Florida IV - Day 2

Day 2

I awoke to another unseasonably cold morning in southern Florida. I drove west from my AirBnB to the edge of the Everglades and a site called Sparrow Fields. To reach this drive to the very end of SW 168th street, past the pump station on the left and park at a small turning circle when you can go no further - probably about another kilometer or so where a yellow gate blocks the road. Take the trail to the left, there is a short bend and then it straighens out. Sparrow Fields is now to your east. I walked the large loop here, cursing my decision to wear shorts and flip-flops. The birds made up for my discomfort though, hundreds of White Ibis, loads of different herons and egrets. I was on the lookout for American Bittern, an ABA tick, and this site was known to have a few. And remarkably I found one, I have no idea how. It was only just off the path and the camouflage was astounding - if I took my eyes off it I lost it, and indeed searching for camera angles that is exactly what happened. One minute there, the next simply vanished and I could not pick it up again. Other birds of note here were 200 Blue-winged Teal, two Northern Harrier, two Belted Kingfisher and two Merlin.

Wood Stork

Great White Egret

American White Ibis

American Bittern

By now it was 9am and warming up a little, so I drove the short distance south to 322st St to the Shiny Cowbird stakeout. This is a normal residential area so be sensitive to that, but an eBirder lives here somewhere and posts repeated sightings of this new Florida resident. Sure enough after about half an hour of waiting a group flew into a large hedge in a garden. I was also able to add a few suburban birds to my list like Northern Cardinal, Red-bellied Woodpecker and Blue Jay.

Shiny Cowbird

Loggerhead Shrike

After some breakfast I returned to Lucky Hammock. Here I encountered the Smooth-billed Anis again, three of them this time, and managed to get a photo. As it turned out the only photo I got that was decent turned out to be a Groove-billed Ani, later proved to be silently associating with two Smooth-billed, so a bit of an ABA listing result really. 

Groove-billed Ani

Heading west I stopped in at the Anhinga Trail, but being a weekend it was already rather busy and I didn't linger. I added Purple Gallinule, Anhinga, Black and Turkey Vultures (beware that they have a sideline in eating rubber seals from cars here), and a Great Crested Flycatcher. It seems few people head further into the Everglades than Royal Palm, and as I continued on west to Flamingo NP the number of cars dwindled to next to nothing. 

Anhinga

American White Ibis

Black Vulture

Red-shouldered Hawk

My first stop was the Eco Pond, and as it is not very big I walked the trail all the way around it. Snowy Egret, Roseate Spoonbill, hundreds of Turkey Vulture and two Osprey made up the big birds, and in the bushes I found Yellow-throated Warbler, Northern Parula, Least Flycatcher and Blue-grey Gnatcatcher. My plan had been to walk the Coastal Prairie Trail for a few miles, but this was flooded out and I could only add Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in the trees before the trail disappeared under water as it emerged from cover. Shame, as the walk is described as very birdy when you get out to the real coastal swamp.

Blue-grey Gnatcatcher

Northern Parula

Yellow-throated Warbler

The end of the Coastal Prairie Trail!

Back in the main parking area I met an incredibly helpful birder who I think was called Raul. We watched some waders together, and whilst doing so he gave me some wonderful gen on where to find Snail Kite and White-crowned Pigeon - both of these spots turned out to be rock solid later in the day. The heavy rain had flooded the picnic area here, and a variety of waders were feeding in the large puddles - Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs mostly, but also some Least Sandpiper and a Dunlin. On the beach there was a Grey Plover, two American Avocet, and rather surprisingly a Franklin's Gull. Two Wood Stork flew over the car as I returned to get my camera for the gull.

By now it was gone 2pm, birding days do tend to just vanish when they are going well. I drove the hour up to US 41, and stopped at the very slight bend just west of Coopertown, and where the raised section finished. Looking south into the swamp I easily found my first Snail Kite quartering the marsh. As I watched, a further four birds were noted. What a spot! I even managed to get an OK image when one of them came a little closer, and I also added Limpkin. Although it meant retracing my route, Raul's gen had been so good that I decided to also try for the Pigeon now, rather than on my way back to the airport in a couple days when I would no doubt be running short on time. I had been given a number of blocks along SW 72nd Street, from 110-90 working west to east. Scan the overhead wires I was told. It took a while to get there, but he was spot on. At SW 100th Avenue I found two birds on some wires across the creek. It took a while to make my way over to the other side, but I had been looking at the Kendall Tennis Training Centre. So if you can't find this species in the Florida Keys, then suburban south-west Miami is decent bet! My last target had been found, and so now I could concentrate on photography. I pointed the car west and drove back across the Everglades to the gulf coast.

