Just Traveling: Florida Trip Journal

January 30 to February 4, 2001

The commandments include one to 'not lust after the possessions of your neighbor.' I think I've done OK on this, but hearing repeatedly about business trips turned birding trips, I've had a hard time not secretly wishing I had a similar opportunity.

So, all the sudden, my employer asked if I could go to Boca Raton, Florida the next week for training. No 7 days notice and no way to obtain decent airfares; none that is, unless I volunteered to stay over the weekend.

The first thing I did after finding my hotel was to go to the ocean in the dark and watch the waves come in. I've not seen the Atlantic in years and this was like therapy. Being a land-lubber, I enjoy seeing the ocean and have been far away too long.

I have come to Boca Raton to take a training class, which will run until 4:00 each day, after which a co-worker, Jim and I will see some sights then head out for dinner. While we will eat well, that is not the topic of this journal, so I will not tell you about the Cuban Café (great) or the Boston Upper Deck (also great).

January 30. The first bird I recognized here was a Turkey Vulture I saw soaring above the freeway on the way from the airport. They are all over, but they are joined by another similar bird, the Black Vulture. Next I found a Little Blue Heron, what I thought were Long-tailed Grackles but were really Boat-tailed Grackles, many Snowy and Cattle Egrets, a bunch of first-year Double-crested Cormorants, a Great Blue Heron and a Great Egret. We went to the beach after work the first day to see it in the daylight and found Ring-billed Gulls, a Bonaparte's Gull, a Royal Tern and a flock of 30+ Sanderlings.

January 31. Class got out early and Jim wanted to do something else at the hotel, so I headed west to find the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. I knew it was out there somewhere to the west and that it should have an access point. I had gotten away from home without adequate maps and I didn't know where I was going. So I drove around, finally finding a road named Loxahatchee Road. At the bitter end of this road, I found the refuge complete with a place to pay for entry. I parked outside and walked in, paying the requisite $1. I found at least a hundred Turkey Vultures perched on trees, buildings and a nearby cell tower. The powerline overhead was filler with Northern Rough-winged Swallows, one of which bombed me, a first (which is surprising since I go where birds are). It was funny, but not too fun. I wiped myself off and continued birding. Here I got my first long, studied looks at the Grackles, and determined they were not the Long-tailed I was familiar with due to their lack of a yellow eye. They were Boat-tailed Grackles. I also found this large brown bird with a black back and rump, which I determined were female Boat-tailed Grackles. My book says that Common Grackles are here as well, but I didn't positively identify any. Additionally, I found a Red-shouldered Hawk, Common Moorhens, a bunch of American Coots, three Black Vultures and a pair of Eastern Phoebes flycatching. Last of all, I found a female Anhinga drying herself in the waning light.

February 2. Jim wanted to run along the beach, so we got up early and arrived there just as the sun rose, framed by distant clouds. The waves lapped quietly at the shore while the flock of Sanderlings I had seen previously scampered up and down the beach looking for food.

The Pavilion at the end of Palmetto Road is the gathering place for a bunch of old cronies who enjoy the cool morning air and discuss loudly their current beefs. Off in the distance a pair of Brown Pelicans fly into the sun's glare and I notice a small flock of Ruddy Turnstones amid the Sanderlings. A great way to start the day.

Our training ended early and Jim wanted to go to the airport to catch an early flight home, so I was free to bird by 2:00. I drove from the airport on Florida Highway 441 south until I came to the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge (NWR). There, I paid the $5 automobile entrance fee, regretting leaving my Golden Eagle Pasport home.

Loxahatchee NWR is a 221 square mile piece of the Everglades situated between Lake Okeechobee and the Atlantic Ocean, and is an important wintering and stopover habitat for migrating birds. The main office is in a Cypress Swamp and has a beautiful .8 mile boardwalk. I was told that if I was lucky I might see a Pileated Woodpecker along this boardwalk, but my luck was altered negatively by a family with small and loud children just in front of me. I took my time and waited for them to get well ahead, but at the end of the walk, I found they had taken their time as well.

The Cypress Swamp is bordered by 500 acres of individual impoundments bounded by dirt levees that are available for walking. I wandered around half the impoundments, seeing and trying to identify many new species. Notable among these were the Tri-colored Heron and the Palm Warbler. Red Shouldered Hawks were in noisy abundance, there being at least three. Black and Turkey Vultures soared high in the air.

