Today, we take a break from Braden’s High Sierra adventures to explore how we all bird through the summer doldrums. Here I share a surprising discovery right in my own neighborhood. If you subscribe to FSB, please share your own similar story, and if you don’t subscribe—what are you waiting for? We only sell your information to people who will give us a LOT of money (just kidding; we do not share any of this information). So please fill out the box down to the right—and make sure you receive every “episode”.
How are you spending the summer birding doldrums? When we first started, Braden and I pretty much stopped birding during July and August—until we learned that there are still many birds to be had during the Dog Days! Even though it’s still summer, some shorebirds are already making their way south from their Arctic breeding grounds and can show up almost anywhere. Last summer, Braden and Nick Ramsey joined a bunch of other stellar birders for an epic day at Glacier National Park—and, of course, this summer Braden is birding the heck out of California. As for me, I am simply enjoying the ordinary birds around Missoula, trying to sharpen my skills so I can distinguish the call of a Lazuli Bunting from that of a Yellow Warbler! Experienced birders know, however, that even “ordinary birding” can produce extraordinary results.
Even during the Summer Blahs, an occasional bird will fly out for a photo-op! Thank you, Mr. Lazuli Bunting!
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to take our dog Lola on an early walk around Greenough Park to beat the heat. For those of you familiar with Greenough, Lola and I parked in the lot midway up the east side of the park, and crossed the two pedestrian bridges so that we could begin walking clockwise around the park—and better spot any caffeine-crazed bicyclists barreling down on us. Sure enough, after only a hundred yards on the main path, a large, crazed shape came right at us. But it wasn’t a bicycle. It was a bird—and it zoomed a mere ten feet above my head! On instinct, I spun around and chased after it, hoping for a solid ID before it disappeared. To my surprise, the bird swooped up into a tree only fifty meters away.
Even while not actively hanging with the chicks, at least one Cooper’s Hawk parent never perched far away.
By this time, I had 99% concluded that this was a Cooper’s Hawk—a kind of accipiter especially adapted for catching birds and flying through trees. According to Birds of the World, 47 species of accipiters live on the planet, but here in the U.S. we have only three: the smaller Sharp-shinned Hawk or “Sharpie”; the larger Cooper’s Hawk or “Coop”; and the Northern Goshawk, our largest accipiter and the bird Braden is chasing around the Sierras this summer. Braden and I don’t often get good looks at Coops so I hoped that this one would stay in the tree long enough for me to observe it. It did—and the reason startled me. In a pine next to the busy path, the Cooper’s Hawk couple had built a nest! Even better, the nest had babies!
During my second visit to the Coop nest, the babies generally kept their heads down—save for this guy. Want to bet s/he is first out of the nest?
I, of course, hadn’t brought my camera with me, but in a way that was better because it allowed me to observe the action without worrying about getting a good photo. Speaking of action, I forgot to mention that when the adult flew by me it had been carrying prey—something large and furry, maybe a rabbit. As I watched, the adult started butchering this critter and feeding it to the ravenous chicks. And speaking of chicks, I was amazed to see four of them—and all quite large. Later, I learned that this is not unusual, and a pair will sometimes raise even more, a testament to the hard-working parents. In fact, even though first-year mortality runs fairly high, Cooper’s Hawks seem to have an excellent survival rate as adults and have been known to breed up through twelve years of age.
Incoming! On my third visit, I just loved watching the young Coops testing out their flying abilities—even if they did occasionally land on each other!
Since discovering the nest, I’ve returned two more times, and each time the babies had made marked progress. My last visit, I watched them hopping in and out of the nest, testing their wings for a departure that couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks away. They also were quickly filling out their juvenile coloration, transforming from white fuzz balls to serious-looking predators before my eyes. At least one parent, though, was never far away.
Ready for launch? Pretty darned close. Observing the Coop nest made me realize that the young have blue eyes! How’s that for a blue-eyed baby?
It all just goes to show that even when we think birding is dead, there’s a lot going on. We just have to keep getting out there and paying attention. Who knows? You may have a Cooper’s nest in your backyard right now! Coops are famously adaptable and found in every region of the Lower 48, often in urban environments and often all year-round. In fact, their numbers have increased dramatically in the past half-century—a nice success story in a time when so many birds are in trouble.
