Category Archives: Raptors

Epic Florida Adventure, Day 3: Miami, Baby!

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Welcome to Episode 3 of Braden’s account of his remarkable Spring Break birding with Nick Ramsey. Part 2, last week, got almost a record number of views, and we have no doubt you’ll love this post every bit as much. I mean, parrots! How can you resist? If you enjoy these posts, please share and subscribe. Thanks for reading!

The heat was already wet and oppressive when I woke around dawn the next morning, after a very minimal amount of sleep. I crawled out of the passenger seat of the car, still groggy, into the gray light of a forest in the process of waking up. Nick was already there, and suggested that we head over to the main parking area for Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, a place famous for its snail-loving birds: more specifically, Limpkins and Snail Kites. We did so, and then began our two-hour tromp around the refuge. 

It’s not like there weren’t birds at Loxahatchee. For one, the marshy, reedy areas were filled with Common and Purple Gallinules, both colorful, entertaining water birds that I spent a while photographing. The waders, specifically White Ibises, were around, and kept making flights over us as we scanned the marshes for Limpkin. And in the forested areas, we did manage to draw in a few passerine species, including American Redstarts, a new warbler for the trip, and a very cooperative Blue-headed Vireo.

Blue-headed Vireos are one of several kinds of vireos that wear white “spectacles”.

All-in-all, however, the wildlife refuge proved disappointing. We missed Snail Kite and the only Limpkin we saw was a brown blob disappearing into a stand of trees, never to be seen again. The Gray-headed Swamphens (an Old World exotic marshbird) that Nick had spotted here last time weren’t around, and we didn’t find any of the particularly cool wintering warblers that we could have. Ducks, again, were lacking, and the wader numbers aside from the ibises were notably worse than expected. The day (along with the poor sleeping conditions the night before) was not off to a good start.

Gray-headed Swamphens get less attention than parrots, but are also introduced species to South Florida.

In a search for swamphens, Nick and I drove to a small park on the outskirts of Fort Lauderdale called Markham Park next. This park was situated right next to a part of the Everglades (though not the National Park yet) and was known for having most of the Miami exotics that Nick wanted to see on the trip: Spot-breasted Oriole and White-winged and Yellow-chevroned Parakeets. We picked a small portion of the park nearest to the wetlands and hiked towards them, noting butterflies I’d never seen before, including the Zebra Longwing, which belonged to a tropical genus. Eventually we got to the wetlands, finally nabbing one of our targets for the day. Two giant water-chickens, sporting an even crazier range of colors than Purple Gallinules, lounged in the reeds. Gray-headed Swamphens were related to gallinules and native to southern Asia, and thrived in several places in southern Florida. These were one of many exotics we would see as the day progressed.

Unlike the Gray-headed Swamphen, Purple Gallinules are native members of the rail family. They definitely fit in with Florida’s tropical color scheme.

As far as biodiversity is concerned, south Florida is about as crazy as you can get. Along with a remarkable sweep of native and endemic species, including American Crocodile, Snail Kite and Florida Cottonmouth, hundreds if not thousands of species have been introduced to the area. The United States once had two native parrots. The Carolina Parakeet is now extinct, and the Thick-billed Parrot’s population is too small to support natural wanderings across the Mexican border. Now more than fifty parrot species from Latin America and the Old World have been reported within our country’s borders, most of them from Florida. Many are established too—my dad and I had Nanday and Red-masked Parakeets and Red-crowned Parrots on our life lists from Point Mugu State Park, San Diego, and Brownsville. Florida, though, boasted more species than Texas or California, and later in the day we would be looking for some of them.

First, though, we were headed to Alligator Alley, a large highway cutting across a portion of the Everglades. As we drove away from the suburbs of Miami, the buildings were replaced by sawgrass wetlands as far as the eye could see. I’d never seen any habitat this expansive and undeveloped, and as we drove into healthier and healthier habitat, waders began to lift out of the marsh on both sides of the car. Black-crowned Night-herons flew high overhead while large flocks of White Ibis dropped into distant marshland. It was incredible—I’d only seen this number of birds in one other place—Freezout Lake, Montana. It was as if the grass was covered in patches of cotton composed of egrets and ibises. Every once in a while, a radiantly-pink spoonbill or large Great Blue Heron joined the fray, trailing behind a flock of Tricolored or Little Blue Herons. As Nick drove, I took as many mental pictures as I could—there was no place like this anywhere else on the planet.

I know I posted a picture of a Roseate Spoonbill with White Ibises last week, but figured you wouldn’t mind!

