Even though Braden’s job is to look for Northern Goshawks this summer, that threatens to be outshined by his remarkable experiences with owls. As if Northern Saw-whet, Western Screech, and Spotted owls weren’t enough, here he recounts an amazing encounter with yet another amazing owl—and one of the continent’s most elusive “other” birds.
The morning after seeing the Spotted Owl, our campsite was graced with a little rain. Apparently, rain is infrequent in the Sierra, and we welcomed the weather as both a boost for the forests and an opportunity to sleep in. I, however, could not sleep, and decided to go birding. While my job had me birding every day, I had only actually gone birding outside of work a few times so far, and figured this would be a good way to refresh myself before the rain ceased and we headed back to finish the same PAC we’d started yesterday.
Birding consisted of walking around Crandell Campground with my eyes on the skies. I had two rare targets in mind: Northern Pygmy-Owl and Black Swift. The former, my favorite owl species, had eluded us thus far on counts and I hoped to spot one posted on top of a dead snag during my walk. Black Swifts, meanwhile, came to mind because of the weather. These waterfall-nesters, which generally hunt hundreds of feet in the air, and up to dozens of miles from their nest sites, were known for being pushed to lower altitudes in overcast conditions, which just happened to be the conditions gracing Stanislaus National Forest today. Both birds were definitely long shots, but then again, why not shoot for the stars?
I did not find either of my targets on my walk, and headed back to the campground as the rain began to subside. My co-workers, who had all retreated to their tents, began to rise, and I started to load things into the truck when I heard twittering overhead. I looked up two see two large, slim birds race over the open sky above me. The looks were among the briefest I’ve ever had at birds, but they were enough.
“Holy Cow! Black Swifts!”
Here in Montana, we most often see Vaux’s Swifts like the pair above. The much rarer Black Swift is half-again as large and much darker than the birds you see here. Black Swifts only nest next to and behind waterfalls and on wet cliffs—a specialized habitat that helps explain their Vulnerable status.
Sam, the other big birder in the group, was out of his tent in a flash, and we ran down the road after the swifts. They disappeared within seconds, headed to some other foraging destination, but not before Sam spotted them. It was his lifer, and a bird I’d only seen once, in Glacier Park five years before.
That evening, after finishing our survey, we met Kevin, the crew lead for the Spotted Owl, at the Pinecrest Ranger Station. An hour and a half later, we pulled up in a mystery location in the oak foothills of the Western Sierra, somewhere near the town of Twain Harte. In the past week, the owl crew had found Great Gray Owls here several times, some of the only known individuals of the species to occur in the state of California outside Yosemite National Park. We’d already heard the stories of finding the Great Grays, and how everyone on the owl crew had completely freaked out over it, and hoped to do the same tonight. The owls had been recorded in three locations all somewhat near each other, and our job tonight was to figure out if they were the same family of owls or multiple families by searching two of the locations at the same time.
I went with Kevin and Sam, while Ivara and Miles tagged along with Grant, a ranger for Stanislaus National Forest. None of the habitat made sense for what I thought I knew about Great Gray Owl. The owls in Missoula frequented open pine forests, and in Canada, the species nested in boreal bogs. Here, though, we walked through dense oak foothill habitat, complete with our first look at and experience with Poison Oak.
After quickly searching a stand of trees, the three of us loitered in a small meadow waiting for the sun to set. The elevation was lower than where we conducted goshawk surveys, and because of that we noted different bird species, including Acorn Woodpecker, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher and California Quail. Suddenly, Kevin heard something. Uphill, through the oaks, came the sound of strange yelps. Comparing the calls to Merlin revealed that these were indeed the begging calls of juvenile Great Gray Owls.
This obviously is not the same Great Gray Owl that Braden’s crew saw recently (note the snow), but you can see why this majestic creature is a favorite among birders.
“Let’s go get em.” said Kevin, and we started up the hill as the sky grew gray, then indigo. Stars blinked into existence above us as we dodged snags and particularly large patches of Poison Oak, although walking through the rash-inducing plant was inevitable in some places. Thank god for long pants.