After speaking at the inaugural Billings Kid Lit Festival (see Billing’s Riverfront Park: Montana’s Premier Songbird Hotspot?), I awoke at 4:30 the next morning and hit the road by 5:15. My plan was to book it to Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge and start driving around the lake by 8:30. The problem? I kept passing ponds with birds in them—and I, of course, had to stop to find out what they were! My efforts were rewarded with a variety of ducks, Wilson’s Phalaropes, American White Pelicans, Sandhill Cranes and more, but delayed my arrival at Bowdoin until 9:30. Then, even greater disaster struck: I ran into way more birds than I expected at the Bowdoin visitor’s center—including both male and female Baltimore Orioles!
Bowdoin NWR lies at the eastern edge of the Baltimore Oriole’s range, but Braden and I have seen them often enough that it seems certain they breed there. Oh, and seeing both the male and this female offers an added clue!
Finally entering the first five-mile stretch of the loop, I was shocked by how much of the lake had been sucked dry by eastern Montana’s multi-year drought. This really was a disaster and I wondered if I would even find any place conducive to water birds. Meanwhile, I encountered great grassland birds including Long-billed Curlews, Loggerhead Shrike, Chestnut-collared Longspurs, Lark Buntings, and Grasshopper, Vesper, Clay-colored, and Savannah Sparrows. Finally, near the end of the lake, I found water but at pathetically low levels. A much-vaunted Cassin’s Sparrow (discovered by Joshua Covill, I believe) had been observed repeatedly at about Mile 7 of the loop and I ran into Robin Wolcott and her husband who had driven over from Big Fork to see it. While we stood there, Robin did hear the sparrow, but with my crummy ears I couldn’t be sure so didn’t count it. I also had many miles to drive so I kept on truckin’, driving the three hours to Great Falls.
Chestnut-collared LongspurGrasshopper Sparrow
The next morning I again woke early, loaded up the car and arrived at Benton Lake NWR as dawn filtered over the prairie. After the dry conditions at Bowdoin, I fretted about Benton Lake—but my worries were hijacked by what may have been the most astonishing grassland birding experience I’ve ever had. It began with a sighting of a Long-billed Curlew in flight, always a welcome bird. Then, I saw other large shorebirds and stopped to behold the incredible courtship displays of Willets, flying madly around emitting their haunting, looping calls over the prairie. Other curlews joined in and a Marbled Godwit briefly gave chase to a Willet. Meanwhile, meadowlarks sang and a pack of coyotes unleashed their insane yelping cacophony across the landscape—all in the dawn light.
Most birders take Willets for granted, but watching and listening to them display over the prairie where they breed will forever make them a favorite bird ‘o mine.
Suddenly, I spotted a small bird rising high into the sky in an obviously courtship display. “No way,” I excitedly muttered, struggling to focus my camera on the small black dot. My thought? That it could be one of the prairie’s most magical creatures, a Sprague’s Pipit! Alas, Nick Ramsey studied my photos later and suggested it was actually a Horned Lark, and after further study, I agree. Still, it was no less incredible—especially because I didn’t even know that Horned Larks make such displays!
This “Sprague’s Pipit” got me uber-excited, but I learned later that it was almost surely a Horned Lark performing a similar high-altitude display. Thank you, Nick Ramsey, for setting me straight!
Passing the visitor center, I thought that I would finally make my way to the lake and start looking for water birds. Guess again. As soon as I turned right, down the dirt road, I stopped to look at juvenile Horned Larks and saw more Willets and curlews. Then, I spotted one of my top target birds: Upland Sandpipers! I had barely had a chance to look at them, when I saw another top target bird—a Short-eared Owl! As I was snapping some blurry photos of the owl, eight Sharp-tailed Grouse flew low across the road 100 meters in front of me and zoomed like cruise missiles across the prairie—something Braden and I had never seen at Benton Lake. But the best was yet to come . . .
Upland Sandpipers are one of our favorite grassland species—and they undertake one of Earth’s most incredible migrations, traveling from our prairies to southern South America in a matter of weeks each year!
