|
11/29/2024 Itinerary for Florida: Southeast U.S. Specialties, Exotics & Wintering PasserinesRead NowDay 1: December 4th, 2025 Target Species: Snail Kite Please land at Orlando (MCO) by 3pm on this day. I will pick everyone up at the airport, we will load into the van, and drive south. We will not drive too far south though, we will be staying in Kissimmee on this first night. We will get some local birding in before sunset, hopefully hundreds of aquatic birds including hundreds of ducks, Purple Gallinule, waders, and our first target of the trip, a Snail Kite!  Adult and Immature (pictured) Snail Kites will be seen be hunting over the marshes that we will visit on our first evening of birding! Night 1: Kissimmee, Florida Day 2: December 5th, 2025 Target Species: Gray-headed Swamphen, Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Florida Scrub-Jay, Brown-headed Nuthatch, and Bachman’s Sparrow Our first full day of the trip will include some quick stops at a few locations on our way to Southeast Florida. We’ll leave around sunrise and drive to Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area to search for a few of the most wanted species for the trip. These include Brown-headed Nuthatch, (hopefully) a Bachman’s Sparrow or two, but the species most important in this region, Red-cockaded Woodpecker! Among these very important and range restricted species, we’ll likely see a bunch of other woodpeckers, wintering sparrows, and Pine Warblers!  Beautiful habitat of three Southeast U.S. endemics that we will spend our time at on our first morning! After a nearby picnic lunch, we will continue south towards the increasingly growing Miami Metro Area. We will make a few stops before we settle into our lodging on the southside of the city. These stops will include an early afternoon stop for our fourth endemic species of the day, the marvelous Florida Scrub-Jay. After this quick stop, we will continue south to the Palm Beach Area to finish the rest of our day birding. We will visit two wetlands that will allow close views of most of Florida’s marsh species, including Mottled Duck, Limpkin, Gray-headed Swamphen (introduced), Purple & Common Gallinules, Anhinga, and plenty of waders including Wood Stork, Glossy Ibis, and Tricolored Heron. If we have some time, we will finish the day birding the coast before driving south to our lodging for the next three nights in Homestead. Night 2: Homestead, Florida Day 3: December 6th, 2025 Target Species: American Flamingo, Lesser Nighthawk, Eastern Whip-poor-will, White-tailed Kite, American Barn Owl, and flycatchers This day will be our chance to explore the beautiful Everglades National Park. We will leave around sunrise and look for birds before and around the entrance of the park. There is surprisingly some wonderful habitat before entering the park in which many uncommon to rare species can be found. Most importantly, this is the best location in the U.S. to search for wintering flycatchers, more specifically kingbirds, species within the genus Myiarchus (Great Crested, Brown-crested, Ash-throated, and La Sagra’s, very rare), and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. This area is also great for raptors, including (hopefully) the first White-tailed Kite and Short-tailed Hawk of the trip! Perhaps we will find our own rarity while birding here! We will then continue into the national park and drive all the way to the south end of the park to Flamingo, in which we actually have a chance to see a flamingo (or more than one). Depending on the interest of the group, I am not opposed to spend a few hours kayaking in order to reach a very hard to access area where dozens of flamingos (as well as hundreds of shorebirds and waders) in recent winters. We will also have a picnic lunch once we arrive and spend plenty of time birding our way back and forth from Flamingo, as well as seeing plenty of alligators in the marshes along the road. We will also end the day where we started, and watch for wintering Lesser Nighthawks, and listen for wintering Eastern Whip-poor-wills and Chuck-will’s-widows and maybe get lucky to see an American Barn Owl! Night 3: Homestead, Florida Day 4: December 7th, 2024 Target Species: Egyptian Goose, White-crowned Pigeon, parakeets, parrots, (non-countable) macaws, Red-whiskered Bulbul, Common Myna, Scaly-breasted Munia, Spot-breasted Oriole, and Black-throated Blue Warbler Exotic species day! On this day we will bird the urban ecosystem of the Miami Metro Area! We will begin our day with a roost of parakeets and other exotic species at sunrise on the south side of the city. We will then spend the rest of the day birding parks on the southside of Miami searching for a wide array of species. Some of these include countable exotics, such as Egyptian Goose, Red-whiskered Bulbul, Common Myna, and Spot-breasted Oriole, maybe even Indian Peafowl (peacock). We’ll also search for overwintering warblers, including Cape May, Black-throated Blue, Yellow-throated, and Prairie Warblers. We’ll also focus on some other regional specialties including White-crowned Pigeon and any other rare species that may be overwintering in the area.  Common Myna is one of the exotic species we will be searching for on this day. Luckily, the best area to search for this species is very close to where we will be staying! Night 4: Homestead, Florida Day 5: December 8th Target species: Burrowing Owl & Mangrove Cuckoo On our last day in Southeast Florida, we’ll clean up any birds that we had missed in the first two days in the area before departing. Then, we will head northwest towards the Tampa Area with a few stops on the way. We’ll stop for Mangrove Cuckoo around the Fort Myers Area (if there is one around at the time). We will also stop to look at a Burrowing Owl colony in the Cape Coral Area. Lastly, we will stop to view some marsh species, including more looks at Purple Gallinule and Gray-headed Swamphen, at Celery Fields outside of Sarasota.  Burrowing Owls Night 5: Sarasota, Florida Day 6: December 9th Target Species: Fulvous Whistling-Duck, Clapper Rail, American Oystercatcher, plovers, Red Knot, terns, Brown Booby, Reddish Egret, and Nanday Parakeet On our last full day of birding, we will spend the entire morning birding the Tampa Bay area, then drive to Orlando ending with some birding north of the city. The first stop of the day will be Fort DeSoto State Park south of St. Petersburg for a wide array of coastal species. This park is most known for the overwintering plovers and Red Knots, but there are dozens of other species that we can see during our morning birding outing here. These include Clapper Rail, American Oystercatcher, Marbled Godwit, Lesser Black-backed Gull, many tern species, Black Skimmer, Reddish Egret (plenty of other waders as well), Nanday Parakeet, and a few warblers.  Typical scene of a large concentration of shorebirds, gulls, & terns at Ft. DeSoto State Park On our way out of the Tampa Bay area, we’ll search for Brown Boobies that have called Tampa Bay home the last few years. Our last stop of the day will be focused on searching for Fulvous Whistling-Ducks north of Orlando, spending our last evening seeing plenty of marsh species one last time including gallinules, Limpkin, Anhinga, and plenty of more species! Afterwards, we’ll check into our hotel near the airport and have one final dinner and share our favorite moments from the trip! Night 6: Orlando, Florida Day 7: December 10th This will be the day that everyone flies out. Please plan on flying out before noon on this day! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- What’s included:
What’s not included: - To and from travel from Orlando International Airport - Any alcoholic purchases throughout the trip Cost: Double occupancy: $2,000 Single occupancy: $2,500 Please email me: [email protected] if you have any questions or are interested. You can also text me if you have my phone number. For payment, checks are preferred to be mailed in, but other payment methods can be discussed.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
RSS Feed