Birding Miami & the Everglades {My first time away from the kids!}

My husband was encouraging me to do something fun away from the family for a change. (translation- he saw me getting burned out!) Our kids are six years old and I've never been away from them overnight except the rare sleepover with cousins or meemaw, and I've pretty much been with them all day everyday since they were born! My friend, Nicole, was living in Miami, so I figured a birding road trip to Miami and the Everglades would be a fun, relaxing getaway. Ha! Birding with Nicole can't be considered relaxing. It's a sport. If you play sports from sun up to midnight!  Ok, so not really like a sport, it's an obsession, and one that's contagious.

Most moms dream of their first solo getaway. A week full of spas, glamorous clothes, and maybe a pool, but definitely sleeping in. Here I am sleeping in a van, covered in sunblock and bug spray, but also mosquito bites (despite my oh so sexy bug-resistant attire), rising at dawn and staying up to look for owls and snakes til midnight. Ha! Oh my life! Yes, I know it's hard to tell, but this is really me.

We started our trip at Green Cay near Fort Lauderdale where we met our new friends Bruce and the legendary Sandy Komito! The book The Big Year was written about his epic 1998 race to see the most birds in North America. It was later turned into a movie featuring Jack Black, Steve Martin and Sandy's character played by Owen Wilson. It's a good book and movie, though Sandy made it clear that much of his portrayal was inaccurate and the movie definitely took some Hollywood liberties to embellish the story.

A North American Big Year is an informal competition between birders to see the most birds in the ABA area (continental US+ Canada) in one calendar year. In 1987 Sandy set the bar high at 722 species. No one came close, but in 1998 the El Nino conditions made it likely that someone might have a chance at beating him. He decided to do another big year and ended up crushing not only his competition, but his own record with 748 species. His record stood until 2013 when Neil Hayward beat him by one bird!

What did it take to finally break Sandy's long-standing record?
According to Hayward who did it in 2013, it required 195 nights away from home, 51,758 miles driven, 147 hours at sea, and 193,758 air miles on 177 flights. But the true answer would be technology. Sandy did it when phones were just phones and in 1987, they still had cords, computers sat upon a desk not in your pocket, and Ebird with it's rare bird alert notifications, had yet to be conceptualized.

I should also mention that many of the birds that Neil listed, were not countable in 1998 and many of the birds that Sandy found have been split into two species since then, so Neil certainly had the advantage. There are 70 more birds on the ABA possible list now than there were in 1998.

Sandy was the most traveled birder in the 80s and 90s, racking up many, many miles. He is a kind, funny many who invited us to bird with him. We thoroughly enjoyed spending a couple hours with him asking questions and hearing stories. We kept us laughing on our walk. When people he knew came near and commented about him with these "two young women", he'd hold up his bins and say "chick magnets". 

We heard about his walks around New York as a child, his parents' only requirement was that he wait for an adult escort to him across the road, and how he felt on one of those excursions when he first saw his favorite bird, the red-winged blackbird. He told us about his time at Attu and the around-the-world trip that he took his beloved wife on. It was a true honor to spend time with Sandy. I hope that our birding paths cross again someday.

Green Heron

On the hunt!

Red-bellied Woodpecker

A Purple Gallinule

Anhingas

Bruce joined us on our next stop, Wakotahatchee Wetlands, and it was AMAZING! There were wood storks, ibises, egrets and herons nesting just an arms' length from the boardwalk. The babies were absolutely adorable!

Great Egret with baby

Wood Stork mama with babies

Anhinga mama feeding her babies

A cattle egret in brilliant breeding plumage. I really fell in love with this bird on this trip.

Tricolored Heron

Next we went to Boynton Beach to see these cute Least Terns.

As night fell at Mangrove Park, these cool spiders began appearing. The first is a crab spider, he looks like he's carrying a black and white shell with red spikes around the edges. The second is a banana spider, which is quite large.

In Miami we birded Cutler Wetlands, Matheson Preserve, multiple
neighborhood parks, the city dump and then the executive airport for burrowing owls.

White Ibis in bold breeding plumage.

Green Heron on eggs

I somehow spotted this common nighthawk in a neighborhood tree while looking for orioles. It was an exciting find, not only because their appearance makes them difficult to find, but it was the first of its kind seen in the area this spring. A few other birders raced over to see it.

Seeing these African redhead lizards (also called rainbow lizards) 

was a really exciting experience. They are about a foot long and so beautiful. 

I was taking video of these two and suddenly I caught them mating. Until this point 

I didn't realize they were the same species as they look so different. The female is the smaller brown one with a mint green head. Pretty interesting stuff.