As I was watching the Short-eared Owl, I noticed a white spot perhaps a quarter-mile away. At first I thought it was some man-made structure, but then it moved. I drove closer and raised my binoculars to see a sight I had never in my life observed—a male Sharp-tailed Grouse in full “impress mode” trying to woo a nearby female! Fumbling for my camera, I was so excited that my hands actually shook, and I watched this chase-and-pursue courtship for the next ten minutes. Like so many birds recently, a displaying male grouse was something I never thought I would see, and yet here it was when I was least expecting it!
A hopeful male Sharp-tailed Grouse tries to woo a mildly interested female (left). Sound familiar, gents?
My heart still racing, I finally moved on, and was relieved to see water filling the two main ponds—along with thousands of avocets, ducks, Eared Grebes, Yellow-headed Blackbirds, phalaropes, Forster’s Terns, Franklin’s Gulls, White-faced Ibises and just about everything else I had hoped to see. Water levels looked good to me, but refuge manager Bob Johnson later told me that they struggled to keep the ponds filled. They had the water rights, he said, but it cost so much—think hundreds of thousands of dollars—to pump the water up to the refuge that they had run out of money. That makes it more imperative than ever to support increased funding for our refuges and other wild lands by calling or emailing U.S. Senator Daines and our other representatives.
It’s hard not to love ibises, and I was delighted to see at least nine White-faced during my circumnavigation of Benton Lake.
I had planned to continue on to Freezeout Lake, but after four breathless hours at Benton, I wasn’t sure my sensory systems could handle it. As I said, it was my most incredible grassland birding day ever, and certainly my best at Benton Lake, not just for the species I saw, but for the intimate observations of their natural behaviors as they repeated their ancient life cycles. What’s more, I didn’t see a soul the entire time I was on the driving loop. It gave me a real, reverent feel for what the prairies must have been like before we plowed, grazed, and harnessed the vast majority of them. My wish is that we continue to protect Benton Lake and other vital refuges—and that all of you reading this get to visit there on a summer sunrise of your own.
The only thing better than experiencing the beauty of the prairie is to do it in the company of an Upland Sandpiper and Long-billed Curlew. Can you find them?
We wrap up our (choose one: Bonanza, Beneficial, Barbaric) Bonus Birding Blog run with our visit to Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Brooklyn seems to often get second consideration to Manhattan, but as you’ll see, the birds were just as good. “So what is next?” you might ask. Well, Braden and I are about to leave for a birding excursion to Arizona and California en route to his job working in the Sierras monitoring Northern Goshawks. You can bet we’ll have some posts from that. And if you are wondering how Braden is doing on his Big Year goal of 400 species, we are proud to announce that yesterday’s addition of Williamson’s Sapsucker brings his year count to 319 species! Hm . . . maybe 400 is too low of a goal?Stay tuned to find out!
After our sublime day birding Central Park, Braden and I hopped the F train the next morning to meet my editor and friend Harold Underdown, creator of the amazing website Writing, Illustrating, and Publishing Children’s Books: The Purple Crayon. I had enjoyed working with Harold on my book Beaks!at Charlesbridge Publishing back in the day and now am happy to be working on another picture book with him in his position as Executive Editor of Kane Press. When I invited Harold to bird with Braden and me, he just could not suppress his scientific curiosity and, on his suggestion, we agreed to meet at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park.
Birding Brooklyn’s Prospect Park was a great way to renew my friendship with editor Harold Underdown, here wearing a mask to avoid attention from his thousands of adoring fans!
Fresh off our amazing day before, Braden and I of course woke early and arrived in Brooklyn a full hour and a half early. Braden had researched recent bird sightings so we headed toward the part of Prospect Park known as Lookout Hill. At first we did not see much, but as we continued, the birds began to show themselves, including Northern Parulas, Least Flycatchers, Baltimore Orioles, and Black-throated Blue Warblers. We also saw a feral cat, obviously stalking birds and other wildlife—an unwelcome reminder of the enormous toll outdoor cats take on birds across the country.