Amazingly, wave after wave of American Robins flew over headed for a roost out in the glades, followed at dusk by several flights of Great Egrets. I estimated over 1500 Robins flew over while I watched.

Just as the sun settled on the horizon, I saw a pair of large black hawk-like birds with a white rump patch fly over toward the glade. Later with the help of several local bieders, I identified these as Snail Kites, an endangered species now making a comeback. The Loxahatchee event calendar aid there would be an "Early Bird Special" birdwalk at 7:30 the next morning, and I planned to be there.

February 3. Rising early, I was at the Loxahatchee NWR at 7:30 am, after having parked outside the area to reduce my entrance fee. The group started with about 8 birders, one of whom stated he had seen about 30 Snail Kites a half hour earlier fly toward the city. Of course they were not seen again during the walk. The group quickly grew to about 35, with 5 or so volunteers leading it. The leaders did not introduce themselves or ask anyone's name, just beginning the walk. We went west around the first impoundment, stopping often to view different birds as they were seen. I was able to strike up a conversation with Robert, who was quite familiar with all the birds we sighted that day. I saw several birds that were a first for me, including Wood Stork, Palm Warbler, Glossy Ibis, White Ibis, Fish Crow, Prairie Warbler, Pileated Woodpecker, Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, Smooth-billed Ani and Mottled Duck.

Against the advice of several birders at the Loxahatchee NWR, I headed south to go into the Everglades. Due to fantastic prior planning, I did not have a state map with me, so I headed down I95 hoping to find a highway sign directing me to any Everglade National Park or other such scenic wonder. The roads in Florida are great, especially if you know where you are going, but since I had no map and no navigator, I ended up headed for the Miami International Airport. A quick "U" turn kept me from having to enter a parking garage, but headed me out onto the city streets, toward Coral Gables. Then I realized that one of the tourist magazines I had picked up might have a sufficient map. Walla!!! I found one right inside the inside cover. Using this I was able to find my way onto Highway 41, a main road into the Everglades.

Once out of the urban sprawl, I started seeing signs advertising air boat tours. The first one I came to was ‘Coopertown' Air Boat Tours, where I stopped to see how much they cost. It was $12, which I felt was reasonable, so I took their 45 minute tour.

The air boat was a wide, flat bottomed aluminum boat with six rows of bench seats, each holding 4-5 riders. The back of the boat had an automobile V-8 engine mounted on a metal framework. There was no muffler and the exhaust was vented to the rear with straight pipes. Loud. The propeller was mounted directly to the engine and was of wood, about 5 feet across. The propeller was wrapped in a metal shroud and had vanes on the back to direct the wind to either side to stear the boat. The pilot's chair was mounted high in front of the engine giving him a clear view of what was ahead.

Our guide had a wad of chew tucked in his cheek and walked with a decided limp. He had a shock of sandy hair and an abundance of confidence. When we climbed into the boat, he passed around a package of cotton balls and told us to stuff them in our ears to protect us from the engine noise. It was still loud.

The ride started by heading out a waterway through the trees onto a grass covered wetland where our guide stopped and turned off the engine. He then described some of the Everglade ecology and invited everyone wearing shorts to step out of the boat into the water. The water was about a foot deep with a sandy bottom. He said the water was actually a river moving about a mile per day headed south to the ocean. The country side was tall grass with occasional clumps of trees and shrubs. The grass was 5 to 6 feet tall except where the air boats had gone where it was only about 6 to 10 inches high.

We continued south for about 7 miles at speeds of perhaps 45 miles per hour. Piloting the air boat at such speeds seems quite imprecise, taking broad sweeping turns. We then turned back, passing through several of the island of trees and shrubs. In the first of these, we found an alligator, a number of turtles, and some herons. We stopped while our pilot explained all of these, then drove on a little further where he tossed a few marshmallows out for the Purple Gallinules which were so friendly that they climbed up and perched next to him. With our time almost up, we headed back to our starting point.

We saw Wood Storks, Green Heron, Great Blue Herons, White Ibis, Glossy Ibis, Belted Kingfisher, lots of Common Moorhens, some Purple Gallinules and Black Vultures.

