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Wednesday morning, Rosana's parents took off for Lake Wales, after some more record listening, ladder toss, and good meals and conversation. We had the rest of the day to get our stuff packed up and attempt to eat the remainder of perishables left behind.


Thursday morning, Rosana's roommate Danny had a cancellation at his work, allowing him time to drive us up to the Ft. Lauderdale airport. Had he not, our day would have been much longer getting up there by train. Rosana and I had a direct flight to Boston, where The Eric Lantz picked us up to take us to Worcester for Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning was very nice. The Eric Lantz got me the exact MP3 player that had been stolen the previous week, so my the next few months of traveling look to be less quiet. After Rosana, Eric, Dick and Mom opened presents we had a good breakfast. Getting ready and cooking a few things took us until about noon, when some relatives started showing up. Dinner, Yankee Swap, and a walk at the mill park up the street rounded out a pretty good day. My relatives, and The Eric Lantz left in the evening, and we went to bed shortly after.

On Saturday, Rosana and I chatted with Dick and my mom for quite a while. We left the house after lunch and headed to my old workplace, the Blue Hills Trailside Museum. We checked out the SNOWY OWL, TURKEY VULTURE, RED-TAILED HAWK, and GREAT-HORNED OWL that they have on display outside, as well as these "wild" MALLARD.


After walking through the grounds and talking to a few of my former co-workers, we hiked to the the top of Great Blue Hill. While there was snow on the ground, which at times was decently deep, the temperature was mild and the trails were pretty well blazed.

In the evening, Rosana and I met up with Jerry, Alison, and Bill for sushi in Quincy Center, then played a game of bowling at O'Lindy's.


This brought us up to the time of the 12th annual Christmastime Spectacular of Gaiety held at the Shea household in Weymouth. After boozing and chatting for a while, the party moved to the ever-famous Panda Palace in South Weymouth, which Mark and Matt Shea tore the roof off with their karaoke version of an Elton John song.

Sunday morning after breakfast, Rosana and I met up with Bill and Marin. We headed to Cumberland Farms (the literal farms) in Middleboro to do some birding. This place has had quite a fall, with birders posting such rarities as LARK BUNTING, and the super-rare BROWN-CHESTED MARTIN. Most recently on a CBC, birders noted 5 LAPLAND LONGSPUR. We walked the muddy roads lined with post-harvest cranberry crud, but had no luck locating any. We were treated to an AMERICAN KESTREL, SONG SPARROW, WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW, and an immature RED-TAILED HAWK.


In the afternoon, the four of us ate some lunch with Jerry at Weymouth House of Pizza. Rosana and I then got some tea in Southie, then headed to the Needy Visions round-robin style show and photo shoot at their practice space in Dorchester.

After the show, Rosana and I stayed at Steve and Meg's place. In the morning we got some breakfast and made some IPA beer with the home brewing kit Meg had gotten Steve for Christmas. It was neat to learn how that works. Last night, Rosana and I headed back to Worcester, where we got some Thai food and retired fairly early. This morning we've been getting ourselves ready for another Eastern MA adventure to come.

Key(s)

Thursday morning I did end up going to the Everglades to find my species of interest. I got to Hole in the Donut at about 6:30, and walked around as the sun was rising. KING RAIL could be heard all around, and a bunch of waders were finding there way to their feeding sites for the day. On the way out, an EASTERN SCREECH OWL was calling pretty close by. I checked out Long Pine Key, and saw a number of warblers, but no WESTERN SPINDALIS. Over at Lucky Hammock, I encountered some good activity, including the GRASSHOPPER SPARROW I was looking for previously. As it turned out, a birder had come across a LA SAGRA'S FLYCATCHER near Hole in the Donut about when I was there, but I didn't find out until later.

On Friday I cleaned like crazy, and picked Rosana up from her half-day. That night we hosted Eva and Emily for a major indoor ladder ball tournament.