After climbing Lookout Hill, we dropped back down and made our way through some woods to a place called the Upper Pool where an unlikely Red-throated Loon had been hanging out. We didn’t see it immediately, but did spot several handsome Wood Ducks. Rounding a bend, though, we suddenly beheld a large gray bird paddling prominently in the middle of the Lower Pool. We dutifully shot a dozen or so photos and then hurried to meet Harold.
The presence of a rare Red-throated Loon in Prospect Park had made birders worry about its health, but we observed the loon take two perfectly normal flights so fingers crossed it is healthy and will move on when it’s good and ready!
Unfortunately, as so happens with we birders, an unavoidable delay smacked us in the face—two warblers we had not yet seen in New York! Braden detected the first by ear, a Black-throated Green Warbler. As we were watching that, however, he suddenly grabbed my shoulder and said, “Daddy, look!” It took me a moment to spot it, but thanks to Braden’s recent Florida posts, I recognized that it was a bird near the top of my New York target list: Prairie Warbler!
Not the best photo, but I was thrilled to see my first Prairie Warbler–species number 503 on my American Birding Association Life List of birds.
It was great to see Harold again and with him in tow, we more or less retraced our earlier route—but with different results. We showed him the loon, and as the sun emerged from gray clouds, we began seeing a wonderful assortment of passerines that included a House Wren, more orioles, Warbling Vireos, and first-of-year Yellow Warblers. The stars of the day? Two warblers, a Black-and-White and a Northern Parula, that put on the best-ever displays for us. The parula spent a solid five minutes in a bush not 15 feet from us, allowing us some of our best warbler photos ever.
Warblers are often so difficult to observe that it is a rare treat to watch one up-close and personal. Thanks to this Northern Parula and Black-and-White Warbler, Prospect Park offered Braden, Harold, and me that chance!
After bidding adieu to Harold, Braden and I strolled down 9th Street and grabbed a pretty good meal at “New” Yummy Tacos, and then caught the F train back to Manhattan, glimpsing the Statue of Liberty along the way. That night, we all went to see the wonderful, poignant musical Come From Away. BUT, our birding adventures had not quite ended.
It was great to see the Statue of Liberty again, but something about her just seemed off.
The next day we walked the High Line, an inspirational elevated train trestle-turned-city park. Along the way, we stopped to eat “Liberty Bagels” in Chelsea Park. While we did see some birds including an oriole and an Ovenbird, bird numbers in both locations seemed significantly lower than we expected and, after talking to other birders, we realized that a migrant wave had probably finished passing through. That, in turn, made us feel how fortunate we’d been birding the last two days. As stated in our last post, the window for migrant songbirds through New York is pretty narrow and if I have any advice to those wishing to check birding NYC off your bucket list, it is this: give yourself at least a week to make sure you have the best chance of seeing a great group of birds. As we prepared to fly back to Montana, we felt grateful that at least this time, we had bit the Big Apple just right.
One of the joys of visiting New York is meeting friendly people from all walks of life, including photographer Ayinde Listhrop, who introduced himself while we were walking the High Line. Check out his inspired photos at https://www.unlimitedphotography.nyc/
We continue our spring birding blog blitz by picking up on our New York City trip last week and the nail-biting account of our Central Park birding adventure. If you’re afraid you will get TOO excited while reading this, I suggest you ask someone to hold your hand. And don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for our next post “Birding Brooklyn”!
On Monday, Tessa and I left Amy to continue recovering and rode the Hudson Line up to see our good friends, fellow author Larry Pringle and his delightful wife Susan. After taking a great walk at Nyack Beach State Park and eating a nice lunch, we returned to Manhattan in time to meet Braden at Penn Station after his first year as a college student! Bright and early the next morning, though, he and I jumped on the C train to do something we’d dreamed about since we began birding eight years ago: bird Central Park during spring migration! (Well, after a stop at Liberty Bagels on 35th St., that is.)
People often ask us the key to successful birding. Our trip to New York provided the definitive answer: bagels.