The air boat trip seemed worth it but in answering a question, had told us about a tram ride in the Shark Valley part of the Everglades National Park some 20 miles further west on Highway 41. So I hurried off.

After the prescribed 20 miles, I came to the Shark Valley entrance of the Everglades National Park. It cost me $8 to enter the park, and another $10.50 to take the tram ride. They also had bicycle rentals for those who wished to pedal to the observation tower. The park had several ponds around the parking lot loaded with alligators, gar fish, turtles and assorted birds. The water tasted terrible. My advice is to avoid the drinking fountains. A narrow road winds out of the parking lot, out the 7 miles to a high observation tower, then returns straight back to the parking lot. This road is where the trams make their circuit, one per hour, taking 2 hours to complete. The tram is like an open bus with a large trailer and can carry 74 people, When the tickets are gone for a particular tour, it is sold out and you must wait for the next one.

The tram drove slowly around the circuit with a long stop at the observation tower. Each tour had a driver and a narrator. My tour';s narrator was quite knowledgeable but he had a habit of holding the mike too close to his mouth, over-driving the sound system so his voice wasn't as clear as it could have been.

The country at Shark Valley was similar to that at Coopertown except there was hardly any water. There were culverts going under the road with patches of water on each side of the road that that about half the time were inhabited by an alligator.

Our narrator asked some kids to serve as alligator counters and they counted 138 alligators over the trip. The first part of the road we drove on wound around avoiding the tree islands out to the tower. At one point we stopped and our narrator got out and shoved a pipe into the ground deep enough to hit solid rock, about 2 inches. He said the grass grew in 2 to 4 inches of soil but that the trees and shrubs had up to 6 feet of soil. This soil rests on a solid limestone base about 3000 feet thick, which explains why the water runs off instead of sinking in. He spoke about the 4 types of habitat, 1) grass land, 2) mahogany tree islands, 3) another kind of tree island, and 4) alligator holes.Apparently in the dry season (6 months of the year) alligators find a low spot and kick the dirt out making a depression. As they dig, they scrape away at the limestone and dig down into it, making a pond. Over time the hole gets larger and becomes a place for all the animals to get water. The alligator doesn't mind it's prey coming to him, but since he has no where to go, he doesn't use a lot of energy and doesn't eat often. The road was made by blasting holes in the limestone and using the rock as a road base to make it higher than the high water level. There are 4 quarries where the rock was removed, creating 4 large replacement alligator holes.

The tower was a sweeping concrete affair surrounded by a tree lined lake, where we stopped to give everyone a look. From the raised vantage point, we could see perhaps 20 miles out in all directions. The countryside was the same as far as we could see.

The birds I saw here were the same as I saw at Coopertown with the addition of the Yellow and Black Capped Night Heron, and a pair of Northern Cardinals.

We returned to the tram and headed back to the parking lot in a straight shot. Our guide explained that the straight road was made in the thirties by a oil drilling crew to go out to a drill site. They did find oil but it was not the quality they wanted, so they did not exploit it. After the war, the Humble Oil Company donated the land (probably a land swap) to the government for a park. When the park service put in the other part of the road to make the tram possible, they avoided the trees to cause as little damage as possible.

The tram ride was worthwhile and worth the cost, but duplicated much of the air boat ride. I probably should have only done one of the trips but I did enjoy them both.

It was getting dark and I needed to get back to Boca Raton, so I headed out, this time taking the toll road, which cost me about $4.50 in quarters.

February 4. The birders at Loxahatchee NWR suggested I visit the Wakodahatchee Wetlands before leaving town. These wetlands are part of a sewage treatment plant and use reclaimed water, using the wetland like a huge filter. The wetland has a three-quarter mile boardwalk raised about 3 feet off the water that consists of an access path and a large loop. A lot of walkers come walking the loop until they have covered their desired distance.

While birding the boardwalk, I met another birder, Elliott, from New York. Elliott is an older fellow, who helped me by pointing out and identifying birds we saw together. We took our time to see the birds and really examined them, which caused Elliott to take some grief from his wife, a non-birder. I appreciated him and the time he spent with me, and felt sorry he had upset his wife. If we lived closer, Elliott would be a close friend.

Wakodahatchee is a ‘must see' place where all the local birds can be easily seen at close range, even though I did not see anything new there.