A yellow-crowned night heron watching over his nearby nest.

We had many wonderful experiences on this trip, but my most treasured experience 

was finding a great-horned owl. We sat under the tree and just watched him. 

Awhile later he started calling to a deeper part of the forest. Soon someone was calling back. Then two owlets flew out and joined him on the tree in front of us! One ate a meal that the parent had cached.

For the next half hour we were honored to observe as the young owls practiced flying from tree to tree. It was amazing!

And finally it was time to head to Everglades National Park! 

We arrived after dark and hiked the Anhinga Trail. Oooooh, that was spooky! Nicole lived and worked at Everglades, so she knows the area and trails well, otherwise I would have never tried to walk the trails at night. I took a flashlight because when you shine it on alligators, their eyes light up. We counted about 40 alligators along the boardwalk! Then drove Research Road looking for owls and other wildlife. We were fortunate that it rained earlier in the day, so lots of creatures were out. Frogs were all over the road. I tried my best to avoid them, but my real-life game of Frogger included way too many frog-popping sounds. Ewww! Over three nights of driving roads, we saw six snakes- cottonmouths, water snakes and a boa constrictor. We saw four owls but were only able to identify the one short-eared owl that didn't fly off. The funniest part of the night was when an alligator had come out of the grass just far enough to rest his big head on the road. I was driving and pulled close enough for Nicole to take a photo. When she was finished I warned her that I was going to raise her window. She asked why and I told her, "so he doesn't jump in your window as we drive by and get you!" She laughed hysterically at my alligator ignorance. (Sorry, no gators in Ohio or Vegas!) So since she didn't raise her window, I gunned it past him, which scared him so he ran off into the woods, and the noise of him running scared me and my gasp scared Nicole! We laughed for a long time about that incident, and she will likely tease me for the rest of my life.

The next day we returned to the Anhinga trail to hike it in the light. 

It looked completely different this time. It's a beautiful boardwalk trail.

There were fifteen alligators just in this small area!

We trudged thru the marl prairie to find the elusive Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow, 

an endangered species. This was an exciting find!

This strange spongey crust all over the ground here is called periphyton.

The bright orange Love Vine wraps itself around other plants in very interesting ways.

At the docks behind the Flamingo visitor center we saw three crocodiles! 

This is one of the only places that alligators and crocodiles are found coexisting.

The mosquitos in the Everglades are unbelievable. Nicole tells me there are 30 different species of the bitey bugs here. We wore bug spray, socks over our pants, head nets, multiple layers of clothes and jackets (even though it was 90-something degrees!) and they still bit us thru all that!

We returned to Miami and birded Castello Hammock, Matheson Hammock (Mangrove Cuckoo!), Lago Mar, and Brewer Parks, and the beautiful Crandon Park. 

Royal Terns

A composite photo of a swallowtail kite, such a gorgeous bird to watch.

Black-Crowned Night Heron

An immature little blue heron starts off white and takes on
a tie-dyed look when changing into all blue feathers.

Later we arrived at the north side of Everglades National Park where we spent most of our time at Shark Valley. The birds were nesting close to the trail, so we just sat and watched the families interact for a couple hours. 

A Green Heron watching her three young ones from a distance (below).

Anhinga mama keeping an eye out for her three (below).

I noticed these alligators swimming right at each other and was curious what would happen when they cross paths. The ended up touching noses then began a very interesting courtship "dance". They swam side by side and rubbed their heads on each other. Wish I had this on video. I did catch my first alligator bellowing on video, and that was incredible! It's a core-shaking deep rumble. If you haven't heard it, google it. It's like nothing else.

We spent time birding trails in Big Cypress National Preserve and 10,000 Islands National 

Wildlife Refuge on our way to Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve where we met up with my parents.

This tree is growing around the railing. So crazy looking!

Our last night together we were driving around about midnight looking for owls and snakes when all of a sudden I RAN OVER a small alligator! Somehow I didn't hit him, but he went directly under the center of the van! I gasped and pulled a U-turn to check on him. An oncoming car had seen the whole thing happen and had turned around also. They saw him continue on across the road and said he appeared unhurt. Whew! As I turned around again, there was another gasp as my headlights lit up the remains of a full-sized alligator that wasn't as lucky.

10,000 Islands NWR is a cool place!

I loved seeing the alligator tracks between the trees and ponds! So cool!

Saying goodbye wasn't too difficult since we had already planned our next big adventure. In just a few weeks, we were taking a TWO WEEK road trip to Ohio for The Biggest Week in American Birding!