Just as Tessa and I had done two days earlier, we jumped off at 81st St. and immediately crossed over into Central Park, entering a particularly birdy area known as The Ramble. As mentioned in our last post, I worried that the birds might have left NYC already. Most migrating passerines only appear in the park during brief windows ranging from a few days to 2-4 weeks. They also come in waves that one can easily miss. Within a few minutes, however, the birds put my fears to rest when Braden called out a Black-throated Blue Warbler, a Life Bird for me and one of the most stunning of all warblers. Over the next hour and a half, a veritable songbird hit parade followed with sightings of Worm-eating Warbler, Nashville Warblers, Northern Parulas, Northern Waterthrushes, American Redstarts, Swainson’s and Hermit Thrushes, Magnolia Warbler and much more, including a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak high in the trees.
Black-throated Blue Warbler landed at Number 502 on my ABA (American Birding Association) Area Life List—and what an entry it was!
Not the best view, but this was our first male Rose-breasted Grosbeak since we’d hit High Island, Texas during our 2016 Big Year—so we took it!
Among birders, it’s a well-known fact that seeing a lot of birds can generate an enormous appetite, so Braden and I were forced to sit down and attack our bagels. Mmmm . . . lox shmear . . . Partly satiated and with cream cheese smearing our faces, we again rose and made our way to our second birdy destination—an area of Central Park called North Woods. Along the way, we passed multiple landmarks familiar to anyone who has ever watched movies or Seinfeld including Belvedere Castle, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir (where Dustin Hoffman jogged just before getting his teeth ripped out without anesthetic by a sadistic dentist), and the Central Park Tennis Center. We also made more bird discoveries such as a large group of White-crowned Sparrows.
Surprisingly, large numbers of White-crowned Sparrows are rare in Central Park. We were lucky to run across a group of five on our walk up to the North Woods section of the park.
To be honest, however, we didn’t think the North Woods could possibly match The Ramble for birds, but we soon learned that . . . it CAN! Two targets, a Yellow-breasted Chat and a Red-headed Woodpecker had created a buzz in that section of the park, and we (ahem) chatted with several birders about them, but it was the other birds that grabbed our attention. These included incredibly cooperative Black-and-White Warblers, glorious Chestnut-sided Warblers, a Veery and Blue-headed Vireo. We struck out on the chat, but making our way east, we followed the creek through an area called The Loch and continued to rack up amazing sightings. These included a quick glimpse at the now-famous Red-headed Woodpecker, several Red-bellied Woodpeckers, a Yellow-throated Vireo, a Great Egret flying overhead, and a bird I especially wanted to see, Swamp Sparrow.
You wouldn’t think an animal that is just black and white could be so stunning, but Braden and I savor each encounter with Black-and-White Warblers.
By now we had birded for five straight hours and our energy was starting to flag, so we reluctantly dragged ourselves to the 103rd St. subway station and caught a ride back downtown. We learned later that we might have picked up Cape May and Blackburnian Warblers if we had hit a part of the Ramble called the Point, but did we mind? Only a little. In fact, our day had exceeded all of our expectations for birding Central Park. During our long morning, we had logged a remarkable 57 species including an amazing 13 kinds of warblers—as many as we could hope to find during a whole year in Montana!
Though I’d seen Chestnut-sided Warblers when taking Braden back to college in Maine last fall, this was my first technicolor, breeding male!
Even better, when we returned to our hotel, Amy was feeling much better and had spent the day with Tessa at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, so we all went out to a nice meal at Kung Fu Kitchen. Can you spell pork soup dumplings???? Then, while Braden and Tessa strolled Times Square, Amy and I set off to see The Book of Mormon, a musical we were supposed to see in Seattle when covid struck. But lest you think Braden’s and my Big Apple birding adventures had concluded, stay tuned for our next post . . .
We interrupt our New York adventures to bring you Braden’s final post on his and Nick’s epic Florida adventure. As you’ll see, it was a wild ride. Tomorrow we will resume New York with our visit to Central Park. You won’t want to miss it!
A loud bang shook the car as we sped along the highway through the worst rainstorm I’d ever experienced. I looked at Nick.
“Did you hear that?? That lightning bolt almost hit us!”
We’d been driving through this hurricane-level rain for about fifteen minutes by now, gripping the edges of our seats as Nick avoided large puddles and watched the lights of the cars in front of us. After reading about flash floods, I had my fingers crossed that our car wouldn’t get swept away. Thankfully, after about half an hour, the water stopped pouring from the sky just as suddenly as it had started, and we celebrated by driving north towards Alabama, with one last place to bird before the sun went down.
