07 Mar An Everglades Century Day
Our goal was to see 100 bird species in and around Everglades National Park by the end of the day – The Fifth Everglades Century Day by a core team of Floridians and Marylanders. We’d succeeded on our last venture, eking out a couple of owls after dark to hit the mark. Yet this was another year, another month and thanks to Miami traffic, a much later start. The fact that a pair of mottled ducks were the only thing to be found at the increasingly overgrown Cutler Wetlands wasn’t encouraging. Had the wintering species had already left? Still, there was hope; a flock of West Indian cave swallows just off the turnpike and a secret weapon on our side – Paul Bithorn, birder extraordinaire. It was he that had found those essential last-minute owls on our prior outing and I had no doubts that he’d work his magic again this time.
Surely those seasonally early cave swallows were a good sign, and confidence grew further when we counted eastern meadowlark, scissor-tailed flycatcher and tropical kingbird in quick succession just outside the Homestead entrance to Everglades National Park. The meadowlark trilled its distinctive call; the yellow belly of the kingbird glowed brilliantly; and the scissor-tailed flycatcher’s elongated tail feathers sliced through the sky as it pirouetted across the road. These were my first scissor-tailed flycatchers and I could’ve watched their spectacular flight for hours, but it was pushing mid-day by then and we sought many more species.
Anhinga Trail was surprisingly dead. Water levels were high and the usual array of waterbirds and alligators had mostly dispersed throughout the landscape; only a token few anhinga, cormorant, purple gallinule, a great egret and one alligator remained. We heard a white-eyed vireo call and Paul’s industrial-strength pishing brought not only the vireo into view, but also an assortment of other woodland songbirds.
We drove on, hoping for a rufous-sided towhee and the re-introduced brown-headed nuthatch among the pines but settling for a northern flicker and pine warbler instead. A northern harrier swooped past, and a speck in a distant tree proved to be an elegant white-tailed kite, another first for me.
We stopped at Paurotis Pond for a late lunch, listening to the comic growls of hungry baby anhingas while watching the occasional roseate spoonbill come or go from the boisterous wading bird colony across the lake where wood storks, great egrets, snowy egrets, and white ibis were nesting. Had we hit the half-way mark yet? Just barely, 48 more species to go.
West Lake was our next stop, and to our surprise, the highlight was a common wintering waterbird – the American coot. A flock of hundreds bobbed at the water’s surface as one shape-changing amoebic flotilla, diving, flapping, jostling and squawking in unison. When the congregation brushed against shoreline mangroves, dozens of coots poured up into the roots; then poured back into the water as if magnetically drawn to the others as the group again drifted toward deeper water. I’d heard tales of the winter flocks formed by this species, but never had I seen it before. It was another first for me.
Appropriately, this was also my first visit to Flamingo post- Hurricane Irma. As we neared the end of the road, stretches of mangrove forest on either side showed few signs of recovery. The usual large mixed flocks of gulls and shorebirds were absent from the marina, perhaps because the bayside waters remained pea green after the storm. The typical nesting pair of osprey seemed undeterred though, feeding their young and posing in front of a rainbow despite the slightly somber surroundings.
The vegetation around Eco-pond also looked skeletal, a lone osprey nest loomed exposed above the remains. A small flock of black-necked stilts rested in one corner and a red-shouldered hawk perched in the tree above as we returned to our car. The sun was now low on the horizon and someone had already penned the word “half” in front of “century day” at the top of our bird checklist. Was there any chance of making 100?
We stopped by a brush pile bursting with bird calls, monitored a patch of hole-riddled palms and wandered the beach for shorebirds. A row of birds glowed pink in the setting sun on a distant sandbar. We raced toward the Flamingo visitor center for a closer view – white pelicans and hundreds of snowy egrets. Desperately, we scanned the horizon for a few more species.
An impressively large American crocodile drifted into view. A heavy sigh below alerted us to a pair of West Indian manatees sipping from a freshwater leak in the seawall. It wasn’t the 20-something bird species we needed to make our goal, but it was a damn good finale. It was a quality over quantity day; a three-quarter century day filled with firsts for me. One last bird, a yellow-crowned night heron feeding on the roadside, seemed to bid us farewell as we headed back north for a celebratory dinner.
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