Wildlife highlights from a two week trip to Miami

Miami is an interesting city with a surprising amount of wildlife. Although I was only just getting into birding at the time, I made a point of visiting as many urban reserves as I could.

The beach outside our hotel in Bal Harbour was home to Sanderling, Royal Terns (below left), Ring-billed, Herring and Laughing Gull, while the Mourning and Collared Doves preferred the area around the pool.



On the first full day of our holiday we visited Fairchild Tropical Gardens in South Miami where we quickly found a wide range of common birds including Anhinga, Double-crested Cormorant, White Ibis, Little Blue Heron, Tri-coloured Heron and Snowy Egret.

Our first American Alligator was spotted in one of the ponds, which it shared with some rather large Florida Softshell Turtles.

 

While walking around the rather pleasant manicured gardens, I was somewhat surprised to see a very large green lizard basking in the top of a palm. It took a while to register that I was looking at a Green Iguana- a relatively recent, exotic addition to the fauna of Miami. Several more iguanas of various sizes were seen throughout the morning.

After lunch we crossed the road and entered Matheson Hammock Park via the picnic area. I was excited to see a Belted Kingfisher fly over head, although these birds turned out to be very common throughout our holiday. A foraging Grey Squirrel was much less interesting.

Turkey Vultures soared overhead and I spotted my only Yellow-crowned Night-heron of the holiday on the mangrove walk. This area is apparently good for Raccoons although we exited the park rather sharply after spotting a scruffy looking man walking around with a rather large hunting knife!

Another good area for wildlife in the Miami area is Key Biscayne. This also proved to be a great spot to see some of Miami’s non-native reptiles including Green Iguanas, Brown Anoles and Bark Anoles. As dusk fell we also saw a couple of Raccoons (below left) feeding out of the waste bins totally oblivious to the people still in the park. Decent birds seen in the area included Blue-grey Gnatcatcher, American Kestrel, Loggerhead Shrike and Brown Pelican.



A visit to Tamanami Airfield gave me my first ever American bogey bird. We dipped Burrowing Owl here, and have done at every other reliable site since! Monk Parakeets and American Kestrels were numerous around the airfield.

In the Fort Lauderdale area we stumbled upon a Ruby-throated Hummingbird in the butterfly garden at Flamingo Park. Incidentally, this was the only place I made an effort to pick out Fish Crow from the more numerous American Crows. This was done by call - the only reliable way I know of. Apart from common garden birds such as Blue Jay, the rest of the birds at Flamingo Park turned out to be captive.

Further north to Fort Lauderdale are two excellent nature reserves in the form of Wokodahatchee Wetlands and Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Refuge.

The latter reserve has a great network of trails and produced my only Limpkin (below) of the trip, along with Pilated Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Red-winged Blackbird, Mottled Duck, Red-shouldered Hawk, Snail Kite, Killdeer and the usual Great-blue Herons, Great Egrets, Glossy Ibis etc. American Alligators were also numerous on the marsh.



Wokodahatchee is a wastewater treatment facility and is also worth a visit. On our rather rushed stopover we saw a good selection of birds such as Purple Gallinule, Brown-headed Cowbird, and both Green-winged and Blue-winged Teal. The odd Florida Soft-shell Turtle shared the water with the Alligators.

Ever since I was a child, I had longed to visit the Florida Everglades, and we wasted little time before heading to this spectacular area of the state.

The town of Flamingo was our first port of call, mainly to look for American Crocodiles. After viewing an active Osprey nest in the marina, we headed behind the store where we quickly found our target basking in the sun.

A walk around the nearby Eco Pond resulted in multiple mosquito bites, but also gave us Marsh Rabbit, Florida Red-bellied Turtle, Green Heron and the usual assortment of water birds. More American Crocodiles were found in the waterways around Marina.

Shark Valley is the tourist centre of the Everglades National Park and is great for viewing Alligators and other Florida wildlife. There is a tram tour that travels through the marsh to an observation tower allowing for a rare aerial view of the area. The ranger led commentary may be useful to the casual birder, although most birds can be seen from the trails around the car park.

New birds for us were Black-and-white Warbler, Palm Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Pied Grebe, Lesser Yellowlegs and Roseate Spoonbills. The abundant herons, egrets and Purple Gallinule seemed especially tame as did the alligators and turtles. Nearby Black Vultures mixed with the seemingly more common Turkey Vultures.

We also explored some nearby gravel roads including the Turner River Road (CR-839) and the Loop Road (SR-94) seeing a variety of wildlife, although nothing new.

The Loop Road cuts through part of Big Cypress National Preserve and is well known in field-herping circles as an excellent road for night driving in search of snakes. Although it wasn’t a good time of year for finding reptiles, I couldn’t resist driving the 26 mile road at night in search of other wildlife.

Not knowing what to expect, I was highly delighted with the result. Two Virginia Opossums were probably the highlight, but a Barred Owl came in a close second. It is worth mentioning that I was stopped by a park ranger who questioned me about what I was doing. Fortunately I had neither a spotlight or rifle so he couldn’t accuse me of ‘gator poaching. Spotlights (and one would assume rifles) are prohibited in US national parks.

I will certainly be spending more time exploring the Loop Road on any future visits to south Florida, especially at other times of the year when reptiles are more plentiful. There is also a good chance of seeing a Bobcat, or the much rarer Florida Panther!

The final reserve we visited was Corkscrew Swamp near Naples. This fantastic wetland is home to a large Wood Stork rookery, and many other species of wildlife. New to us were Cedar Waxwings, Tree Swallows, Black-crowned Night-herons and a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. We also had excellent views of Pileated Woodpecker and Red-shouldered Hawk. Barred Owls are often staked out on the boardwalk although we didn’t come across any.  I did get a reptile lifer in the form of Striped Mud Turtle.

On one of the last days of the holiday we visited the Florida Keys. Apart from Brown Pelicans and Ospreys, no birds of note were seen. We dipped Burrowing Owl at the airfield on Marathon despite a lengthy search.

As dusk fell on Big Pine Key we enjoyed the abundance of Key Deer, a tiny endemic race of the White-tailed Deer. These animals are very easy to see, often feeding along the roadsides.

Other wildlife recorded on our trip and not mentioned above includes Eastern Cottontail Rabbit and White-winged Dove. Both were seen at the Florida Fruit and Nut Park, an interesting botanical garden of sorts in the south Miami area.

Gray Catbird, Northern Mockingbird, Northern Cardinal, Cattle Egret, Common and Boat-tailed Grackle and House Sparrow were seen daily.

As mentioned earlier, I was only just getting into birds in early 2005. It almost goes without saying that the more experienced birder would have seen a greater number of birds on a similar visit to Florida, especially if a greater length of time was spent in the field. My amateurish identification skills resulted in me fluffing several raptor ID’s as well as neglecting less conspicuous birds such as waders altogether. As with all my reports, I have only included birds I am confident have been identified correctly.

Finally for anyone with an interest in birds and considering a trip to Florida, I can highly recommend;

Pranty B (2005) A Birder’s Guide to Florida. American Birding Association, Asheville, NC.
    
And for the snake enthusiast;

Barlett  RD & Barlett P (2003) Florida’s Snakes: A Guide to their Habitats and Identification. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.