Strike a Pose! Many of Florida’s Sandhill Cranes are unusual in that they a) are non-migratory and b) live in very urban areas. As you can see, this makes them a photographer’s best friends!
That morning had been a rollercoaster of bird-related emotions. We awoke at dawn, saying goodbye to even more Chuck-wills-widows as we drove to a large pineywoods preserve in search of the specialty birds we’d missed on the drive down. While yet again the beauty of this southeastern pine forest dazzled us, we only got fleeting glimpses of a Bachman’s Sparrow, and left the preserve disappointed. Next, we sidled up to a cemetery, home to a wintering population of Henslow’s Sparrows. We stomped around in the thorns for roughly forty minutes, leaving with no sparrows and legs covered in scratches. In a last ditch effort to get a new species for the trip, we found a small park in Gainesville home to a population of Red-headed Woodpeckers. Thankfully, Nick spotted them, flying around a group of burned snags in the distance.
We grabbed McDonald’s in Gainesville and headed North, planning to stop at several more spots for Bachman’s Sparrow before booking it towards the Alabama border. As we left town, though, my dad called me.
“Hey guys, how’s it going? Have you guys been to Sweetwater Wetlands yet?”
“No,” I said, looking at Nick slightly confused, “What’s there?”
“Snail Kites! And a bunch of other cool things.”
“Wait, really?!” I said, quickly pulling the hotspot up on eBird. Sure enough, Snail Kites had been seen there yesterday, and seemed to consistently visit the park. Unfortunately, the wetlands were in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. After a brief discussion, we decided to go anyway—after all, Snail Kites were still one of our biggest targets on the trip. We’d had no idea they could still be found this far north, but if we had one last shot at them, why not take it?
We pulled up at the wetlands, putting Dixie in Nick’s backpack and starting our speedrun of the hotspot. The area was a large, freshwater marsh, divided by gravel trails quickly warming up under the midday sun. We split up, trying to cover as much ground as possible. Soon, it became apparent to us that there were indeed birds here.
Warblers and vireos serenaded us from the massive live oaks standing in the entryway to the area, and water birds were everywhere. Many of these were fearless, too—I managed to get great photos of both Sandhill Cranes and Limpkins standing less than ten feet from me. The Limpkins signaled that there were snails around, and we kept careful eyes on the sky as we walked. Me and Nick met up after half an hour.
Our last-minute visit to Sweetland Wetlands in Gainesville nabbed us our first good looks at Limpkins—and many other birds.
“Any kites?”
“Well, there are some over there. But they’re Swallow-tailed, not Snail.”
“Me neither. I heard a King Rail over here, so we could probably play for that…wait. Are those harriers?”
Nick pointed behind me at three distant raptors soaring behind us over the marsh. I raised my binoculars. The birds were brown, with white rumps and slender wings, two features common to Northern Harriers. However, they were flying differently. The birds slowly drew nearer, and before long, we could see their striped faces, indicative of juvenile Snail Kites.
“Snail Kites!” Nick yelled, and we high-fived as we watched one of our top targets for the trip fly closer to us. While the kites never got as close as the Swallow-taileds on our first day, we still got decent views. We’d only seen these birds because my dad had been following our adventure and found us a reliable spot to look for them!
Our last shot at Snail Kites paid off big as we backtracked to Sweetwater Wetlands on a hot tip from my dad!
Now, as the rain on the highway subsided, I began to reflect on the trip. It had been an absolute whirlwind of fun and disappointment, euphoria and frustration. Had it not been for Sweetwater Wetlands, we would have missed a significant chunk of our targets for the trip (including up-close Sandhill Crane and Limpkin). We’d chased many birds and came up short often, although we had a few successes with the flamingo at St. Marks and grassquit in the Keys. We’d driven hundreds of miles and dozens of hours, sacrificing sleep and food for the birds. And we’d seen so much of the country too, despite only truly getting to know one state. Florida had continued to amaze me, with its extensive saltmarshes and stunted mangrove forests, tacky fishing villages and five-star hotels. We’d birded in so many habitats I hadn’t even realized existed—Florida savannah scrub, Caribbean Pine Rockland, sawgrass glades and urban parks covered in animals from every continent.
