see much on our stop. A Gray Kingbird posed for us and a couple of Ground Doves were active, but mostly the activity we saw were the basking Green Iguanas.

Gray Kingbird

Adult Green Iguana

Juvinile Green Iguana

Large Green Iguana

Key West and Ft Taylor State Park

Arriving in Key West around noon we scouted out the island and stopped at Ft Zackary Taylor State Park.  Found the park fairly quiet. A few White-crowned Pigeons, Least Terns and Common Grackles. Would have been nice to find some Caribbean vagrants but mostly found more Green Iguana. On the island we saw lots of the Key West chickens, Gray Kingbirds, White-crowned Pigeons and White-winged Doves.

A scene from Ft Taylor

White-crowned Pigeon

Green Iguana

Middle Torch Key

Made a stop on Middle Torch Key Road, after leaving Key West as we were returning to Marathon, to look for Black-whiskered Vireos, which we did find along with more Gray Kingbirds and a Key Deer.

Key Deer in velvet

Black-whiskered Vireo

Marathon Airport

Bob Pelkey waiting for the nighthawks to arrive

After checking into the motel in Marathon and getting some rest, we headed over to the nearby airport to await the arrival of any Antillean Nighthawks at sun down. As we waited several Laughing Gulls passed by, plus more White-crowned Pigeons, Kingbirds, Least Tern and even an unidentified parrot. Finally at seven forty-five we first heard then spotted a lone Antillean Nighthawk soaring above the airport runway. But it quickly left the area toward the northeast. By eight o'clock a pair of Antillean Nighthawks appeared, again, briefly, which ended the day's birding.

Down to Key West

June 20th and 21st

Roseate Tern seen in Marathon
Photo by Bob Pelkey

Day One

Bob Pelkey and I headed down to The Keys to look for several specialities that make a home in the Keys. Also hoping that we could come across any vagrants from the West Indies. Like the Antillean Short Eared Owl or the Bahama Mockingbird recently sighted in Key West. 

 Actually we are at least a month late for the best spring-time birding. But logistics delayed us till late June. One positive was that June is a slow time for tourism making travel a lot easier. 

We arrived in Key West at sunrise to the sounds of crowing chickens and calling White-eyed Vireos. Ft Zachary Taylor State Park was our first stop were we quickly tally White-crowned Pigeons, Magnificent Frigatebirds and a Great White Heron ( the white morphed form of the Great Blue Heron).  A short-eared owl had recently spent some time here was now long gone and a recently reported Bahama Mockingbird was also not located.  Just saw a report that the day following our visit a smooth-billed ani was seen. 

We then made several stops in the lower Keys to find and photograph several Black-whiskered Vireos, Gray Kingbirds, more White-crowned Pigeons and the famous diminutive Key Deer, a sub-species of the white-tailed deer.

At Bahia Honda State Park we added Least Terns, Black-bellied Plovers, Wilson's Plovers, Semipalmated Plovers Ruddy Turnstones and a trio of Killdeers.

By the early afternoon we had arrived in Marathon and located a flock of a least twenty beautiful Roseate Terns in their best breeding colors. Bob noted in his photography that several were banded. I noticed a strange little lizard that I found was a Northern Curly-tailed Lizard which originally came from the Bahamas.

After a muched needed break we later regrouped at the Marathon Airport to await the arrival of a pair of Antillean Nighthawks. Before their arrival we watched several birds working the wet areas at the west end of the air strip.  They included Laughing Gulls, Black-bellied Plovers, a dozen Short-billed Dowitchers, a trio of Black-necked Stilts, White Ibis, a Glossy Ibis, Grackles and Starlings.

Day Two

From Marathon we headed back toward home with stops at Long Key State Park, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park and Dagny Johnson State Park. Not much new was added with these stops except for Bob's success in photographing a Mangrove Cuckoo, which later review turned into a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, at Dagny.  I dipped on the cuckoo as it flew of before I could get a look.