We pulled off the highway towards a small highway rest stop, spooking some lazy Black Vultures. There was an observation tower here, and we hoped to spot some Snail Kites, birds we’d missed at both Loxahatchee and Markham Park. We climbed the tower with Nick’s spotting scope, then got to work scanning the Serengeti of Florida. Right next to us a wide canal provided us with avian entertainment as we looked for the kites. Five Green Herons had taken up residence in the canal, and they began fighting with the other species for prime perching spots overlooking the water. Boat-tailed Grackles, Fish Crows and both Turkey and Black Vultures tussled around us, covering most of the trees and walkways. And from our vantage point, we could see roughly five American Alligators eyeing the birds above them.

Black and Turkey Vultures are always a welcome sight for birders. Not only are they amazing fliers, they usually indicate a pretty healthy habitat.

While we didn’t find any Snail Kites, we did finally get a good look at a Limpkin as it foraged for snails on top of a patch of trash on the other side of the canal. The bird only appeared for a few minutes, and it made me wonder just how many of this species lived in the endless marsh. After checking the other side of the highway and getting poor looks at my lifer Painted Bunting, we drove back into Miami, our minds focusing on exotic species. Iguanas soon dotted the streets, and we got Common Mynas, a songbird introduced from Asia, next to a McDonald’s as we stopped for lunch. Nick pointed out a Peter’s Rock Agama, a funky red-headed lizard native to West Africa, scampering up a palm tree. Then, as we pulled into the Biltmore Hotel parking lot, we immediately heard screeching above us: parakeets.

We piled out of the car just as a large flock touched down in front of us. The flock consisted of both Red-masked and Mitred Parakeets, two very similar species native to South America. Interestingly enough, I’d seen both species before, the former in San Diego and the latter in its native range in Peru. This hotel had more to offer though: it was a roost site for at least half a dozen species. It also happened to be one of the ritziest hotels in Miami, offering rooms between six hundred dollars and two thousand a night, and its towering red walls hosted cavities that parrots liked to roost in. What’s more, it overlooked a large golf course, and Nick and I felt like outsiders as we walked around the courtyard in clothes that hadn’t been washed in several days. This was the kind of place I’d imagined when I’d thought about Florida.

Even though parrots are exotic introductions to Florida, it’s hard not to get excited when a stunning Mitred Parakeet lands in front of you!

While the parakeets were plentiful, we did not find either of our targets: Yellow-chevroned and White-winged Parakeets. Both species, which were substantially smaller than the parakeets, were mostly green, with small markings on the wing that identified them. While Yellow-chevroned was firmly established in the area, White-winged was on the decline, having disappeared from all of South Florida in the last few years. No one understands the cause of this decline was since there appears to be plenty of food (palm nuts) around, and parrot species have coexisted here for decades. Suddenly, though, this species that had been reliable ten years ago was nowhere to be found, mirroring the disappearance of another parrot species from Miami thirty years prior, the Budgerigar. 

Our next spot was a run-down park called Pine Woods Park, a place Nick picked out for both Red-whiskered Bulbul and Spot-breasted Oriole, species that had been introduced from southern Asia and central America, respectively. Upon walking through the tall cane grass in the park, we immediately found a beautiful, crested bulbul perched up on a stalk, marking Nick’s first (and spoiler alert, only) lifer for the trip! We marveled at it as two other exotic species, Scaly-breasted Munias and Monk Parakeets, called nearby. Next, we headed to the Baptist Hospital in Kendall, a known location for the oriole. We struck out on the species again, but did get to enjoy more time with Red-masked Parakeets clinging to buildings and Egyptian Geese and Muscovy Ducks with babies running around a nearby lawn. We then drove the neighborhoods, trying and failing to find the oriole, and in a last-ditch effort, returned to Pine Woods Park. Walking among the introduced vegetation, we again struck out but did spot a smaller parakeet flying with the Monk Parakeets above us. It landed and Nick called “Yellow-chevroned Parakeet!” It was no White-winged, but it did bring our total parakeet species count for the day up to five, including a few Nandays we’d seen at Loxahatchee earlier!

One of the world’s largest and most bizarre ducks, the introduced Muscovy Duck is one of the oldest domesticated waterfowl species in the world, having been domesticated in South America before the arrival of the Spanish.

Somewhat more content, we headed south towards Everglades National Park, pulling into the parking lot right outside the entrance at around 8 P.M. I’d requested an earlier night tonight, so we set up a tent for me as Nick prepared to go look for snakes in the glades. As he was about to leave, though, we suddenly heard something go “chuck-willow-widow!” from a stand of trees nearby. Nick looked at me excitedly.

