Florida Birding!
October 14, 2024
At the end of September, my parents and I took a trip to visit Fort Lauderdale, FL. We had been through the area in passing, but hadn’t stayed there before. We lucked out and had a timeshare condo right across the street from the beach. We had a great view of the ocean from our condo! My main goal on this trip was to visit Everglades National Park. We also got to briefly visit Biscayne National Park and take a private tour out through the Miccosukee and Seminole tribal lands, deep in the heart of the Everglades that aren’t a part of the national park.
While we were there, we also got some of the residual weather from Hurricane Helene, and as we were leaving, Hurricane Milton was getting ready to make landfall. We were out at Shark Valley on September 25. As we were taking our tram tour out to the observation tower, we started to see some very dark clouds forming. Once we arrived at the tower, not 10 minutes later, a huge wall of water hit us and absolutely drenched us! We took a harrowing tram ride back to the main building, with lightning striking within a mile of us several times. The thunder claps were so loud, it was unreal! It was quite exhilarating, though, and we managed to see many new bird species, alligators, and even a brief appearance of otters!
Other highlights of the trip were visiting Flamingo Gardens, a botanical garden and bird sanctuary, Anne Kolb Nature Center, a nature preserve in the mangroves, the Wakodahatchee Wetlands, a wildlife preserve and important bird habitat, and Markham Park, a really diverse recreation and nature park named after a friend’s family member who was a county property appraiser. We also enjoyed seeing the immense homes near Palm Beach, visiting the Lamborghini and Ferrari dealerships, taking a drive along the coast near Miami, and visiting Boca Raton. Beyond visiting nature areas, we also got a couple local breweries in, including Invasive Species and Tarpon River breweries. We even visited a cemetery that had some rare bird sightings, and it was the place where comedian Leslie Nielsen was laid to rest.
I was ecstatic to get 26 new-to-me bird species on this trip, along with photos of nearly all of them! I was a bit bummed to miss out on seeing the Reddish Egret, Roseate Spoonbill, and some of the warblers and buntings that weren’t quite in the area yet, but it just means we’ll have to go back! Don & I are going to be back out that way in January for the Rolex 24 Hour Race @ Daytona, so I’ll have to try my luck with shore birds then!
Please enjoy some photo highlights from our trip in the gallery below (click on images to enlarge):