We tried to investigate the mangroves at the Card Sound Road tollbooth for cuban yellow warblers, but the deer flies drove us to quickly  retreat to Bob's car. In Homestead we added Mynah birds. At this point we bailed on heading over to the University of Miami campus for parrots and other exotics.  Instead we took a quick run over to the Lucky Hammock area outside of the entrance to Everglades National Park. Here we added Swallow-tailed Kite, a sleeping Common Nighthawk resting on a telephone line and a calling Northern Bobwhite sitting in a tree.

Here we ended the trip and headed back to Ft Myers. Our over-all count, as expected for this time of year, was low, but we did find all but one of our target birds on this trip. Plans are to repeat again next year in May and to add a trip out to the Dry Tortugas. 

Roseate Terns - The Florida Keys, Day Two

Tuesday, May 31st

Day two started out early, by returning to the Marathon Government Center, and was rewarded by dozens of White-crowned Pigeons, a dozen Least Terns and a half dozen Roseate Terns. I noted that all of the white-crowned pigeons were heading in the same direction.  No doubt seeking food.  These birds feed on the fruits of hard wood trees like poisonwood berries.  Other birds present were Eurasian Collared Doves, Rock Pigeons, Northern Mockingbirds and the most commonly seen bird in the Keys, Red-winged Blackbirds.

Iguanas are found through-out south Florida. This lizard was with about a dozen sunning in the ealy morning

It was really difficult to get a good photo of a White-crowned Pigeon

A Key Deer getting a drink at a residence

Following breakfast we continued down US 1 to the National Key Deer Wildlife Refuge. The Key Deer is the smallest variety of white-tailed deer and are only found in the Florida Keys.  They are considered to be endangered and it is unlawful to feed them, but most of the deer we saw were feeding in peoples' yards

We came across another breeding colony of Least Terns nesting on the roof of a commercial building.  Tryed getting photos of white-crowned pigeons here, but they were skittish. Also were seen Grackles, Red-winged Blackbirds, Northern Mockingbirds, Black Vultures, Great Crested Flycatchers, Gray Kingbirds and a Prairie Warbler.

At this point we turned for home, and continued spotting all the same birds including hundreds of Double-crested Cormorants on the pilings and power lines.  Eurasian Collared Doves and white-crowned pigeons remanded plentiful and we add more Common Mynas, a lone Swallow-tailed Kite and a pair of Nanday Parakeets.

Small squirrell feeding at entrance to Dagny

We made a return stop at Dagny Preserve on Key Largo, were we failed to again find a mangrove cuckoo, but added a White-eyed Vireo.  Passing through Homestead we again added common myna, House Sparrow and Chimney Swifts.

Here, instead of heading home we diverted to Everglades National Park and Areojet Road ( Lucky hammock and The Annex).  At Long Pine Key, where the Cuban Pewee was found last September, we were able to add Red-bellied Woodpecker and an Eastern Towhee. At Pautotis pond we added 42 Wood Storks, a Great Blue Heron, a Little Blue Heron, Cattle Egrets, Black Vultures, an Eastern Kingbird, tons of mosquitoes and a very large alligator. At Flamingo we had lots of Laughing Gulls, but struck out of locating any American crocodiles. Nearby Eco Pond was nearly dry we only found a half dozen Black-necked Stilts ( maybe one nesting), a couple of Semipalmated Plovers and about six peeps that were probably Sanderlings, but needed a scope to be 100% sure.

Black-necked Stilt at Eco Pond

Nesting?

We checked out Research Road for any possible white-tailed kites.  Could only find a Swallow-tailed Kite, several Eastern Meadowlarks and a couple of Red-shouldered Hawks. As we were heading back to the main road I believe I spotted a Red-headed Woodpecker fly across the road into some live oaks. My view was very fleeting, but I can not come up with anyother possibility.  The thing is that these woodpeckers are not found in the Glades. I did report it on EBird, but as it was only an anecdotal observation and without a photo, video or a report from a birder with more cred than I have, the sighting can not be excepted.



White-crowned Pigeon on Aerojet Road



Our final stop was on Aerojet Road.  Did not have much to add here White-crowned Pigeon, Mourning Doves, Common Ground Dove, Pileated Woodpecker, Great Crested Flycatcher, Gray Kingbird, American Crow, Northern Mockingbird and more Red-winged Blckbirds

Another good road trip.  Found some good birds and missed a few others.