Hiking for Herps and Birding the Red Tide
Naples, FL
Saturday 4 March 2023
88 °F
FRIDAY, MARCH 3:
This morning, my dad and I headed over to Picayune Strand State Forest to hopefully pick up a few herps on a hike from the Sabal Palm Trailhead. It was a beautiful morning for hiking and we started off with YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER:
BLACK VULTURE:
Super nice to see SWALLOW-TAILED KITES:
RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER:
At first I thought it might be another Gopher Tortoise, but then I realized we had stumbled upon a female Florida Snapping Turtle laying her eggs. A lifer subspecies for me! (they are considerably smaller than the nominate Common Snappers)
Another awesome “Common” species: COMMON GROUND-DOVE, a southeast US specialty!
Though I briefly saw a Southern Black Racer cross the trail, I didn’t manage to find any other herps of note other than the ubiquitous Green Anoles. So, after a failed attempt at finding a colony of Rose-ringed Parakeets, we headed back to the Naples Grande Beach Resort. Did I mention our view from the room is awesome?
Pool deck is great too.
After a relaxing afternoon, we walked the Clam Pass Boardwalk where we observed Mangrove Crabs climbing up mangrove trees: they are one of the few organisms to eat decaying mangrove bark and leaves, according to Dan.
BROWN PELICAN:
- csoontour — thanks to Nuccio DiNuzzo for catching Dan G, my dad, and I on our way to Clam Pass.
We didn’t stay a whole long time on the beach due to the stinging air quality from the red tide left over from last year’s hurricane. We did, though, manage to see a number of birds such as these BLACK SKIMMERS, ROYAL TERNS, and RING-BILLED GULL:
Same species makeup with a few SANDERLINGS mixed in:
As well as LAUGHING GULLS:
In the retention pond by the hotel there was a COMMON GALLINULE, which are truly common down here as opposed to their spotty distribution up in Chicago:
And a nice, ugly introduced MUSCOVY DUCK (feral):
Followed by a delicious seafood dinner at the restaurant Sea Salt.
Bird-of-the-day to the Common Ground-Dove with runner-up to the Swallow-tailed Kites. More tomorrow: we will try to find my lifer White-crowned Pigeons!
Happy birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1149 Species (no life birds today)
Great photos, as usual. Thanks for sharing!
by Mary McCutchan