After twenty minutes of following the calls up the hill, Kevin held out a hand, then pointed upwards. There, on an oak tree up the hill from us perched the unmistakable silhouette of a Great Gray Owl, moving its head up and down as it called to its mother for food. After scanning the ground for Poison Oak, I sat down and lifted my binoculars to my eyes. Even with low light levels, I could make out the longer neck, facial disk and piercing eyes of the owl. The bird still lacked the clean look of an adult Great Gray, but it could already fly and thus was probably at least a month old. Soon, we spotted the shape of the second juvenile flush from a branch below the first. The experience was magical—sitting underneath the California night sky, amongst oaks, as one of the rarest and most famous creatures in the world called from a tree above us. We weren’t able to determine if this was the same owl family as before or a new one, but either way, these were owls I would never forget.
No, this is not an asteroid hurtling toward Earth—just a really, really distant phone photo of a Great Gray Owl we saw . . . or maybe some kind of sea slug? I can’t remember!
We dedicate this post to our loyal subscriber—and Braden’s grandma—Penny Collard on her 75th Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PENNY! We Love You!
In Episode 4 of Braden’s California adventures, he dives into one of the West’s most famous raptors, the Spotted Owl. Thanks to his “sister team” working on this listed species, he shares his first encounter with these charismatic critters and learns about their status in the Sierras.Also see his Big Year update at the end of this post!
Besides my crew’s surveys of Northern Goshawks, the other major species being studied by The Institute for Bird Populations in the Stanislaus National Forest is an even more famous raptor: the Spotted Owl. We’d already met the Spotted Owl team once, and spent a good amount of time with Ramiro Aragon, the lead for the owl crew and the only adult we really had contact with in the field. Ramiro told us that the national forest hosted significantly more owls than goshawks. To wit, it had taken us two weeks to find our own goshawks while the owl crew found owls almost nightly, and continued to monitor them and their nests throughout the season. On the other hand, while our job definitely came with some difficulty, the Spotted Owl workers had it twice as rough. They had nonexistent sleep schedules, and were instructed to chase after any Spotted Owls they detected, regardless of what topography or vegetation stood in the way. Often, the vegetation that stood in the way was Poison Oak.
Fortunately, during our goshawk surveys, we also quickly got a handle on what areas might host SpottedOwls.The owl my dad and I had seen in Southeast Arizona nested in a shady ravine, and that’s exactly what the Sierran owls liked too, despite being a different subspecies. At several PACs we located Spotted Owl feathers, beautiful long feathers with intricate patterns of alternating brown and cream. The day after we found our first goshawks, we were bushwhacking across a hill in a relatively shady area. I had just begun to contemplate crossing a creek flowing in front of me when I heard Ivara through the radio.
“There’s an owl.”
I stopped in my tracks, questions popping up in my brain. What kind? Where?
Both were answered. “It’s a Spotted. Come up towards me, slowly.”
Seeing Spotted Owls and learning that they are probably the most common owls in the Sierras gives me hope for the future of this remarkable species—and the birds that live along with it. You can help protect this and countless other sensitive species by supporting The Institute for Population Studies, The American Bird Conservancy, and other conservation groups.
Soon, the four of us sat on a log in a clearing in the forest, staring at a Spotted Owl perched not more than twenty feet from us in a Douglas-fir. This one, unlike the one my dad and I had seen in Arizona, was fully awake, lazily watching us and our cameras. A pair of juncos hopped around the base of the tree where the owl roosted, and it occasionally turned its head towards them as if the juncos were children playing.
We watched the owl for at least thirty minutes, and everyone seemed to be losing their minds. Sam and Miles especially had never seen one before, despite hearing stories about this near-endangered species for years.
It seems that Spotted Owls are still abundant in the Sierras, thanks to having less strict habitat requirements and no competition or interbreeding with Barred Owls. In fact, we learned that Spotted is probably the most common owl in the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada.
