Tropical Audubon Blog
Nine birders joined Brian Rapoza for this tour, which began and ended in Costa Rica’s capital, San Jose. We visited four distinct areas of the country: Sarapiqui in the Caribbean lowlands, Arenal Volcano National Park, located northwest of the capital, Tarcoles and Carara National Park on the Pacific coast and the Savegre Valley in the Talamanca Mountains southwest of the capital. By trip’s end, the group tallied over 300 bird species (including 28 hummingbirds!), more than a dozen mammals as well as untold numbers of reptiles, amphibians, insects and other tropical critters.
Thirty birders joined Bill Boeringer and Brian Rapoza for Tropical Audubon Society's annual Everglades Agricultural Area birding tour, kicking off TAS's 2022-23 field trip season. Among the group were four other TAS field trip leaders: John Boyd, Nancy Freedman, Luis Gonzalez and Raul Urgelles. We began the tour on the west side of US 27 at A1-Flow Equalization Basin (A1-FEB)
Eighteen birders joined TAS field trip leader John Boyd as we braved the elements this morning to look for birds at Matheson Hammock Park in Coral Gables. The area around the parking lot at the south end of the park was very active with both native and non-native birds as the group assembled under threatening skies, with thunder rumbling in the distance. Species tallied before the walk officially started included Chimney Swift, Eastern Screech-Owl, Red-bellied and Piliated Woodpecker, Orange-winged Parrot, Red-masked Parakeet, Great Crested Flycatcher, Fish Crow, Common Hill Myna, European Starling and Northern Cardinal.
Fifty-three birders joined Miriam Avello yesterday for the TAS bird walk at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park. Due to the size of the group, we broke into three smaller groups, with Miriam (assisted by TAS President Joe Barros) leading one group and Luis Gonzalez and TAS Field Trip Coordinator Brian Rapoza leading the other two groups. Because this walk was part of this weekend’s TAS 75th Anniversary Celebration, representatives from Leica Store Miami were on hand to provide loaner binoculars for those participants who wanted to experience first class optics in the field.
Five birders joined Brian Rapoza and John Boyd this weekend for the TAS tour to Ft. DeSoto Park in Pinellas County as well as other birding hotspots on Florida’s south and central Gulf coast. Anticipation was high as the group assembled on Friday morning. If the forecast of overnight rains in the Tampa area were correct, Ft. DeSoto could be hopping with migrants on Saturday. Not only that, but a Black-legged Kittiwake, an Arctic gull rarely seen in Florida but discovered at Ft. DeSoto’s Gulf Pier a week earlier, was still being reported there.
A total of 16 birders joined Luis Gonzalez on Saturday for an all-day birding trip from Snake Road in Broward County to Picayune Strand State Forest in Collier County. The trip included a short walk and lunch at CREW Bird Rookery Swamp, which is just south of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary but provides similar habitat for many of the same species found there. The weather started with a cool morning in the low 50s before rising to the low 80s while hiking through Belle Mead Horse Trail in Picayune.
Thirteen birders joined me today for the TAS bird walk at Fortymile Bend, on Tamiami Trail at the eastern edge of Big Cypress National Preserve. We met at the Fortymile Bend boat ramp just outside the preserve, where impressive numbers of wading birds, including Wood Storks and Roseate Spoonbills, were actively feeding in the early morning fog. After enjoying this spectacle for a while, we began our walk along the L-28 Levee, which forms an ecotone between the cypress swamps of the preserve and the sawgrass marshes of the Shark River Slough in Water Conservation Area 3A.
Seventeen birders joined John Hutchison yesterday for some early spring birding in southern Broward County. The trip began at Markham Park in Sunrise, where we explored the park’s nature trail and butterfly garden, as well the levee overlooking the marshes of adjacent Everglades Wildlife Management Area. We next headed to the radio-controlled airfield at the east end of the park, along the way spotting a total of eleven Burrowing Owls. We then drove to Tree Tops Park in Davie, stopping first at Westridge Park in adjacent Pine Island Ridge Natural Area.
The March 19th TAS trip to Wakodahatchee and Green Cay Wetland, led by Nancy Freedman, was full of all the usual subjects. The big surprise at Wakodahatchee was a bold Least Bittern who didn't seem bothered by 20 people staring at it. At Green Cay we had our first Little Blue. Not nearly as many birds here as Wakodahatchee but always a nice walk.
Sixteen birders joined me today for the TAS caravan birding trip to Martin County, which began at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, located near the coast at the eastern end of the county. In spite of windy conditions all morning, we still managed to find a nice selection of birds, first in coastal scrub habitat near the park’s Pine Grove Campground, then in pine flatwood habitat in the Kitching Creek area near the Loxahatchee River. After lunch in the Kitching Creek picnic area, we visited Cypress Creek South Natural Area, located just west of Florida’s Turnpike and just south of the Martin County line, where we added a few more birds to our day list, ending the day with 53 species.
Twenty birders joined TAS Field Trip Coordinator Brian Rapoza yesterday for a caravan birding tour at A1-FEB (Flow Equalization Basin) in western Palm Beach County. Over 50 bird species were tallied, as well as a couple of mammals (White-tailed Deer and North American River Otter). After the tour, some of the group headed north to Belle Glade for lunch, followed by a visit to Torry Island Campground at the south end of Lake Okeechobee. Among the birds seen there was the Vermilion Flycatcher that has been present for several months.
Ten birders joined me for Tropical Audubon’s Mexico: Birding the Ruins of the Yucatan tour. During the 11-day tour (January 20-30, 2022), which began on Cozumel and ended in Merida, we visited five different Mayan archeological sites, each one more spectacular than the one before. Along the way, we saw or heard over 200 different birds, including 20 endemics or near-endemics. Our tally included nine pigeons and doves, five cuckoos, ten hummingbirds, eleven herons, four vultures, three owls, two trogons, three motmots, four kingfishers, eight woodpeckers, six falcons, three parrots, twenty-three Flycatchers, four woodcreepers, seven vireos, three jays, five wrens, nine blackbirds and orioles, seventeen warblers, eight cardinals and grosbeaks and eight tanagers.
Twenty-seven birders joined TAS Field Trip Coordinator Brian Rapoza this morning for a walk at three birding hotspots in the Black Point area in south Miami-Dade. We began the morning under rainy skies at Black Point Park, but the rain quickly moved on and didn’t return until our last stop, at Cutler Wetlands. A total of 58 species were seen during the morning.
The 2021/22 Coot Bay (Everglades National Park) Christmas Bird Count took place on Sunday, January 2. Twenty-three participants counted 25,504 birds of 116 species (plus two other taxa). Two other species (Long-billed Curlew and Rose-breasted Grosbeak) were seen during count week (the three days before and after count day). A Wood Thrush, seen and photographed on Snake Bight Trail, was a first for this species in the 71-year history of the count. New high counts were obtained for both Downy and Pileated Woodpecker
The 2021 Miami (Dade County) Christmas Bird Count took place on Saturday, December 18. Forty-two participants counted 16,143 birds of 122 species on count day. Unusual species recorded on the count included Limpkin, Eastern Whip-poor-will (photo courtesy of Steve Woodmansee) and Louisiana Waterthrush. New high counts were obtained for Wood Stork, Black-and-white Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, Prairie Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler and Summer Tanager.