Saturday morning, Eva and I headed to Virginia Key to participate in their annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC). It was a windy and cold, but excellent day of birding. Our count circle posted 70 species, with great birds of the day including NORTHERN GANNET, great looks at a close by BROWN BOOBY, and INDIGO BUNTING, to name a few. I also got to see a few good birding areas close to my soon to be home. After the count, Eva and I tried for the Kendall RED-WHISKERED BULBUL that she has yet to see, but her luck on this one continues for the worst. That night we all met up with Rosana's friend Emily at Titanic for dinner.


Sunday morning, Rosana, Eva, and I headed to the Everglades to try our luck at the missed LA SAGRA'S FLYCATCHER, but we didn't have any luck. However, just when we were about to call it, another birder gave a suttle point behind her. Rosana and I caught wat she was referencing- a huge Florida Panther about 30 feet away! Within a second, it darted out of the road, not to be seen again. There are less than 100 of these in the state, and thus the world. What an incredible experience! The three of us then headed to Lucky Hammock, and had a decent view of some warblers, as well as a SWAINSON'S HAWK and a CLIFF SWALLOW.


Rosana and I then headed to the Keys. We camped at Bahia Honda State Park near Marathon. It was still pretty windy and cool, but it as an incredible time. Quite different than when we went down there in May with The Eric Lantz, burning ourselves in the hot ocean water. On the way back from the Keys, we went record shopping to supplement the player I got Rosana for Christmas.


Last night Rosana's parents came into town and we played a lot of the records. Some of them they knew the words to when they were younger (The Eagles, Johnny Cash) without knowing the meaning of the words.

Relaxifying

Saturday night, Rosana and I went to the Wynwood area of Miami for their monthly ArtWalk. We got a beer at the Titanic Brewery after, which is always nice.


Sunday afternoon, Rosana and I borrowed a couple bikes from her friends, and we got out to Shark Valley in the Everglades. This was a pretty awesome 15-mile loop that gave us some good looks at wading birds, tons of alligators, and a pretty high overlook into a wading bird colony, that in addition to the regulars, included lots of BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON. The sun started setting on our way back, but we made it to the car before it got scary.


Monday I had a pretty boring day, cleaning the house, going food shopping, and getting Rosana's car an oil change. Tuesday I planned on getting a new belt installed, but since Rosana was sick from work, I took care of her a bit and then we went to the car place together.


Today I got up at 5am to head to the Everglades. When I went down to the car, I realized it had been broken into, as the passenger door was unlocked and the glove box and center box were left open. The only casualty of this experience was my MP3 player, and my egg and cheese sandwich that Charlie stole from the chair I left it on while were dealing with this. Since we called the police and waited for them, I aborted my attempt to go to the 'glades, as my target birds were early morning skulkers- KING RAIL and SEDGE WREN. Perhaps tomorrow.

STA-5

Yesterday morning, after dropping Rosana off from work, I went to Matheson Hammock. The county parks had been quiet, so I wasn't expecting much, but I did find a nice flock that included BLUE-GREY GNATCATCHER, BLUE-HEADED VIREO, PALM, BLACK-AND-WHITE, and BLACK -THROATED GREEN WARBLERS. A huge flock of HILL MYNA also found me. After Rosana got out of work, we went to the raw food place in town that was the historic restaurant (but not same site) of our first date.


This morning I got up at 6 and headed up to the Stormwater Treatment Area (STA) 5 in Hendry County to meet up with Kimarsh and Eva. They only open this awesome birding area once a month. This place was out in the booooooonies, taking me through the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation, and a half-hour longer for me to get there than even mapquest suggested.



When I did arrive, Kimarsh and Eva had already scoped out both YELLOWLEGS and a SOLITARY SANDPIPER, but we were at this point interested in finding one of our target birds: the CASSIN'S KINGBIRD. After driving a bit, we got looks at LIMPKIN, ROSEATE SPOONBILL, BLUE-WINGED TEAL, AMERICAN WIGEON, SNAIL KITE, NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW, PEREGRINE FALCON, BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING DUCK and noticed a CRESTED CARACA change its bill color! Without much effort, we found our CASSIN'S right where the leader had suggested it would be, watched our lifer for a while, and moved on to our next target.