Meanwhile, coastal Spotted Owls are quite threatened. Instead of requiring shady canyons, they need large tracts of old-growth rainforest, a habitat that has been mostly logged. What’s more, thanks to human disturbance, Barred Owls have spread to the West Coast from eastern North America. These owls, which are cousins of Spotted Owls, are more aggressive and push Spotted Owls out of territories. They also will hybridize with Spotted, muddling the gene pool for this species. As I stared at the owl, it gave me hope that the populations of this species are still strong in the Sierras. With conservation-minded individuals working tirelessly to protect them, let’s hope that it stays that way.
Braden’s Big Year Update: As many of you know, Braden set out to see 400 North American bird species in 2022—a goal he smashed on our trip to Arizona. Accordingly, he raised his Big Year goal to 500, and thanks to relentless birding in California, he now stands at 440. Even better, he will be heading to Santa Cruz for a pelagic birding trip this weekend and if all goes well, he may add another 15 or 20 species to his list. Still, 500 is a big number and he’s got a lot of work to do. Keep reading FatherSonBirding to follow his progress!
We want to thank all of you for making June our biggest month ever at FatherSonBirding! The number of you viewing our posts absolutely demolished all previous records with more than 1300 visits to our site. We kick off July with the first of a series of posts from Braden. Since early June, he has been working as a field intern for The Institute for Bird Populations. His job? Monitoring Northern Goshawks on the west slope of California’s Sierras. While searching for the elusive accipiters, he and his four-person team are having birding adventures most of us only dream about. Here is his first field report: an encounter with Northern Saw-whet Owls.
Northern Saw-whet Owl
In our first week on the job my team leader, Ivara, decided that we would get the Black Oak PAC over with. A PAC is basically an area of land chosen kind of arbitrarily based on goshawk habitat, territory size and private land boundaries that we survey, and we usually try to complete a PAC every two days. Black Oak was by far the toughest PAC, but we dove right in, bushwhacking through brush in search of any signs of Northern Goshawks. Unfortunately, we couldn’t really focus on scanning the trees above us for nests given the sheer density of the vegetation growing on the slope in front of us. While birds certainly loved all of the brush, with Fox Sparrows and Nashville Warblers singing from exposed perches around me, the foliage did not welcome me as it did them. After about thirty minutes, I found myself wildly off my compass bearing, following the edge of an intimidating thicket in an attempt to get back to my correct line. We considered being five degrees off as “off course”. I was off by thirty!
Some of the typical Sierras terrain where we conduct our Northern Goshawk Surveys.
I took a deep breath, plunging into the vegetation in the direction of my coworkers and my correct bearing. I bent to avoid spiderwebs stretching between branches, jumping on top of decaying logs at any chance I got to relieve myself from the sticks that drew blood from my legs. After about fifty meters, the brush somehow worsened. I couldn’t see three feet in front of me, but I pressed on. And suddenly, I flushed a bird.
At first, my mind went to American Robin. It was a medium-sized, brown species, and it darted away from me as if planning to disappear into the impossible maze ahead. Instead, it landed on a nearby tree branch. I lifted my binoculars, peering through a small gap in the leaves, and exhaled in shock. My voice quavered as I spoke into my radio.
“Holy cow. I just found a baby Saw-whet Owl.”
I’d only seen pictures of juvenile Saw-whets once before, on a checklist from Missoula that I’d stared at with jealousy. This bird stared right back at me, its curious, unmoving eyes gazing at the beast that had just disturbed it. The bird’s back was a creamy brown color, adorned with a few spots, and a bushy unibrow accented golden eyes. I could barely see its tiny talons clutching the branch, complemented by buffy feathers that coated its legs.
Unfortunately, I was too lost to direct my coworkers to come see the owls, but I was in no hurry to continue the goshawk search. Our rule: looking for goshawks is important, but so is watching cool wildlife that happens to pop up! On cue, in fact, a second bird flew to a lower branch on the same tree. It was another juvenile owl! My brain registered that it must have just abandoned its day roost mere feet from where I stood. That meant—
My eyes scanned the foliage immediately around me and I saw it: a third baby owl who had not yet flushed in a young pine tree two feet from my face. Staring intensely at me. I didn’t dare move, shifting my gaze between this third, most fearless owl and its siblings in the mature tree behind it. I’d left my camera behind in anticipation of the tough bushwhacking, but slowly snapped a few photos with my phone. I’d never found a roosting owl all on my own before, and here I’d just blundered into three!