“Chuck-wills-widow!”

Originally from Asia, the Red-whiskered Bulbul was yet another exotic target on our lists for South Florida.

This nocturnal species was not a bird I’d imagined getting on the trip, and we high-fived as we heard at least half a dozen calling from around us. Nick then headed off into the National Park for a few more hours as I dozed off to sleep to the sound of the Chucks. The day had turned out all right after all, and tomorrow we would finally reach our main destination for the trip: the Florida Keys.

Battling the February Birding Blahs

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In a recent Redpolling poll, voters overwhelmingly chose February as the worst month for birding (except for a few cheeky Floridians who lorded it over the rest of us). But is February really that bad? In Montana, after all, you can go find some wonderful winter residents such as Rough-legged Hawks, Northern Shrikes, and Snow Buntings. On the other hand, by February you’ve usually seen those already so where does that leave you?

February is a great month to catch up on bird-related reading. For my review on this and other excellent titles, Follow @sneedcollard on Instagram.

For me personally, February is a time to get a lot of actual WORK done such as writing birding articles, banging out new children’s books, writing letters to the editor and my senators about bird conservation, and reading bird books. That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m not curious about which birds are around—while remaining optimistic that I’ll find some surprises if I go out. On a morning dog walk recently, for example, a Northern Goshawk flew right over me and Lola! This last Sunday morning, Lola and I again headed out wondering if we might see any other surprises.

Just to prove that in birding you never know—even in February—a Northern Goshawk flew right over me and my dog Lola only a couple of weeks ago! It was the first I’d ever seen on my own.

We decided to do a loop I only rarely traverse anymore, through a private neighborhood that COULD be great bird habitat but has instead been landscaped with acres of lawn and over-pruned trees. Still, even before we got to that neighborhood, I noticed that our resident birds have shifted into courtship mode. On Valentine’s Day I heard the first two-note song of a chickadee for the year and also the first throaty warble of an advertising Northern Flicker. This morning, I heard both of those—plus an amazing number of Song Sparrows also advertising. I haven’t kept track of “first spring calls” before, but I wondered if they are on a trend toward “springing out” earlier and earlier every year?

After not hearing a Song Sparrow call for many weeks, I was gratified to hear four of them singing in different locations on our recent Sunday morning walk!

In the private neighborhood itself, we heard some distant wild turkeys, a Red Crossbill, and an unknown high-pitched cacophony. My hearing is so sucky anymore I couldn’t tell who was making this chattering, but whipped out Merlin’s Sound ID, which ID’ed them as Pine Siskins. But where were they? I walked forward a bit, turned around and there they were—more than forty of them in a tree! Okay, so it wasn’t a Northern Pygmy-Owl, but I was still happy. Lola and I had headed out expecting maybe 6 or 8 species and ended up with sixteen! Just goes to show you that, even in the February Blahs, birds are around and ready to teach us new things.

A flock of 40 Pine Siskins proved a delightful highlight of our unlikely February neighborhood walk.

Monotypic Birds—Evolution’s Survivors

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In case you missed our last post, Sneed’s new book, Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-of-a-Kind Creatures, is now out so that you and your young ‘uns can learn even more about monotypic animals. To order, click on the book jacket in the right column!

Since Braden returned to college, I haven’t been birding a whole lot. Instead, I’ve been working on a new children’s picture book about monotypic animals—animals without any close relatives. The book won’t be out for a couple of years, but I can’t wait that long to share some discoveries. But first, an explanation of monotypic: in a scientific sense (and what other sense could there be with such a word?), monotypic refers to an animal with no other members in its genus. According to Birds of the World, for example, the genus Turdus contains 83 different species—including the American Robin—but a monotypic species would have no other ‘roommates’ in its genus.

With 83 species in its genus Turdus, the American Robin is a species that is decidedly NOT monotypic!

For my book, though, I have been investigating animals that are monotypic not just to genus, but at least to their scientific family or order. In other words, these species are truly apart, without any even vaguely close relatives. I didn’t know how many of these loners I might find, but guess what? There are a lot more than I expected—including birds! You probably have heard of some of them including the Hammerkop, Shoebill, Egyptian Plover, Rail-babbler, and my favorite, the Secretarybird! All of these are only distantly related to any other kind of bird.

