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I
woke up the next morning with the year list at 181 and 200 well within
reach. We missed Lesser Nighthawk on all 6 of our drives out
Research, but did hear a Common Nighthawk flying around out there and
my year Wilson's Snipe. King Rail and Whip-poor-will all made it
on my year list before I heard a Green Heron as year bird 186. On
our way to Lucky Hammock we found a Chuck-wills-widow which was a life
bird for Phil. We saw several more Whips, and Alex felt the need
to yell at every single one of them. The night birds were all
fairly easy and Screech was the only owl we were missing (or so we
thought) and we had three nightjars. I pointed out some good King
Rail habitat near the bridges on the way out of the park and we soon
found a rail on the road. It appeared to have been stunned, so we
had a little fun with it until it began to move around some and it
appeared perfectly healthy.   Alex with King RailLucky Hammock had a lot of birds, most of which I probably forgot. Least Flycatcher, Grasshopper Sparrow, and Yellow-breasted Chat made appearances at the hammock, but the annex held more birds. We birded the annex very heavily and turned up Wilson's Warbler, Lincoln's Sparrow, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Sandhill Crane, Great Crested Flycatchers as many others. I never got my hands on a Bell's Vireo, which got me a very upset. I quickly pulled out a kinfe and threatened to stab the vireo, and Alex found a stick to beat it with.  Where was the Bell's Vireo?A quick run through Flynn's produced nothing and the White-tailed Kite was still in its area along with Cave Swallows. The good morning at Lucky made me think we could hit the high 120s for the day. Between Anhinga Trail, Gumbo Limbo, Research Road, and Mahogany Hammock I think we had one interesting bird which was a Louisiana Waterthrush on Anhinga Trail. Year Bird 199. We also gave an Anhinga a close look before the rain started, and sent most of the tourists, as well as us, running to the parking lot.  Me getting good looks at AnhingaWhen we arrived at Snake Bight the day list stood at 94. As we walked down the trail we wondered whether I would hit 200 year birds before we hit 100 for the day. I don't know how many times I said 'I want 200 NOW!!!' down the trail, but it sure helped me get over the boredom of the birdless trail. If you have never walked Snake Bight before, it is very boring. Once we got out to the end the day birds piled up, but no year birds were seen. The area has gotten really overgrown and very few birds were visible. The area where I have seen flamingo in the past is only visible by standing on the hand rail of the boardwalk. While up there I could see a large flock of Pelicans, but the only pink birds seen while out there were flyover spoonbills. A calling Clapper Rail was rather unusual, but I got to see one here in June of 2005. The trip back produced 3 sapsuckers and a large cottonmouth, but it was still very boring. We took a few pictures and just acted crazy to pass the time we spent on this 2 mile death march.  This might be the only way to see Flamingo at Snake Bight  Ahh... the boredom of Snake Bight  Ooops Before a stop for food I was still complaining about getting to 200 year birds so we made a quick stop for easy Scissor-tailed Flycatchers. Couldn't find them. The Vermilion Flycatcher in the campground seemed like an easy and cool 200th year bird. Couldn't find it. Frustrated we drove back to the marina to get some food. While the three others sat down to eat their meals, I grabbed a few candy bars and got directions from the ranger on where the flycatchers were and went over there. A Western Kingbird finally broke the 3 or 4 hour yearbirdless streak I was on, and was shortly followed by a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. When the rest of the lazy crew arrived, they said they needed to eat, two Orchard Orioles and an Indigo Bunting had joined the birdlife of the area. Scissor-tail was a lifer for the Ohio kids, and after the birds went away we made the short drive to the new Eco Pond that I had never seen before. The habitat at Eco Pond was really interesting and had more shorebirds for the day list and Stilt Sandpiper for the year list. A walk around the pond gave us new ducks including the Greater Scaup that has been hanging out in the pond for a while. The day list was growing, but we did not know by how much. Due to our earlier miss, we called Paul Bithorn to get better directions to the Vermilion Flycatcher, and Alex easily spotted it at the northwest corner of the T loop of the campground. We walked the West Lake Trail with our Hatian flag, but did not see any new birds, except a Short-tailed Hawk. Alex was also able to spot a few more Short-tailed Hawks on the road. Without anything really left to do we played soccer until dusk before we could look for Lesser Nighthawk. We later found out that a nearby trail held Dickcissel and White-crowned Sparrow.  For when the birding is slowWhile walking out to the C Loop where I got my first Lessers we were informed that spotlights are not allowed in the park. The ranger then proceeded to turn his golf cart around into a bush which gave us a good laugh. We played a few games as it got almost too dark to see, and we concluded that we couldn't find nighthawks. On the way back to the car a bird flew up out of the marsh and I shouted out owl. At first I thought I had made a mistake because it flew like a harrier. After getting everybody on the bird we determined that it was a female Short-eared Owl. We ended the day with 150 species. The pictures from today, yesterday, and tomorrow were mostly taken by Ethan Kistler | ||
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