Tropical Audubon Blog
The 53rd annual Miami (Dade County) Christmas Bird Count took place on Saturday, December 17. On count day, 43 participants counted 15,019 birds of 130 species. Compared with 2021, there were 1,124 less birds counted but 8 more species. Of the 130 species, 121 are on the official Florida state bird list and are considered “countable,” while the remaining nine are not on the state bird list and are thus not considered “countable.”
Thirty-four birders joined TAS Field Trip Coordinator Brian Rapoza on Saturday, November 19 for a full day of birding in Everglades National Park. The trip began at the Coe Visitor Center at the park entrance, but before we began our exploration of the park, we did some birding outside the park at the C-111 Canal, which crosses SR 9336 about 1.5 miles east of the visitor center. Our prime target here was an immature male Vermilion Flycatcher that has been hanging out around the water control structure at this location for the past couple of weeks.
Twenty-two birders joined TAS Field Trip Coordinator Brian Rapoza today for our annual fall trip to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Collier County. The group met pre-dawn at the Miccosukee Service Plaza on Alligator Alley (I-75) in western Broward County. During the drive to Corkscrew via CR 833 (Snake Road) and CR 846 (Immokolee Road), we spotted many of the specialties of this area.
Birding during migration is tricky, since any and everything can make a good birdy place one day and just an empty park the next. Thankfully, time matched for everything needed on this TAS walk, a total of 43 birders of different age ranges and experience in the hobby joined me on this walk around one of the best migrant hotspots in urban Miami.
Forty-five birders joined Cape Florida Banding Station Director Michelle Davis for a morning of fall migration birding on Saturday at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne. Due to the large number of attendees, we broke into two groups, with Michelle leading one group and Luis Gonzalez leading the other. Both groups were given the opportunity to witness the release of birds that were banded at the Cape Florida Banding Station that morning, including Swainson’s Thrush and Swainson’s Warbler.
As has been the case, it was a full house with over 50 Tropical Audubon and Fairchild birders joining us for our fall Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden bird walk. This also served as the kickoff to Fairchild’s fall weekly bird walks. We were also joined by Glenn Huberman and Adair Reeve, who lead the weekly Fairchild walks.
Well within the peak window for fall migration, today’s TAS field trip of September 17, 2022 had 20+ birders join a walk through Kendale Lakes Park in West Kendall. Marc and Eliana Kramer from Birding By Bus led the group across the park’s grassy fields and paved walking paths, scouring the live oaks, stranger figs, black olives, and other trees for migrant birds. Both new and advanced birders attended the walk, from 16 years to 83 years young and from all different backgrounds.
Twenty-nine birders joined Brian Rapoza on Saturday, 9/10/22 for the TAS birding trip to the Islamorada area in the Florida Keys. The trip began at sunrise at the Cracker Barrel in Florida City. Locations visited included Windley Key Fossil Reef Geologic State Park, Long Key State Park, Curry Hammock State Park and Grassy Key’s tidal wetlands. Fifty-five species were tallied during the trip.
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.