This third, and most fearless, of the three baby Saw-whet Owls I discovered will forever be one of my most memorable birding encounters.
After about twenty minutes of staring contests with the cutest birds I’ve ever seen, I slowly backed out the way I had come, taking a left into more brush. Soon, I was on my stomach, army-crawling through somehow-worse vegetation, but I couldn’t be happier. Little did I know that this would mark only the first of many unforgettable wildlife encounters I would experience in the coming weeks . . .
In this post, we continue our account of our return to southern Arizona while on a quest to get Braden to his Big Year goal of 400 bird species. To read the first part of our journey, click here. As always, we appreciate you sharing this post, and if you haven’t already done so, subscribing by filling out the box below and to the right. Enjoy!
After our close encounter with bedbugs, we set off from Safford early the next morning and were pulling into our trip’s first Major Destination by 8:45 a.m. When we had contemplated visiting Portal, Arizona during our 2016 Big Year, we had considered it as “a place to see hummingbirds.” Six years later, we still wanted hummingbirds, but harbored a long list of other targets—including a slew of Lifers and Year Birds that would propel Braden closer to his Big Year goal of 400 species. Driving into town, we blundered into our first. I had pulled over so Braden could get a look at some Phainopeplas (see next post) when I noticed a large-ish bird over in a sage plant. Getting my eyes on it, I saw right away that it was some kind of kingbird—and that it had an extraordinarily large bill! Turns out it was a Thick-billed Kingbird that had been reported around town recently! This Code 2 rarity created great momentum for the day—one that would not diminish until we were snug in our sleeping bags 12 hours later.
Thanks to Braden’s patient mentoring, I have grown a much greater appreciation for flycatchers, including this Lifer, a Dusky-capped.
But back to those hummingbirds, it’s true that Portal does have hummingbirds thanks to the many kind people who put up bird feeders, but of equal avian importance is that the town sits at the mouth of a canyon of the Chiricahua Mountains. One of Arizona’s famed “sky island” mountain ranges, the Chiricahuas attract a host of birds from Mexico that are uncommon in the US, from Mexican Chickadees and Yellow-eyed Juncos to Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers and everyone’s Number One target, Elegant Trogons. After grabbing a campsite at Sunny Flat campground, Braden and I set up our tents and, as the day was already warming, decided to drive to high altitudes for our first proper birding session. We had a couple of specific destinations in mind, but as we wound our way slowly up the dirt road, we decided to pull over at a small stream crossing—and are so glad we did! Almost immediately, one of our favorite birds—Painted Redstart—perched over our heads. This was followed by a veritable bird parade that included Hepatic & Western Tanagers, Hutton’s Vireos, Bridled Titmice, Grace’s Warblers, and Dusky-capped and Cordilleran Flycatchers—all birds we had especially wanted to see or hear!
Painted Redstart was our Bird of the Trip during our first visit to Arizona in 2016. Seeing it again, we agreed it had been an excellent choice!
After a few more miles, we reached a loose collection of canyon campsites strung out along the road. The canyon held a wonderful mix of conifers and oaks, and in five minutes, we saw two Life Birds: Yellow-eyed Junco and Red-faced Warbler. The Red-faced Warbler is one of those birds that you learn about, but don’t really believe exists until you see it perched in front of you. Not to be out-done, the junco put on a great show for us, often collecting nesting materials at our feet as we burned gigabytes of camera storage photographing it! One bird we searched for and didn’t find was Mexican variety Spotted Owl. “That’s okay,” I reasoned. “I never really expected to see one of those in my lifetime, anyway.”