Snail Kite

White-crowned Pigeon

Off to a flying start!

Well 2015 is already a bit of a blinder! At work yesterday I had vaguely contemplated that two ticks were on offer in Yorkshire, but hadn't seriously considered going for them. A quick phone call with John A sorted that one out, and he very sensibly agreed that although it was highly mega, New Year celebrations should continue uninterrupted, and that were the Chicken Little Bustard to still be there in the morning, he would come round mine and off we would set. 

With only a mild hangover, and John feeling tip-top and thus on driving duty, he arrived around 9am and in company with Nick, whose patch enthusiasm had waned after just 20 pathetic minutes, we headed off on the long drive up to East Yorkshire. Great birds in profusion, but one of my least favourite places to get to. The motorway part is OK, if boring, but the final miles are interminably slow and you feel like you're crawling - and of course this last stretch is the most stressful of all. Stuck behind a caravan doing 35 on the open road with a monster bird only a few miles away. Today was no different, although John's levels of stress far surpassed anyone else's. He'd previously dipped two, in 1997 and 1988, and wasn't feeling good about not having been there at dawn. I'll clean his seat tomorrow. Anyhow, it was all good and he need not have fretted, as the bird showed extremely well in a kale field to at least a hundred green-clad admirers, and was on view from the moment we arrived to the moment we left.

Which was not long! Possibly a mite longer than the Masked Shrike, but we had Pipit business to attend to on the other side of Yorkshire, and at gone 1pm on a dank early January afternoon we were very much up against it. We left the Pheasant Bustard to its pecking, and sloped off back the way we had come, through Beverley and towards York. As we progressed west it got darker and darker, and then the rain started coming down. I very nearly carried on down the M1 as this was sub-optimal Pipit weather, but it wouldn't be January 1st without a good soaking, so instead we elected to give it a go regardless. And I'm very glad we did, as although the promised soaking came quickly, the bird showed like a boss. Properly strutted its stuff, and in the case of a leggy bird like a Blyth's Pipit, that's some decent strutting. It might have even been further off the ground than the Bustard, and the bins views were superb on a little patch of wasteground near a KFC and a petrol station. A sensational inland find by someone, top drawer! Shite all over the place but the Pipit was loving it, and I loved it right back as this was my final Pipit. Pechora and Buffy done a long time ago, Red-throat longer ago than that, and I've even found an OBP - this was the big omission, so a much-wanted new bird and a grip back from the lads who saw one on Scilly the year before I fell in with them. I'm still waiting for the Rev.

Unfortunately this mad tickery, all 520 miles of it, means that my Wanstead patch list is restricted to ten - all birds seen or heard whilst chucking optics in the car this morning. Still, there's a long way to go, and it's kind of cool to have seen a Little Bustard before a Little Grebe. Barely 24 hours gone and two lifers added. I'd say that's a fine start to the year, long may it continue!

2014 Twitch of the Year

As previously mentioned, fewer candidates this year, but were any simply spectacular? Well, not really. Generally I was a little more gung-ho about things, for instance waiting six weeks to go and see the Ross's Gull in Devon...... But seriously, this is supposed to celebrate all things twitch, and do any stand out for being skin-of-my-teeth, brave and daring, cheating fate, that sort of thing? Er no, this is twitching we're talking about. The ability to own or have access to a car, and be able to read a map and follow simple instructions. So whilst there have been some great birds, most of them long stayers that allowed my absurd travel schedule to proceed unhindered, which was the most satisfying? Not missing out on the Eagle by being abroad was good, ditto for the Speccy. Both had the good grace to hang around for ages and ages, a feature of most birds during the year with the exception perhaps of the Great Knot (but I got that too!). 

