Birding, yes please

white ibis

We did get in a little birding here and there in Florida, and Andy took some great photos of wildlife encountered on our trip.  At Bahia Honda, we scoured some sea grapes with a group of birders to find a stray bananaquit, probably blown in the previous week on the south winds.  We missed a black faced grassquit at the same park on that same day, but had too much fun swimming and beachcombing to mind.  We also saw some great birds in the Everglades, including at least 5 swallow tailed kites putting on an aerial display just a few meters over our heads.

palm warbler

little blue heron

Swallow tailed kite

bananaquit

And- the best bird- our only lifer this trip- we saw for a total of 5 seconds.  We spent about 5 hours looking for it, but that was actually VERY lucky as many have spent more than 35 hours looking before catching a glimpse of the elusive Key West quail doves that have been hanging out at Long Key State Park this winter. You have to walk extremely slowly, in complete silence, peering into the impenatrable tangle of a tropical hammock in order to spot just the slightest movement on the ground to find this bird.  We were about to call it quits on our second trip to look for it when we crept along a bend in the trail and another birder, wide-eyed, put his finger up to his lips.  He had it!  We crept up slowly and just as he was whispering where to look we saw the movement, raised our binos, just in time to see a single Key West quail dove walk off into the scrub, never to be seen again (at least not that day).  We thanked this unknown birder profusely, considered ourselves extremely lucky, and hightailed it out of there back to Islamorada for our last swim in the pool with the kids.  No picture of this one, needless to say.

looking for the key west quail dove

crocodile

osprey

blue winged teals

ovenbird