Yellow-eyed JuncoRed-faced Warbler
It was such a beautiful spot that we decided to have a picnic lunch there before moving back to higher elevation, but before we did, we took one last look around for an owl. Braden was trying to photograph a couple of Verdin when I turned and glanced up in a tree—only to be greeted by the unmistakable silhouette of an owl. Braden was saying, “I guess we’re not going to find the owl,” when I casually remarked, “Except that I just found it.” He thought I was kidding, but I pointed up into the tree, and we both fell into a silent reverie that lasted a full fifteen minutes.
Like so many birds Braden and I have encountered together, this Spotted Owl is one I thought I’d never see.
If we’d seen nothing else on the trip, that owl would have made the entire journey worthwhile. Nonetheless, we bid it adieu and headed up to a place called Rustler Park. Here, thanks to Braden’s hard work and determination, we found two more Lifers: Mexican Chickadee and Olive Warbler—the bird that isn’t really a warbler, but inhabits its own strange group of birds. Remarkably, our day still had a long way to run.
If it looks like a warbler, and acts like a warbler . . . well, sometimes it isn’t. This Olive Warbler belongs to its own family of birds, the Peucedramidae.
Back in Portal, we scoured the bird feeders, and even hung our own feeder in our campsite, netting yet more Lifers: Scott’s Oriole, a bird at the top of my “to see” list, and Blue-throated Mountain Gem, a gorgeous hummer that came right to our camp feeder! As the shadows deepened over Cave Creek Canyon, however, we had one more very special treat in store for us. Grabbing our flashlights, we set off in darkness down Cave Creek Road, listening intently for a trio of nighttime denizens. We heard the haunting call of the Mexican Whip-poor-will, followed quickly by Whiskered Screech Owl, and finally the “bark” of Elf Owls! Standing together, listening to these magical sounds truly was one of our most memorable birding experiences ever and one that we will both cherish as long as we draw breath. The same can be said for the entire day.
Even better, two full days of Arizona birding remained. Would they include, say, an Elegant Trogon? Stay tuned . . .
I couldn’t write about Portal without including at least one hummer, even though this Blue-throated Mountain Gem declined to give us a full “sun shot”.
Braden and Nick are close to the finish line! This penultimate day of their epic Florida adventure would bring revelation, frustration, traffic jams, and finally, the realization of a key (no pun intended) target species of the trip. They also happened to be nearing their goal of 200 species for their expedition—as well as moving Braden significantly along in his quest to see 400 species during his 2022 Big Year. Read on to find out what happens . . .
Unfortunately, sleep was not in our immediate future after leaving the Keys that night. We pulled back into the Everglades, passing the campsite I’d enjoyed the night before, Chuck-will’s-widow calls sailing through our rolled-down windows. As we drove south in the dark towards Flamingo, the “town” at the bottom of the glades, we scanned the roads looking for our targets: snakes. Soon enough, Nick spotted one, and we pulled off the road, turning on our emergency lights so oncoming cars wouldn’t run us, or the snake, over as we walked down the road towards it. We left Dixie in the car, given that this snake was a Florida Cottonmouth, and probably could have killed Dixie if she got too close. The snake coiled on the warm road, its mouth open, and we showed another group of people that pulled over to see what we were photographing. Our spirits high, we headed back to the car—only to discover that Dixie had peed all over both seats. The smell infiltrated our noses, and we wiped up the mess with various towels and toilet paper that would be going in the next garbage can we came across.
Half an hour later, we rolled into the dark parking lot of a wooded trail near Flamingo. We set off in the dark, using a stick to brush spiderwebs out of the way and looking back frequently to make sure we wouldn’t get lost. Eventually, the trees gave way to a massive field of saltbush, slightly silver in the moonlight. This was the winter home of another incredibly elusive species, the Black Rail. This bird, a member of a group of birds already known to be difficult to find, was the size of a mouse and completely nocturnal. If Mangrove Cuckoo wasn’t the hardest regularly-occurring species to see in North America, it was definitely Black Rail. While hearing them was slightly easier, they didn’t seem to know that as we played for them in the dark, and we walked back to the car, our legs covered in scratches from the saltbushes, after forty fruitless minutes of searching. Nick fell asleep immediately as I took the wheel, just trying to get a little further north before crashing so the driving would not be as terrible during the next few days. I didn’t get far, however, and pulled into another parking lot. Between the smell of urine and the oppressive humidity, I didn’t get very much sleep that night.