However for sheer "I love it when a plan comes together"-ness, the most satisfying were that incredibly uninspiring trio of Yanks that graced Scotland right at the start of the year. I combined a visit up there with a trip to my office in Glasgow, and had exactly one and a half days to bag the lot before needing to be at work on Monday morning. I planned it out like a campaign, with times I needed to be at certain places, and times I needed to leave others. And it worked like a dream, with the weather mostly playing ball as well. I left Inverness airport at lunchtime of Saturday, and was "enjoying" the American Coot very shortly afterwards. I then diverted to Capercaillieland for a spot of pant-wetting, and after realising that the bird was quicker and fiercer than I was, went birding in the nearby forests, followed by going up Cairngorn to dip Ptarmigan. As the weather closed in I crossed the country to Strontian, passing a terrible night in a storm-lashed car sleeping for perhaps fifteen minutes at a time before needing to switch the engine on to stay alive. Sunday morning the glorious American Black Duck was all mine in dreadful weather before it was time for the long drive south to Campbeltown where an American Herring Gull had been seen. This bird, even for a a Gull-lover like me, was the worst of the lot, taking hours and an emergency Double Decker to connect with, and when I did the feeling of joy was indescribable. Sheer and utter joy. Not really, it was crap. I mean it was nice to get it, and it capped a sensational weekend of tickery, but let's face it, it's a manky gull like all the rest of them and is only marginally different from a Herring Gull. Whereas the Coot and Duck were complete polar opposites of their European counterparts. Ahem.

So, three crap birds and four hundred slow miles. But eminently worth it for reasons that continue to defy rational explanation. Boom boom boom, tick and run. The best thing about it is that it took less than a full weekend and I need never suffer from twitcher's angst about any of them ever again. They're done and forgotten about, forever inked in.

Triple whammy

I am lying, exhausted, on a hotel bed in Glasgow. I have spent the past 36 hours relentlessly driving round the Scotland adding American things to my list, and it has been a great success. I didn't actually come for birds at all, I came for work, but decided that rather than fly up on Monday I would arrive on Saturday instead. No reason really, just felt like it.

Ahem.

So, American Coot then. The one I said that if I twitched it, to shoot me. Yes, that one. In my defence it was on the way from the airport to the Black Duck. Well, if you took a wrong turn it was. I spent a good three minutes contemplating its inner beauty, and then went south and amused myself on Speyside for the afternoon. I finished up on Cairngorm trying and failing for Ptarmigan in increasingly poor weather.

Then the long trek south-west to the Ardnarmuchan peninsula for the long-staying Black Duck at Strontian. I missed the last ferry of the day and had to go the long way around, but finally got there in foul weather for around 9pm. My hotel for the night was the luxuriously appointed "Picasso C4", which on reflection was probably a saving too far. The buffeting of the wind was incredible, and I had to turn the car on every hour simply in order to stay alive. Somehow I made it through the night, and awoke to continuing horizontal rain and stupidly strong wind. Drove the mile or so into the village to start the hunt but every time I opened the window even a fraction the car filled with water. I found three Mallard, and then another two, but it wasn't until there was a short let-up that the Black Duck appeared in the company of another Mallard, crossing the mouth of the river and then hauling itself up onto the shore where it was quite difficult to scope.

Next stop the Mull of Kintyre! When I had been planning this trip, all I had had in mind were the Coot and the Duck - a fabulous duo. Not long before I left an American Herring Gull had been found near Campbeltown, and I figured that eve though I only had a very short time, if I got the Duck either last knockings on Saturday or first thing Sunday, I had a chance at it. A long and slow drive (I did 520 miles this weekend, which took about 15 hours, much of it in the dark and in atrocious weather). I had a quick stop in Oban, and another at Tayinloan where the Snow Geese in with White-fronts were a doddle, and arrived in Campbeltown just after lunch, which in my case was a Double Decker - I would need every ounce of its magic.

It seemed to be working, as the sun came out and then I quite quickly found a field near the airport with a load of large gulls in it, including a 2w Iceland type. Nothing standing out though, so I went and tried the harbour, again without success. Back in the fields, it seemed that the Gulls could be in a depression I couldn't see into, so I abandoned the car and headed up to the Macrihanish Beacon which is a good vantage point. From here I located another/the same Iceland Gull, but more interestingly located a couple of cars on a track looking intently at a flooded field. Find the birders, find the bird... Too far away to get anything meaningful on thr birds, but managed to work out how there got where they were by trial and error, but when scanning couldn't pick it out. I went through them again and again, eliminating darker juveniles that looked the same. And suddenly there it was, the asleep one. The strong wind had been blowing the breast feathers to one side, so it looked lighter than it in fact was. Had to wait a while for it to stand up, but when it did, kerching! The Treble! Record shots only, ditto with the duck which I had to phone scope, but I think shows what it is.

So, another two tick day, and a three tick weekend filled with birds. I love it when a plan comes together! OK, so all the birds are pretty bland - essentially a Coot, a Mallard and a Herring Gull - but if you're going to see them far better to do it in one hit rather than make several lengthy journeys.