After doing a small loop, which included seeing a FULVOUS WHISTLING DUCK, HOODED MERGANSER, RING-NECKED DUCK, and RUDDY DUCK, we decided we had seen most of the birds of interest here. Having great luck on the day, and it still being early, we headed out to the Francsisco St. boat ramp in Clewiston, and pretty quickly found a pack of BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD mixed with BRONZED COWBIRD, as well as my first ever view of Lake O. After lunch at Hungry Howie's, and a bid farewell, I had a long, but very satisfied, drive home.

South Dadery

In the afternoon on Wednesday, I packed some sandwiches, picked up Rosana from school, and we headed down to the Annex near the Everglades entrance to do a little birding. We were trying to get a look at a BROWN-CRESTED FLYCATCHER, and when the sun was setting, SHORT-EARED OWLS that had been seen in a field. We did not see either, but did get mosquitoed when the sun was done. It was a fun trip however, despite the fallen powerline blocking the road that made us divert our path through farms to get there and home.


Wednesday morning I went to the Cutler Wetland, and was greeted by tons of WOOD STORKS, mostly juveniles, a GREAT WHITE HERON, which is an all white subspecies of the GREAT BLUE HERON, and a big pack of SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHER. After this, I went to the nearby Dump Marsh, and saw hundreds of EUROPEAN STARLINGS and lesser numbers of BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS on the powerlines. I scanned them for awhile looking for a SHINY or BRONZED COWBIRD, but it was not to be. I parked the car right under the lines, and was flabberghasted to see it covered in guano when I got back.


This morning I got up pretty early to head to the Everglades National Park. I birded the area around the campground at Long Pine Key, looking for any evidence of the first ever reported U.S. breeding WESTERN SPINDALIS that took place here this summer. No luck, but there was a great deal of EASTERN BLUEBIRD, PINE, YELLOW-RUMPED, and PALM WARBLER. I ran into Rafael, who I had met last week at the Dump Marsh. He helped me look for it, as he hadn't seen it either since he was out of the country this summer - still no luck.

Rafael came with me to Donut in the Hole, which is an area of the Everglades that has some interesting things. We scanned a swampy area for BROWN-CRESTED FLYCATCHER, as this was a spot that they had showed up many winters in a row (but not yet this year). Then we headed on to the mound with his scope to see what kind of birds were visible in the marsh. A few LEAST BITTERN called out while we were up there, and immediately we got great looks at a male SNAIL KITE. Also present were RING-NECKED DUCK and HOODED MERGANSER.


I bid farewell to Rafael and headed to the Annex again to try for a BROWN-CRESTED FLYCATCHER. Within a little time, a LEAST FLYCATCHER showed up. Then, right next to him was a flycatcher that is either a GREAT-CRESTED or BROWN-CRESTED, but he was missing his tail. This bird is best distinguished by call, but hopefully one of the skilled Miami birders can help me figure it out.

Tri-County birding

Friday night, a few of Rosana's teacher-friends, as well as Danny, Rosana, and I played some games and had some delicious polenta over here. Catch Phrase and beers. Saturday morning I woke up quite early and went to Bill Baggs State Park on Key Biscayne. It didn't open until 8am, so I attempted to kill an hour at one of the Crandon Park beaches. This proved really fruitful, as on the beach, there was a large flock of birds that included ROYAL TERN, CASPIAN TERN, BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER, SEMIPALMATED PLOVER, PIPING PLOVER, SANDERLING, and LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL. On the walk back to the car, EASTERN SANDHILL CRANES yelled at me.


At 8am, I headed to the state park, and attempted to bird it. There was not much going on, besides these soaring MAGNIFICENT FRIGATEBIRDS.


At about 10:30, Rosana and Emily met me there to enjoy some beach time. It was pretty fun and relaxing. In the afternoon we took a long nap, and then headed to Titanic for delicious microbrews, and some billiards with Emily and Desiree.


Sunday morning, Rosana and I slept in (7:30), and slowly got ready for a northward trip. On our way to Palm Beach, we stopped at the infamous Dania Beach 800 building for my third try at a SMOOTH-BILLED ANI this year. We immediately saw one, and got incredible looks at it. I think this kind of redeems me as an actual pro-circuit birder in Rosana's eyes. Maybe.