Birds such as this juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron helped compensate for a terrible night’s sleep and Dixie’s, ahem, perfuming of the car seats!
At seven, Nick drove us to our next spot, a place called the L31W Canal, a little northeast of the Everglades. Struggling against my fatigue, I stepped out of the car in the brightening sky, and we began trudging along a straight road bordered by brambles on one side and grassy pine forest on the other. We had several goals here, the primary one being a Smooth-billed Ani that had been hanging out for a while. After doing some digging on eBird, I discovered that the ani was a ways down the dusty road, and I sighed, preparing for a long, hot, uneventful hike. Fortunately, I was quickly proven wrong.
We passed another pair of birders, one of them guiding the other. Nick pointed out the calls of Northern Bobwhites, quail I hadn’t seen since South Texas and had never before heard, and all of a sudden, an orange blur caught my eye. I looked to the right, where a beautiful Barn Owl had just alighted on top of a tall, branchless snag.
This was the best photo I could manage of my first really good look at a Barn Owl.
“Holy cow, look!” I said, pointing as all four of us birders turned towards it and raised our various devices (camera, binoculars, and in the guide’s case, a scope). The bird had dark eyes and a grayish, circular face peering at us in the morning fog. It took off before I was able to secure any good pictures, its flight reminiscent of a bounding rabbit. We watched the Barn Owl, a species I had only seen the butt of before, our eyes transfixed on the vibrant orange of its wings as it floated around for a while and then disappeared. It was almost like the birds had seen my poor mood and responded accordingly, putting the smile back on my face—and they were just getting started. In fact, the best birding of the entire trip unfolded before us.
As we scanned the pine savannah to our right, searching for White-tailed Kites, Nick pointed out Eastern Meadowlarks, a bird I somehow hadn’t seen until now. Pishing in agricultural parts of the walk yielded a variety of sparrows, including Savannah and, surprisingly, a Grasshopper Sparrow, a bird I associated with the shortgrass prairie of Eastern Montana rather than the humid scrubland of south Florida. More Swallow-tailed Kites appeared above us, circling above the pineywoods as if cheering us on. At one point, a bright red bird zoomed across my path, briefly perching up in a low bush—a male Painted Bunting! The bird was even more stunning than I’d expected, with its deep blue head, green back and brilliant crimson belly lit up in the sun.
The L31W Canal continued to deliver great birds with my first ever Eastern Meadowlark and a spectacular male Painted Bunting.
While we didn’t find the ani, the other birders pointed out other rare species to us. This place seemed to be a rarity hotspot, which became apparent with a kingbird flock we found. Western Kingbirds were regular winter residents in this area, but this flock also included both a Cassin’s Kingbird (a Western species) and a Tropical Kingbird (a tropical species), and I learned the difference between the three as we watched them fly around us. As much as Nick and I wanted to stay longer, we had miles to cover and Mangrove Cuckoos to find, so we said goodbye to the other birders and began the drive through the glades towards the Gulf Coast.
This was my first time getting to directly observe the differences between Tropical (shown above), Cassin’s, and Western Kingbirds in the field.
Yet again, we drove through prime Snail Kite habitat, and yet again, we found no Snail Kites. The sawgrass marshes gave way to densely forested glades as we drove along the Tamiami Trail, and we pulled into the visitor center for Big Cypress National Preserve for a quick glance around the center grounds. While we did see a fair number of birds along the drive and at the visitor center, the main attractions were the aquatic creatures. Amazingly, we spotted a pair of porpoises in the canal as well as a Brown Pelican, both an unusually far distance inland. That meant that somehow, this canal must have had some saltwater. What’s more, at the visitor center we found large schools of fish, including mean-looking Florida Gar. In front of our eyes, a Softshell Turtle snagged one of them and was promptly ambushed by several more. However, the most mind-blowing animals were the alligators. Dozens sulked in the canal, and at the visitor center alone I counted thirty or so, all within several feet of the humans peering at them from the safety of the boardwalk.