Not that they’ve never had relatives. I suspect most of them have. What happened to their close cousins? We will never know, but they undoubtedly succumbed to a panoply of climatic, geological, and biological catastrophes. Which makes these monotypic survivors all the more impressive, in that they somehow navigated the endless avalanche of disasters that have befallen the world! Learning about these animals, however, also made me ask myself, “In my own relatively brief birding career have I myself actually seen any monotypic-to-family birds?” Astonishingly, the answer is yes—and if you’re reading this, you probably have, too!

Number 1 on most of our lists has to be the Osprey. If you think about it, that makes sense. I mean, the Osprey is just one weird-looking bird of prey, but even more interesting, it split off from all other raptors very early on in raptor evolution. Can you guess its closest living relative? Yep. Africa’s Secretarybird—another very bizarre bird of prey!

The Osprey may be the most widespread and well-known monotypic-to-family bird on earth!

Many of you also may have seen the Limpkin—the sole species in the bird family Aramidae. Long before I ever became a birder, I enjoyed these gastropod- and bivalve-eaters while visiting Florida’s Wakulla Springs south of Tallahassee. More recently, I heard—but didn’t see—one down in Houston while working on My Accidental Big Year. If you are birding Arizona and New Mexico, you can nab yet another monotypic-to-family bird, the Olive Warbler, of the family Peucedramidae. For other birds that are monotypic to family, however, we must venture outside of U.S. borders—something Braden and I have been fortunate to do.

During our visit to the Sani Lodge in the Amazon in 2017, we picked up two monotypic species—in the same location! One was the iconic Hoatzin, a large turkey-like bird that is the sole resident of the family Opisthocomidae. Hoatzins like to show off, and if you watch almost any film or read any book about the Amazon you will undoubtedly see this bird since it often gathers near humans in large numbers. During our stay at Sani, I woke up to dogs barking one night and asked our hosts about it. They looked at me strangely. “We don’t have any dogs here.” We finally figured out that I’d been hearing Hoatzins!

It’s probably no surprise that the Hoatzin is monotypic to family. Looks like these probably don’t inspire a lot of copycats!

In between outings at Sani, Braden and I were also lucky enough to see a handsome bird silently stalking worms, crayfish, and frogs in shallow waters. What was it? A shy Sunbittern, sole species in the bird family Eurypygidae. These birds are quite cryptic (camouflaged), but apparently when they spread their wings they unleash a burst of spectacular color—something Braden and I unfortunately failed to witness. Still, we didn’t even know Sunbitterns existed before the trip and are happy to now have them firmly dwelling in our brain banks.

The secretive Sunbittern is another South American species that is monotypic to family—one we were lucky enough to encounter.

If you want to learn even more about monotypic-to-family birds, click here for a fun website. Some of the taxonomies have changed, but most are still accurate, and you’re sure to notice some surprises. Meanwhile, I am contemplating a quest to see every monotypic bird family on earth. If you would like to help me and Braden do this please send a nonrefundable check for, say, fifty thousand dollars, and we will begin post-haste! As always, thanks for reading and be sure to share this post with your birding buddies!

A New Year’s Triple-Shot of Owls

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Still on the fence about subscribing? Kick off the New Year right and go for it. We won’t share your info or use it for any nefarious purposes. We promise! Just fill out the box down and to the right.

You PhD students of FatherSonBirding may recall that our debut post related to our very first Snowy Owl sighting on March 9, 2018, almost four years and 100+ posts ago. Today’s post marks a return to our roots—sort of.

After a successful birding trip to Oregon to close out 2021, Braden and I decided to kick off 2022 with a modest New Year’s Day tour of Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge in the vain hope that we might see a Short-eared Owl, a species that totally eluded us last year and is one of our favorite birds. As we headed north in our trusty minivan, however, a crooked nail of a thought kept scratching at my brain. Finally, as we approached St. Ignatius I glanced at Braden and said, “You know, people eBirded the Snowy Owl again yesterday, and this might be our last chance to see it together before you head back to college. What do you think?”

“I’m in,” he answered, “but let’s hit Duck Road first.”

I exhaled, relieved. Even though it would mean an extra two hours of driving, now we were committed. We quickly hit Duck Road at Ninepipe looking for Short-eareds, and of course got skunked, though we did get a great look at a hunting Prairie Falcon and flushed a Great Horned Owl that had taken up residence in a small tree. Then, we high-tailed it toward Kalispell, stopping only for an unsuccessful attempt to find a Lifer Glaucous Gull at Somers Bay.

This Great-horned has apparently taken up residence in a new tree. Don’t be surprised to see it your next time on Duck Road. (Water tower of Charlo in the background—don’t you love telephoto lenses?)

