This was a quickly planned expedition spurred by the presence of two unusual bird species for the North American ABA (American Birding Association) area. Zenaida Dove and Black-faced Grassquit, both Antillean species, were amazingly being seen in the same park on one Florida Key. Many dedicated and vagile birders have never seen either of these species in North America; vagrancy here is rare and often short-lived.
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| Big Cypress National Preserve |
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| Yellow-crowned Night-Heron cooling off |
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| Reddish Egret |
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| Zenaida Dove, rare visitor to North America; note shorter, squarer tail than Mourning Dove and white in wing; also see Mourning Dove in this article from same locality and date. Keys, Florida |
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| Purple Swamphen |
Coincidentally friends and wildlife enthusiasts Anna (AJ), Cary and Dennis were on the west coast of Florida so flights into Fort Myers and out of Fort Lauderdale seemed a strategic way to again visit the famous Ding Darling NWR, Big Cypress National Preserve, Fakahatchee Strand, the Keys and other biodiversity hot spots in S. Florida.
Thanks go out to them and our friends at the fine refreshment emporium The Smiling Dog, Fort Myers. After convincing my confused brain that I had not 'misplaced' my credit card on their floor they were kind enough to let me eat everyones bowls of popcorn and agree (I think) to contact me on the alleged whereabouts of any rare fauna they see or hear rumors about in FL.
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| White Pelicans at the famous Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge |
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| Black-bellied Tree-Duck |
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| Painted Bunting, male |
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| Sora, a species of rail said to be the most common in North America, but this is not true at least in NJ |
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| Wakadohatchee Wetlands, Delray, FL |
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| Painted Bunting |
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| Tri-colored Heron |
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| Mourning Dove |
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| Common Gallinule |
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| Limpkin |
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| Yellow-crowned Night-Heron |
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| Painted Bunting |
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| Downy Woodpecker, female |
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| Great Blue Heron adult with young |
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| Black-necked Stilt |
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| Willet in the Keys |
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| Common Gallinule |
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| Rookery tree in Delray Florida |
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| Gray Kingbird in Big Cypress |
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| Zenaida Dove |
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| Anhinga with large sunfish |
Note potential bad news from continuing visits to southern Florida. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker may likely be extirpated in at least the southern 1/3 of peninsular FL. This from personal field studies, surveys and conversations with seasoned, experienced field biologists and outdoor business owners in S FL, Fakahatchee Strand and Big Cypress Preserve (the latter two are 800,000 acres plus).
The Big Cypress ecosystem was thought to support several birds in the '30s according to James Tanner. This area was one of only a handful where the 'Lord God Bird' still nervously scaled bark for insects and roamed the tree tops for nuts, fruits and berries. Unfortunately it was heavily logged soon after his thesis work; the only possible recent sighting I have uncovered in S FL during conversations with several locals was a bird in flight by biologist Mike Owens, circa 2000, in the southern area of the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve.
On this survey I spent additional days, as I have in the past, in the two preserved wildernesses that once supported the Ivory-billed. Today the sub-tropical habitat has regionally and globally important populations of flora and fauna ranging from 44 species of orchids to Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, Wood Storks, Swallow-tailed Kites and Florida Panthers (cougars). On a fact finding mission for thirty years about the rare animals of the region I continued my often productive habit of talking to locals about exciting fauna. This time I noticed the Big Cypress Preserve visitor center; a helpful federal employee directed me 500 yards away to an adjacent complex where a senior preserve biologist might be able to help.
Although disappointed by her truthful answer about the presence or absence of the Ivory-billed in the area I was satisfied to be speaking with an actual field scientist. Her office mimiced my closets and den----strewn across 200 square feet of the floor were camo gear, traps, various nets, game cams, clip boards, data sheets, books, etc.
The preserve's research and management on the protected Red-cockaded Woodpecker meant she was keen to observe tree roosts and excavations; she has only found the larger, putative Ivory-billed indications on fallen tree boles that likely stood many, many decades ago.
She had not seen any Ivory-billeds and when asked if she had heard about any reports in the last few decades she instantaneously mentioned only the same circa 2000 sighting by Owens I had uncovered. She had "told Cornell the same thing when their team came through years ago."
I asked about the recent fires in the preserve that were noted at Ivory Bills Live by Cyberthrush. These were not crown fires and tree mortality will be low; indeed for two days I checked for recent senescent trees were the fires had been and saw very few.
Anecdotally several hundred dead snags and dying/stressed trees were checked in the last three trips to the preserve and I saw no suspicious work.
A double knock survey of mine that acoustically covered a small but central fraction of the Fakahathchee Stand was negative.
Talking to her at length made it obvious that the controversy over the veracity of the 2004 report including the video tape of a flying Ivory-bill causes at least some busy and productive scientists to understandably lose track of all the plot twists in just that one chapter of the stack of books on the "Good God" bird.
