Fort Lauderdale

The last two days (12th & 13th) I've been in and have been travelling to and from Fort Lauderdale, which is down south of Florida, near Miami.

I'm starting to get the hang of the birding out here now, with my eye at least semi trained in. The drive to and fro was fantastic, with a total of six swallow tailed kites seen, several red tailed and red shouldered hawks, wild turkey, wood stork, numerous species of egrets and herons and many other species seen.

Double Crested Cormorant

When in the Hollywood/Fort Lauderdale area, a visit to West Lake Park offered the opportunity to photograph some approachable cattle egrets, snowy egrets and white ibis. However, due to time constraints little else was seen here. Of note in the this area was the abundance of iguanas and various other inntroduced/escaped reptiles.

Snowy Egret

White Ibis

Cattle Egret

Grasshopper sp

Green Iguana

Basilisk

At the end of the day, a visit to a known site yielded several burrowing owls including two adults and at least 3-4 newly fledged young. These birds were amazing to watch and were quite approachable if care and consideration was taken.

The following morning rewarded me with opportunities to photograph some closely perched northern rough winged swallows and white winged doves, of which the latter is extremely abundant in the area; mourning doves were seldom seen in comparison.

Northern rough-winged swallow

White-winged dove

On the journey home, we visited Shark Valley which is a pathway through the Everglades National Park. This place was amazing. I took some pretty mediocre pictures of a great blue heron here - the first decent view I had. There were huge numbers of florida gar in the water, those things were strange looking. The highlight of this place was a medium sized alligator which decided to pull itself out of the water and walk right past me!

Alligator

Great blue heron

Red-bellied woodpecker

Red cardinal

Anhinga

My list out here is growing, however i'm missing quite a few warblers and all the waders. When I have time i'll post the full list on here and add to it at the end of each post. Im going to Adventure Islands today which is basically a water park full of huge slides. Can't wait. Hope ye enjoy the blog and pic's.

Talk soon,

Seán.