Turning left onto Farm Road in Kalispell—er, Somers to be exact—dark clouds of failure haunted me. After all, we had scoured this neighborhood for four hours in 2021 without so much as a glimpse of a Snowy Owl (see our post “Payin’ Raptor Dues, Reapin’ Raptor Rewards”) and as we crept slowly forward, it felt like history would repeat itself as we passed one owl-less roof and field after another . We turned left on Manning Road and continued driving, stopping a couple of times to scan every house in sight. “I’ve got Collared Doves,” Braden said, just as I focused in on a fuzzy white lump on a roof.

“Got it,” I said. Braden said, “Good,” thinking I was referring to the Collared Doves. “No, I mean the owl,” I clarified. And indeed, only ten minutes after beginning our search, there it was—no more than a quarter mile from where we’d seen our first Snowy in 2018! As beautiful as Snowy Owls are, they don’t usually do a whole lot, but we enjoyed staring at it for ten minutes and taking lousy photos. We thanked the owl and then, with a whole afternoon suddenly freed up, began birding our way back home.

Okay, not the best photo, but give me a break already. The Snowy was far away!

We hit numerous spots on our way south, picking up one Year Bird after another. One of the great things about birding on New Year’s is that it resets the birding calendar, making every new bird a Year Bird! In fact, perhaps because of our low expectations, we saw almost everything we could wish for: Common Redpolls, American Tree Sparrow, half a dozen ducks, and an unlikely Double-crested Cormorant. As we once again approached Ninepipe, we had plenty of daylight for a second go at Short-eared Owls. We again bombed on Duck Road so made our way around the fringes of the refuge, ending up on Ninepipe Lane. Suddenly, a large bird leaped into the air.

I’ve never been able to take sharp in-flight photos, but I just love this image as this Short-eared Owl looks and listens for prey.

“Short-eared!” Braden shouted. Yes! We got a beautiful look at the amazing creature as it flew a couple of circuits around us and then dove on a hapless mammal in a snowy field. Even more amazing, in the next mile we saw four more Short-eareds! They all perched at a fair distance, but we didn’t mind. In fact, we were glad that we wouldn’t be disturbing them by driving close. Not surprisingly, the SEOWs swooped in for Bird of the Day honors, but we had more birding pleasures in store—including Cedar and Bohemian Waxwings, a Great Blue Heron and kingfisher, a Northern Shrike, and right in our own neighborhood, our last bird of the day, Wild Turkey. It was an awesome way to kick off 2022, and with 46 species under our belts, by far our best Montana New Year’s Day birding experience ever—one we will treasure as Braden prepares to return to college in Maine.

Success—for us and the owl!

FatherSonBirding’s 100th Post Video Spectacular: Counting Down Our Top 5 Most Popular Posts!

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If you’d like to see us continue our posts, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE by filling out the box down and to the right. We promise we will not share or give away your information to ANYONE—though you can always feel free to share our posts with others who might enjoy them!

Do you remember listening to American Top 40 as a kid? Sure you do! To celebrate our 100th post, we decided to count down FSB’s All-Time Most Popular Posts—with a video!

Yes, believe it or not, this is FatherSonBirding’s 100th post! Since we seem to be evolving toward a video world, Braden and I agreed that a video post would be a fun way to celebrate our last four years of birding and blogging. Just don’t get used to it! Videos take a lot more effort than regular blogging and, frankly, making videos eats into our birding time!

A few notes about the Top 5. They may not be technically correct since for some of our early posts, we may not have been gathering statistics on views. Also, we had not yet switched to a Payola scheme by which people pay us to make sure that certain posts are more popular. Just kidding! About the Payola, that is. I’ll always be curious just how many views our first post, A Quest for Snowy Owls (published March 13, 2018) has really received!

Also, below are some quick links to the posts mentioned in this blog. They are NOT IN ORDER of popularity so there’s no opportunity for cheating here! You’ll just have to watch the video to find out WHAT IS NUMBER ONE! Also, I have misspelled “Maclay Flat” as “McClay Flats” and other permutations. You’ll just have to forgive me!

Thank you for following our birding adventures. We appreciate you and hope this winter brings you plenty of birding adventures of your own!

Links to Blogs mentioned in the video (not in order of popularity):

Lucky Day at Maclay

Birding San Antonio’s River Walk? Are You Nuts?

Incredible Birthday Birding

For Birders, Every Year is a Big Year

Are You Ready for . . . the QUACH?

To view this video post on YouTube, CLICK HERE!