We were up at five thirty on New Year's Day,and after a brief stop at Krispy Kreme, we made it to Bark'm and Markham dog park. Once there, my dad had us to spit up and search for the rare Western Spindalis. I walked around the nature trail and I heard chirping. I couldn't see the bird and figured my dad had already found the Spindalis; However, when we all met up, we realized that none of us had found it. So my parents set off together, and I followed behind them. They were chatting and walked right past the tree where I had heard the chirping. I looked at again in the hope of seeing the bird that I had been hearing, and I found it....it was the Western Spindalis.
I started trying to get my parents attention, but since I didn't want to scare the bird I didn't dare call out very loudly. They continued talking and it wasntn't until I started flailing my arms and waving that they finally looked at me. I called out that I had found the bird and the only response I got was a disbelieving smirk from my dad. He walked over to me and I pointed to the Spindalis, his disbelief quickly turned into excitement.
After looking at the Spindalis for a while my dad and I took a walk around the dog park. I found the Spot-breasted Oriole and some Monk Parakeets.
Right away when we entered the Loxahatchee Refuge boat landing and kayak rental stand I saw a Limpkin. It was very tame and allowed me to go right up to it.
While Dad (Olaf) and I were photographing the Limpkin, my mom was looking around the boat landing.
She came over to us, pointed at some alligators in the water and commented "I don't think I'm going to rent a kayak."
Once we had looked at all the birds (and alligators) that were at the boat landing, we headed down the trail. One hour, eighty-five degrees, thirteen birds, and no water later, my mom and I abandoned Olaf. We felt better after eating some candy bars and water. Our next destination was Snook Island in Lake Worth.
Snook Island is a mangrove sanctuary that is rated fitfh best birding hotspot in Florida. It happens to be a favorite haunt of my father's, which was obvious when another birder recognized him. Dad got to meet an admirer and I got to see a brown pelican, which happens to be one of my favorite birds.
The last place we stopped at was Green Cay. I was unnevered by the sight of a red blotchy colored snake, which may or may not have been poisonous.
After the possibly poisonous snake I was on high alert and when my mom told us she had found another snake I was ready to get the hell out of there. My dad had other plans, however, and we continued searching for a Purple Gallinule. We found some Purple Swamphens who tricked us into thinking they were the Purple Gallinule we had been searching for. At this point my wet feet were aching and I was hungry, but we continued looking for the bird. We never did see it, but since we clearly heard it, we counted it.
We saw many birds besides the Purple Gallinule and my total added up to 72 different species, 14 turtles, 2 snakes, 4 alligator and 3 very tired birders.
Our trip to the airport was uneventful, and since we were there two hours early the line for security was short. Although, my container of sea salt looked suspicious and was searched by security (I just got all of my wisdom teeth out and the salt was needed to disinfect my mouth). My dad was quite impatient and walked ahead of us to the gate. He picked out seats that were right next to some outlets and he was planning on working on his blog, but fate had other plans....his computer was gone. He searched around where we were siting and when the computer still couldn't be found he backtracked to security and asked around. It took about an hour for him to return (with the computer), and we soon boarded our plane to Houston, Texas.
In the spirit of Florida....Happy New Years, Baby!
L
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