The fact that discord exists over any extraordinary claim in itself makes a certain large percentage of people and scientists shy away from unequivocal support of a claim. Couple human nature to doubt something spectacular but unseen by themselves, with the spare time, dedication and knowledge to really examine the recent field data/videos on Ivory-billeds and you are left with understandable scepticism.
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| Tricolored Heron |
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| Swallow-tailed Kite no doubt just back from Central or South America |
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| Painted Bunting |
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| Yellow-crowned Night-Heron |
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| White Pelicans |
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| Swallow-tailed Kite no doubt just back from Central or South America |
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| Wood Stork, which is actually an ibis |
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| Zenaida Dove |
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| Wood Ibis |
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| Green Heron |
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| Zenaida Dove |
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| American Coot |
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| Yellow-crowned Night-Heron |
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| Anhinga nestling |
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| Iguana and invasive |
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| Little Blue Heron |
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| Green Heron |
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| Common Gallinule |
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| Blue-winged Teal |
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| Black-bellied Tree-Duck |
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| Black-necked Stilt |
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| Painted Bunting |
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| Tricolored Heron |
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| Yellow-crowned Night-Heron |
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| Heart Key south of Fort Myers, Gulf Coast |
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| Great Blue Heron |
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| Willet |
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| Ornate Diamondback Terrapin, female |
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| Willets at Ding Darling NWR |
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| Black-bellied Tree-Duck |
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| Common Gallinule |
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| Painted Bunting, male |
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| Black-bellied Tree-Duck |
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Purple Swamphens were observed heavily pruning wetland vegetation. Their full ecological impact is yet to be realized. Although several thousand birds were killed in FL years ago the failed eradication attempt obviously started too late.
The story of the invasive Purple Swamphen is complex on the ecological and taxonomic fronts. After private aviculturists ignorantly failed to properly contain a few birds from their collections in Pembroke Pines, FL in 1996 the numbers reached several thousand within 10 years. Despite killing over 3,100 starting in 2006, the eradication program was determined to be ineffective after 27 months. Late starting programs to eliminate invasive flora or fauna are often part of the eventual problem. In 2013 it was added to the ABA countable checklist. ABA
Recently completed genetic work on the possible 20 subspecies of swamphen found mainly in tropical areas of the Old World resulted in opinions that elevating to species for some should occur. To add insult to injury the original sinning aviculturists kept mixed subspecies and the first, released pairs from 1996 may have involved progeny from Gray-headed and Blue -headed Swamphens (subspecies). Some unpublished studiesin FL show females tending to appear more like Blue-headed and males Gray-headed.
We observed swamphens eating and rooting up wetland vegetation to an extent that most or all other native species may not. Biomass dynamics and maximums certainly point to be there being less native birds after this invasive has been unnecessarily "let in". How far up into North America and down and west into the everglades it spreads is next to realized. By 2011 the birds had spread to at least 30 FL sites and a bird was found in Glennville, Georgia; although its origin was not absolutely proven to be FL the inference is strong.
Although native populations are not migratory they do move with droughts, etc. It remains to be seen if some quasimigratory movement could develop here since their niche is partially unoccupied.
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maphen  |
| Limpkin |
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| Painted Bunting |
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| Great Blue Herons |
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| PGray-headed Swamphen, hatchling that follows the adults around |
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| Iguana |
After a very long day I finally pulled into the trail head at Long Key State Park. As my camera gear was loaded on the only person in the FL keys wearing cordoroys was noticed .......oh, another birder for sure. Now the person was eyeing me up a bit too intently. Soon we realized that Eric and I had been on one of the many World Series of Birding teams together and the great times slowly came back to us......but not until the uneasiness of a potential rarity being within our grasp was vanquished...or a devastating dip was thrust at us.
Soon we were at the alleged area that a lost Zenaida Dove likes. But there is no bird.....and double but.......this is the right area only according to one of us. What ensued could only manifest itself between one native New Yorker and an equally right, at the least, native New Jerseyite.
After that was settled it was realized Eric had only a few daylight hours to get this bird before his return for a meeting in NY was demanded. His odd priorities were scoffed at; the cordoroys were only a pretense. And he still needed to uncover the even more elusive grassquit.
We paced on the hungry sand fly infested trail for an hour....dehyrated, tired and wearing sandals and shorts I caught myself bizarely wishing I had brought my cordoroys then rejoicing that
none existed in my house.
Deciding to go look for the grassquit a mile away; we exchanged numbers and split the forces. While hiking out the thoughts of a dove was blending with mine..where would that bird be a few hours before roosting?
As the branches of the stunted, salt tolerant trees were being hopelessly scanned along the path an anomaly seemlessly caught my eye. After a few paces I stopped for some reason....was that a bird about the size of a dove? No its too cliche after deciding to leave and Eric getting a bit concerned about the game clock. Binning the clump it was a dove. And it looks a bit off for Mourning Dove!
Should I shout out to Eric, call him or take a picture? The picture was taken and Eric was called about the same time. We observed it over the next 15 minutes; we then tried unsuccessfully for the grassquit over the last hour of sun.
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