Yesterday (May 5) we drove out to a couple of our favorite places to see birds, along the Everglades canals. It was one of those Florida Spring days where the weather varies between tropical downpours and bright sunshine (sometimes within the same 20 minutes). Along Turner River Road, in the Big Cypress Preserve, we saw hundreds of Great White Egrets, Wood Storks, and Ibis. The birds were extremely active probably due to the stormy weather. The Egrets and Ibis in particular almost never settled down in one place for more than thirty seconds.
Below are some of the birds that did settle. We had good luck with the weather — and were able to get out and walk some in between 'showers'. And of course in between is when the birds sit for a while to catch their breath.
Black-crowned night heron
This loop drive through part of the preserve was the second part of our day-trip. I'll show the earlier part in another post. It was a fabulous day for seeing birds.
Great Egret
(The only one that was tired enough to land for awhile.)
Roseate Spoonbill
We kept seeing one spot of bright pink among the huge flocks of white flyers. And of course we knew it had to be a spoonbill. Finally we saw it land in a Cypress tree. We never saw any other spoonbills among the storks, egrets, and ibis. I guess this one just wanted to stand out in the crowd of white!
Wood Stork
Cypress are quite delicate-looking trees. It always surprises me when these decidedly indelicate-looking storks choose to balance on top of them.
We celebrated the end of our birding day by enjoying Mexican Food at a favorite restaurant — it was Cinco De Mayo after all. And we watched the preliminaries of the Kentucky Derby, because it was also the first Saturday in May. When we got home, I read that (without even knowing it) we had also celebrated Global Big Day for Birding. Even if we'd known about it first, we aren't into rushing from place to place counting the number of species we see — and indeed we didn't see any rare or unusual birds at all. But we loved every one of the usual suspect sightings …. and I don't think we've ever seen as many at one time as we did here.
It was a great day for birding — we're fortunate to live near so many good destinations — and we are always grateful for sunshine between storms.
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