We can thank the abundance of Great Egrets and many other birds to the visionary conservation efforts of Teddy Roosevelt who, among other things, helped put a stop to plume-hunting for hats.We need similarly radical action today to save many of our planet’s species—including ourselves.
As for the birds, we’d done pretty damn well. We’d found success on about half of our chases, missing stuff like the Smooth-billed Ani and Black-headed Gull finding other rarities like the Black-faced Grassquit in the Keys. Thanks to Sweetwater Wetlands, we had hit most of our targets, only missing the Mangrove Cuckoo (which, it turned out, it was the totally wrong season for) and several of the Miami specialties, plus Bachman’s Sparrow, which we still had a shot at. I’d obtained some of the best photos I’d ever gotten, including Prairie Warbler and Blue-headed Vireo, and really gotten to know several species that I’d had little to no experience with prior to the trip. The two species that topped my “Bird of the Trip” list were the aforementioned Prairie Warbler and Swallow-tailed Kite. I’d “discovered” an entirely new breeding population of the warblers, having had no idea that this species could thrive in coastal Floridian mangroves, and learned to recognize their buzzy, rising song every time Nick and I had set foot in that strange, coastal habitat. The kites had accompanied us everywhere we’d gone, and we’d seen them soaring above us almost every day of the trip, not discriminating between any certain habitat. Even after I returned to Maine the next day, it was hard to break the habit of scanning the skies for these sharp-looking black and white birds.
As the sun set on our Florida adventure, one of our nemesis birds—Bachman’s Sparrow—finally put in a solid appearance, and in a place where my dad used to camp with his dad fifty years ago.
As our car raced towards the Alabama border, Nick and I decided to make one last stop. We were driving past Pensacola, where I’d gone for Thanksgiving the previous fall, and we headed north, heading to Blackwater State Forest following a Google Maps pin that supposedly had Red-cockaded Woodpeckers. The Honda Pilot pulled over on a dirt road as the sun began to set, dangerously low on gas, and we jumped out, cameras and binoculars in hand. Dixie immediately took off into the tall grass, covering herself in the mud formed by the intense rainstorm that had just ended. The longleaf pines towered upwards around us—this was the healthiest patch of this habitat we had seen during the whole trip. Suddenly, as we began walking, a melodious song echoed across the pine savannah.
“Bachman’s Sparrow!” said Nick, whipping out his phone to play for the bird. Almost as soon as the song escaped the phone’s speakers, a small, brown sparrow zipped towards us, landing on the low branch of a tree. I raised my binoculars, and sure enough, there it was–a bird I’d searched for and missed half a dozen times in the last six months. The bird’s plumage was not particularly special, but the music it created stuck with me for hours after we left. Several more sparrows began singing from the grass as the sun set, and were joined by a chorus of Pine Warblers and Brown-headed Nuthatches. On our way back to the car, we suddenly heard some loud calls similar to that of a Hairy Woodpecker. We looked over in the trees just in time to see a family group of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers fly in, moving up and down the pines energetically. I walked off into the grass in an attempt to get some photos, and called my dad back.
Despite the lousy photo, finding Red-cockaded Woodpeckers in a place my dad had spent his summers proved the perfect way to round up our epic adventure.
“We got the woodpeckers…hell, we got everything!”
We’d ended the trip right where we’d started, in these strange, fire-dependent southeastern forests. Not everything had gone right, but Nick and I had gotten a great story out of it. We’d seen so many birds, and mammals, and plants, and reptiles and more, and as I boarded the plane from New Orleans the following morning, wearing clothes that hadn’t been washed in a week and clutching my camera and binoculars, I smiled. Florida had dragged me in, and I couldn’t wait to return to the land of the grass pines.
Trip Statistics!
Miles Driven: 2,100
Hours Driven: 31
Bird Species: 197
States Driven Through: 4
Counties Driven Through: 43
Life Birds: 23
Year Birds: 143
Bird(s) of the Trip: Prairie Warbler, Swallow-tailed Kite and Bachman’s Sparrow
Birds to Date for Braden’s Big Year: 244 (at end of Florida trip)
