Bird Day (from Feb 27)
We took a different kind of trip to the Everglades today. Dad woke up at five in the morning and started on breakfast. I made sure the children were dressed and prepared for the day’s hikes. We piled into the van at six-twenty and drove to the Anhinga Trail.
The sun was coming up quickly, and it was already sunrise when we got there. The photographers were out, taking pictures of the birds’ morning feeding. We saw more kinds of birds that usual. A Black-crowned Night Heron stood quietly along the water. A few common thrush????? skitted back and forth, between the pond apple trees and the sawgrass.
The boys took a hike on the Gumbo Limbo trail while I sat with the girls in the breezeway.
At Flamingo, we drove by a group of birdwatchers and photographers who were observing an osprey that was having a meal on its nest.
We weren’t too impressed Flamingo, the last stop on the Everglades’ Main Road. The camp sites were all open, no privacy, no shade. Well, it was the beach. There was a parking lot across the street from the camp sites. We prefer to have some foliage for privacy, some shade, and our van right next to our picnic table.
On the way back, we stopped for a meal at Parotus Pond. One particular Swallow-tail Kite kept showing off for us – or checking us out while we had lunch. It flew gracefully, moving its v-shaped tail at all angles. A Roseate Spoonbill flew over us as soon as we got there. It was a very pretty bird, all pink. The hawks ki-reed at each other right over top of us, hovering in the wind. The other hawk was about 100 yards away. There were plenty of turkey vultures hoping around, too.
We LOOKED AT where an alligator was sitting earlier. We formed hypotheses on how he used his claws to get back into the water. We knew that he was there earlier because we stopped by Parotus Pond while on our way to Flamingo and saw him.
We also had some small talk with a couple from Pennsylvania. They were familiar with Yeungling.