Eventually, the scenery changed as we left Snail Kite habitat and entered the habitat of the snowbirds, people who migrated south from the northern United States to their homes in the warmth of Florida. More specifically, we were in Cape Coral, a hot, concrete-covered town known for its tourists as well as another species that I’d only seen previously in the prairies of Montana: the Burrowing Owl. A threatened, urban owl population existed in this part of Florida, surviving in parks, yards and abandoned lots here only because of the protection the city provided. As we pulled up to the Cape Coral Public Library, we saw the fencing and stakes marking their burrows, although no birds were to be found. The heat of the day seemed to be keeping them down, so we headed west, towards our last chance at Mangrove Cuckoo: Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island.
Fish Crows entertained us in many of South Florida’s habitats, including mangroves.
Again, this refuge caught me off guard. I’d expected large marshes and ponds, similar to Montana’s refuges. Instead, we were met with thick, tall, healthy mangroves. The trees were larger and denser than what we’d seen in the Keys, and more accessible too. We drove the main refuge loop, stopping at various trails to play for the cuckoo. One boardwalk in particular displayed the complexity of the Red Mangrove ecosystem, giving us great looks at the trees’ prop roots as they plunged into the shallow, salt-covered mud, and the crabs scampering up their trunks. Fish leapt from the water of the mangrove-encased bays, and we spotted a few shorebirds and waders wherever land showed itself. Here, again, the primary songs we heard were those of Prairie Warblers, singing from all around us in this perfect breeding habitat. And yet again, more Swallow-tailed Kites flew over us, reminding us of the excitement we’d felt when we’d first seen them at Merritt Island.
As we left Ding Darling, cuckoo-less, we discovered what else the area was known for: traffic—the worst traffic I’d ever been in, hood-to-bumper cars stretching for miles as people tried to get off the island. We probably could have gotten off Sanibel faster if we’d been as we covered three or so miles in roughly an hour. Eventually, though, we made our escape, and headed to a nearby baseball field in a last ditch attempt for Burrowing Owls. Again, though, after half an hour of walking around, they evaded us, frustration rising inside us. While the day had been great, we’d missed every single target—no ani, no cuckoo, no kites and no Burrowing Owls, not to mention the uncomfortable night spent looking for nonexistent Black Rails. As the sun began to set, a baseball game started next to us. I stared as the young Little League players hit line drives over each others’ heads. A single ball flew into the outfield, and then I saw it: yellow fencing, located just beyond the baseball diamond. I raised my binoculars, revealing two brown lumps perched on the chain link fence within the yellow caution tape.
“I’ve got em!” I said, and Nick and I began running, Dixie leading the way. As we got close, we put Dixie on a leash, lying down to photograph what we’d found: two incredibly cooperative Burrowing Owls perched in front of us, one on the lawn and one on the fence above the first. They stared at us, their mottled brown-and-white pattern complementing their intense, unmoving eyes. Nick and I moved a little further to take a selfie. Finally, we’d found something we were looking for!
Finally, after an afternoon-long search complete with horrendous South Florida traffic, we were rewarded with a great look at Burrowing Owls in Cape Coral.
We ended our day at a campsite just south of Gainesville at roughly eleven o’clock, a surprisingly earlier bedtime compared to the rest of the trip. While my goal was sleep, Nick went off in search of Eastern Whip-poor-wills. I lay there, in the back of Nick’s truck, thinking about where we’d been. After spending the day in the glades and the mangroves, we were back in the Pineywoods, hoping for another chance at their birds tomorrow before heading back to New Orleans. While we’d gotten several of my target birds for the trip so far, we’d missed an unfortunate number, and I’d hoped that tomorrow would go better. Would it? Or would we miss everything yet again, to return to Louisiana only with a few of the birds we’d set out to find? Stay tuned to find out!
