Fort Caroline (Part II of our Florida Trip, Apr. 4, 2009)

Fort Caroline, good times never seem so good
I’ve been inclined to believe it never would..

Although we saw a lot of lifers yesterday it was a bit disappointing because we weren’t able to get some decent pictures at all. Little did we know that the following day would be a complete and welcome change from our experiences the day before.

In our talks with Ranger Roger yesterday, he suggested we visit the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve which includes the Theodore Roosevelt Area with its diverse ecosystem and Ft Caroline National Memorial which although basically a historical site also includes some forest and marsh habitat.

When we broached the idea to our host, May Galang (she graciously opened her home for us to stay a couple of nights), her eyes lit up. She said she just went jogging there yesterday and would be happy to show us the place.


Theodore Roosevelt Area is huge and daunting for these two pairs of ancient legs. Although the place looked promising, we didn’t stay long as we did not have the stamina to traverese such an expanse. Besides, our friend, May, had to leave early due to some prior commitments. And so, we stayed at Ft. Caroline instead, where we didn’t have to go far to find birds. Right next to the parking lot we saw such eye-candies as the Northern Cardinals and Yellow-throated Warblers that delighted our non-birding friend.



When Hermit Thrushes stared at her from a few feet away and a Carolina Wren serenaded us from behind the bushes, May was so thrilled we thought we just had a convert into bird-watching.


After May left for her appointment, we tried the trail to the Spanish Pond which wasn’t a pond at all but some sort of a marsh with tall trees. We didn’t see much here except for the Black Vultures looking down at us from the tree tops.

We took a nice lunch at a Filipino restaurant a few minutes away from the park and then headed on to Helen Cooper Floyd Memorial Park. Once again fishermen hogged the prime places whose huge trucks sometimes blocked the way of our tiny Corolla. We decided to bird along the road instead where we saw our first Tri-colored Heron in Florida.


At around 4 pm we returned to Ft Caroline where we met a Canadian couple who were also birders. They were getting ready to leave and so Cynthia and I focused our attentions on the antics of a Red-bellied Woodpecker. All of a sudden, the couple who were already driving out did a quick turn. The lady jumped out of their SUV and told us that she saw a Pileated Woodpecker “behind those trees”. We thanked them for going out of their way just to give us this information. We peered at “those trees” trying to locate the large woodpecker. As if ordered by some divine power, the Pileated flew into a tree not far from us. There it stayed, in full view, looking for some tasty morsels. Needless to say, we took photos to our hearts content until our arms wearied from holding up our camera gears.


That capped a very exciting birding day for us. It was now time for some socials. We visited another friend of Cynthia, Elsie Ong, who welcomed us to their mansion.


They have a river-front property which included a pier that extends out into the St John river. There we watched a glorious sunset while the ladies shared memories.



From there it was dinner at Mandalouns where we had the most exquisite mediterranean fare that made our bellies dance.

Oh, and hers, too.

Texas Trip Part IV - 01/26/08 - Birding in the West

Saturday we headed west. We skipped our free breakfast buffet at the hotel because we wanted to get an early headstart since our destination is 70 miles away. We did make a short stop at Denny's in McAllen to prepare us for some heavy birding ahead.

We arrived at Bentsen-Rio National Wildlife Refuge just as the local guides were herding a group of birders for their Saturday morning bird walk. "Bird walk" would be a slight misnomer because the birders were actually taking a tram. We realized soon enough that the refuge was so huge that a vehicle would be needed to get around. That morning, there were too many birders to be accommodated in the tram. Our just-in-time appearance made it even worse. So they decided to use the park van to transport the spill-overs.

Each stop that we made had blinds near the feeders so that birders and photographers alike can view the birds without disturbing them. We had very good looks at the colorful South Texas birds such Green Jays, Altamira Orioles, Golden-fronted Woodpeckers, Cardinals and Kiskadees. American Goldfinches, Gnatcatchers and Warblers were all over the trees. 

There were also a couple of mammalian sightings at the feeders: A javelina (a wild pig) and a raccoon.

Our guides, Jerry and Carol were very helpful in pointing out the park birds to us. At the aptly named Kingfisher pond, Jerry was able to locate a Ringed Kingfisher through his spotting scope. He graciously offered me to look at my first lifer of the day and 20th overall. Again, thanks to Jerry, he pointed out lifer number 21 - a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker looking for insects high up a tree. The tour ended at around 10:30 am and after locating the Allen's Hummingbird (everybody was quite excited with this Texas rarity, although quite common in California) near the Visitor's Center, we hied off to Anzalduas City Park.

Anzalduas City Park was a total dud bird-wise. Except for a flock of American Pipits which we saw as we were leaving, there was nothing of interest there. We got an Armadillo though.

We had a so-so Mexican lunch at Stripes - the convenience store associated with Valero's gas stations. From there we went to Edinburg Scenic Wetlands. There were a lot of people visiting the park that afternoon - not many of them birders. The northern lake is the home of a huge flock of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. We've seen them in flight at Harlingen but never had any good looks. A small pond between the northern and southern lakes was supposed to be the home of the Green Kingfisher. Our first passover didn't reveal any.

We debated whether we should go visit Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge a few miles from here. But the day is getting late and we still have not seen our Green Kingfisher which the park attendant assured us was always there. As we were returning to the lakes, some birders from Wisconsin informed us that the kingfishers regularly come back to the pond and we'll just have to be patient. Along the way, I noticed an unusually colored warbler flit from tree to tree. With my binoculars I discovered that it was a Yellow-throated Warbler, lifer number 22.

We returned to the the pond and waited vigilantly for our target bird. And just as promised, a our lifer number 23 flew in. It settled across the pond from us where we had very good looks at it. 

At some point while Cynthia was still eyeing the kingfisher, I noticed something yellow fly to a nearby clump of bushes. My heart leapt as I quickly took potshots at an Audubon's Oriole lifer number 24!

Satisfied that we got a good number of lifers today, Cynthia requested that we go back to the northern pond because she wanted to take flight shots of the Black-bellied Whistling Ducks. Besides the sun finally broke through and we hoped we could now get better photographs. Unfortunately the ducks didn't cooperate much. 

Reluctantly we left and prepared ourselves for the long drive back to Brownsville.