In the afternoon, we hung out at Eva's friends' house where they were having a cook-out. We enjoyed some horseshoes, flip-cup, and this amazing game called Ladder Ball. We took a break from the party to bird the beach before sundown, but with no peculiar sightings. Eva and I went to bed early that night as we had a well-planned day for Monday.


At 8am on Monday, Eva and I picked up Kim in Lake Worth, and headed to Eva's own Green Cay Nature Center. On our morning bird walk, we saw a good variety of species, including PURPLE GALLINULE, MERLIN, BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING DUCK, ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER, YELLOW-THROATED WARLBER, and SORA. Eva identified a NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW that I was not able to spot due to an aggressive shirtless jogger. To give Eva some time to get work done, Kim and I went down the street to the Wakodahatchee Wetlands. Not too much more was seen here, but a beautiful day nonetheless. Extremely irrratably and hungrily, we met up with Eva and Mo at Green Cay and ate lunch at a Chinese Restaurant. After lunch, Mo, Kim, and I hiked a fruitless death march through the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge trying to turn up one of their resident SNAIL KITE, but it was not to be. After Eva's work day was done, they dropped me off at the train to head back down to Miami, with 60 bird species on the day.


This morning I went to A.D Barnes here in Dade to see if there were any late migrants. Not too much other than a GREAT-CRESTED FLYCATCHER, BLUE-HEADE VIREO, 2 CHESTNUT-FRONTED MACAW, and this overly friendly juvenile raccoon.

I don't understand weather

Wednesday morning, I scrapped my plan to head down the the Annex near the entrance of the Everglades, due to the weather forecast. A couple of exciting birds, including SHORT-EARED OWL and CASSIN'S KINGBIRD had been seen on Tuesday, but it didn't seem worth making the drive. So I went to Matheson Hammock, and the weather was beautiful. However, I only saw 6 birds species in more than an hour of birding there. I was thinking perhaps the impending storm hunkered them all down.


Thursday was the same deal, the weather looked to be a bit crazy, so I decided to stay local. I checked out the Kendall Indian Hammocks, and only did slightly better than the day before. There was a perched female MERLIN, and also a BLUE-HEADED VIREO, so it was not a complete waste. I went to the Kendall Baptist Hospital after to see what kind of exotics were around. There were GRAYLAG/SWAN GOOSE hybrids, domestic MALLARDS, MUSCOVY, and hundreds of the above pictured MITRED PARAKEET, none of which are ABA acceptable birds. In the afternoon I went to the Pinewood Cemetery for the first time. There was a SHORT-TAILED HAWK and YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER, but no other birds present. The weather had stayed completely clear all day.


This morning the weather forecast looked slightly better than the previous two days, so I figured I was safe. It poured the whole drive down to the Annex from about 6-7am, but luckily stoppped when I got there. There were some nice birds around there, including BROWN THRASHER, CAPE MAY WARBLER, and OVENBIRD. When I started to drive to leave, I noticed a kingbird on the electric line. I got out, and spent 20 minutes analyzing him. He looked like he could have been the CASSIN'S KINGBIRD, but it turned out his feathers were ruffled, giving them a grey frontal appearance. His white tail edges and darker wings than back made him a wintering WESTERN KINGBIRD. On the drive out a beautiful SCISSOR-TAILED FLYCATCHER on some electric lines caught my attention.

Space Coast

Sunday evening, Rosana and I got to Lake Worth to meet up with Eva, who at the time, was the soon-to-be birthday girl. We got some pizza with her and Kim, and from there, Eva and I set off for birding the Space Coast a few hours north. That night, Eva and I set up camp and went to bed pretty early after a few shots and views of snorting manatees in the Indian River.


Monday morning, we woke up at about 6am to head out to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Just after sun-up on the Black Point Wildlife Drive, Eva discovered a SORA. A little further down the road, a CLAPPER RAIL called me in like a siren, and gave us incredible looks. Within this drive, other notable birds included BALD EAGLE, EASTERN TOWHEE, REDDISH EGRET, BUFFLEHEAD, and unbelievable views of a Bobcat. This first couple of hours gave us 52 bird species.


