Tropical Audubon Society

South Florida’s Voice of Conservation

Eleven birders joined me on a glorious morning at Green Cay which was quite crowded due to Wakodahatchee being closed for maintenance.
Facing the nature center, the feeder on the right side had numerous male and female painted buntings. There were even some of both sexes in the trees over our heads. At least 15. Have never seen that many painted buntings there before.
After entering, there were wood storks flying about, a limpkin calling (we saw one later), a yellow-throated warbler and white-eyed vireo were spyed. The martin houses were quite active (with martins). A flock of glossy ibis kept flying up and down in the reeds. Blue wing teal were around as was one female green-winged teal. Mottled ducks were present and seemed to be in couples.
At one point, we had a snipe on our left and a sora on our right. There were two screech owls, female in the hole and the male on the palm tree trunk. A yellow-crowned night heron was perched on an island. Then we had our limpkin in the open along with a snowy and a sora with a male anhinga overlooking them all.
There were some common gallinule chicks as well as a non-pied bill grebe; i.e. a youngster who seemed quite lost.
Further on were black-necked stilts in the distance along with some female shovelers. There was an anhinga on the nest in the cypress trees as well as some half-grown chicks in another nest in the cypress. There was an interesting "calico" little blue.
In the cypress, a yellow-bellied sapsucker was very busy drinking sap and drilling new holes. Not many warblers in the cypress, only palms getting their caps and myrtles.
A least bittern called as we exited the cypress, but was not seen. There was a red-winged blackbird nest near the boardwalk which was interesting as I have never seen one before. It was empty.
We decided to end the day at Green Cay. As Linda McCandless and I stood near the parking lot, she pished in over a dozen really yellow pine warblers. A nice ending to the day.