We checked out the Scrub Trail, as well as Playalinda Beach, without any surprising sitings. On that note, we decided to drive a bit further out, to Huntington Road and the Shiloh Marsh. On Huntington, we were treated to some semi-rarities for South Florida: EASTERN BLUEBIRD and AMERICAN GOLDFINCH. Shiloh did not produce the sparrows we had hoped for, as it seems we would need to be in knee-highs to flush out the desired NELSON'S SHARP-TAILED, SEASIDE, and SALT MARSH SHARP-TAILED SPARROWS.


Our last big birding stop of the day was Diceranda Scrub Sanctuary to try again for a FLORIDA SCRUB JAY, but were unsuccessful. We did manage to get looks at SHARP-SHINNED HAWK and CAROLINA CHICKADEE. At the campground, we took a few minutes to bird before freshening up, which proved fruitful. PILEATED WOODPECKER, SPOTTED SANDPIPER and YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER were all "yardbirds". After changing clothes, we picked up a couple other urban birds, and finished our day list at 85 species. Eva and I celebrated our great B-day big day birding with some Mexican food, a few beers, and some Monday Night Football at a local watering hole.


Yesterday morning, Eva and I broke camp at 5:30am and headed down to the Viera Wetlands at to see if we could relocate the NEOTROPIC CORMORANT that had been posted as being seen the day before. Within a few minutes of looking for it, we did find it, and were able to point it out to some of the other twitchers looking for it. Other notable birds that we saw at this site included CRESTED CARACARA, BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING DUCK, WOOD STORK, EASTERN SANDHILL CRANE, and many vocal MARSH WRENS. One of the birders mentioned a PURPLE SANDPIPER he had seen at New Smyrna Beach the day before. Our curiosities peaked, Eva and I got the directions and headed north to see if we could pull in another rarity for the day.


A small jetty on the south side of the Ponce Inlet is the typical wintering feeding grounds of the of this slightly south individual PURPLE SANDPIPER. It seems that it feeds elsewhere until low tide, and then frequents this jetty filled with fishermen. Low tide was around 1pm, and Eva and I did not care to stick around that long. So after seeing SANDWICH TERN, and the many RUDDY TURNSTONES around the jetty for an hour and a half, we decided to leave. A stop at a Waffle House was our final meal of the trip, and only stop of our 3+ hour ride back to Lake Worth. Our final species count for the weekend-like weekdays were 94 - not too bad for this time of year.

Thanks of Giving

Last Wednesday, I got everything ready for Rosana and I to take off for her parent's house in Central Florida. After her half-day at school, we drove up 27 in two cars (her new one, and her old one which her dad is going to try to sell in Venezuela) and made a birding stop in Belle Glade, with the hopes of seeing a SMOOTH-BILLED ANI. At the marina, we came across a LIMPKIN, but no ANI. It has been a while since one has been seen in Florida, so I think their status is questionable.


Rosana's family had a serious immediate family reunion that hadn't happened for a long while. Her parents, both of her brother's and their families, as well as her half-brother were in town for the whole weekend. It was craziness with all of the kids, and general language barriers, but it was a lot of fun. We stayed at her brother Ismael's house about a half-hour away in Auberndale, which gave us a bit of a respite from the insanity.


On Saturday, we went to Bok Tower in Lake Wales with most of the family to check out the gardens. It was pretty nice weather, with some decent bird activity. We got many of the kids as well as Rosana's brother Herman to see a pair of AMERICAN KESTREL in a snag, which they seemed to appreciate. There were also some active PINE WARBLER, BLUE-GREY GNATCATCHER, and BELTED KINGFISHER. But the big draw to the kids were the pair of MUTE SWANS and Koi which they fed.

The weekend mostly consisted of crazy conversations, being sick with a cold, watching almost all of the final season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, playing with Charlie the dog, and drinking espresso and beer. Rosana and I left on Sunday afternoon to head down south to Lake Worth to start another chapter of my trip.