Florida (01-02Mar2022)

Initially when I booked my Antarctica trip, I wasn't sure when the return flight was getting in on the first of March so I decided to spend a night in Miami just so I wouldn't be stressing about connections.  It turns out the flight arrived early (predawn), so I could have just booked a same day flight, but south Florida is always a good place to kill some time.  Steve B also had some time so he jumped in my rental car and we headed to the entrance to the Everglades hoping to catch some Lesser Nighthawks that had been seen in the area at dusk and dawn.  We actually made it to the spot just as it was getting light but had no nighthawks.  We did get a Barn Owl hunting but my pics were bad due to early light.  Nearby there were some reports of Brown-crested Flycatchers and a Smooth-billed Ani so we went on the hunt.

It didn't take long before we had some Myiarchus flycatchers and we studied them carefully.  My hearing stinks but Steve clearly heard the Brown-crested call and we didn't hear any Great-crested calls at all.    The birds were all fairly light colored underneath, probably lighter than a Great-crested would be.  I taped some audio of the calls for good measure.

I don't think we would have felt comfortable with the ID if they weren't calling.

Common Ground Doves 

Little Blue Heron

We had seen some reports of a Cassin's Kingbird but still were surprised to find this western species.  

Oh Sweet!! I can add this one to my birds pooping page.

Red-tailed Pennant?  Lifer for me if so.

Wood Stork

We did end up seeing the Smooth-billed Ani from a distance and it disappeared before we could obtain record shots.

Swallow-tailed Kites are always good no matter where you are.

We had White-tailed Kites too, but I will spare you the horrible pics.

In addition to the Cassin's Kingbird we found a group of 3-4 Western Kingbirds.  If you look closely there are 3 in this picture.

It started to warm up so we decided to head out and kill a couple more hours by driving the glades west of the airport looking for Snail Kites but we dipped.

Steve had a flight to catch so I drove him back to the airport and headed to a park south of the airport where there were reports of various exotics. 

I have seen Red-whiskered Bulbuls in California before but I think the ones in Florida are the only countable ones in the ABA.

The park had potential but it was too warm in the afternoon and I hedged my bets and went to my hotel to get some sleep seeing that I basically had not slept in 24 hours.

Refreshed in the morning I headed back to the spot at the entrance to the glades hoping to try one more time for Lesser Nighthawks.  Dipped again!  A met a guy that said they hadn't been seen in several days. However, the Barn Owl was actively hunting and this time I got some pics.

I guess the restoration project worked!

Grasshopper Sparrow

Painted Bunting

Some rain came in and made some rainbows.  I had a little time left so I went to another park south of the airport in a residential area where parrots and parakeets are seen. The park itself was quiet but I could hear parrots in the distance so I followed my ears.

Orange-winged Parrots!  I don't think these are ABA countable but cool anyhow.

South Florida has tons of intermingling Mitred and Red-Masked Parakeets which have created hybrids that no one knows what to do with.  This bird looked more like a Red-masked but its hard to know and they are not countable in ABA anyhow.

Chestnut-fronted Macaw! Yet another non-countable species but very cool.

This looked more like a Red-masked Parakeet based on the amount of red on head and the red wing "shoulders".  Mitred have much less red on head and its more splotchy.  They also lack the red on the wings.

The flock finally flew from the berry laden trees and that reminded me I had a flight to catch.  My journey was ending but I was looking forward to reuniting with the family unit.

Ushuaia Argentina (27-28Feb2022)

We finally sailed into Ushuaia on the night of the 27th and did some unsatisfactory birding from the deck while docking.

They couldn't have picked a more beautiful place to put this city, nestled as it was at the foot of snow capped mountains on one side and the Beagle Channel on the other.

In the morning there was a mix of rain and sun with a cutting wind.  Our itinerary for the morning was to be shuttled to a prison museum in town and then to a hotel where we had a day room set aside for waiting for our shuttle to the airport.  It was all designed to limit interaction with the public which I get 100% but Matt and I just wanted to look for some birds.

Dolphin Gull at the dock.

This Southern Lapwing greeted us at the prison museum.  To be honest I don't know much about the museum because we were just walking the limited grounds looking for birds.  The museum did a good job making us feel like convicts because we were not allowed outside the fenced in area which was postage stamp sized.

In back of the buildings we found a Chimango Caracara feasting on some moths found in the grasses.

The next stop was the hotel, and we were told we could get fresh air outside if we wanted.  So Matt and I birded a little courtyard next to the hotel.

A southern subspecies of House Wren.  Maybe an arm-chair tick in the future.

Since we were allowed to get some air and the point of the "bubble" was to limit interactions with the public, we reasoned that a walk along the waterfront would be ok as long as we didn't talk to anyone.  We had about an hour only but we made the most of it.  We knew the ponds north of the anchorage downtown had some birds based on the long scope views we had earlier so we double-timed it down to that area.

A male Kelp Goose was the first to greet us at the waterfront.

A female Kelp Goose was not far away.

Dolphin Gulls foraged in the seaweed.

Brown-hooded Gull

Dolphin Gull

Imperial Shags / Cormorants

Juvenile Dolphin Gull

Rufous-chested Dotterel!  They were right in the area that we thought we saw them in when we left the harbor at the beginning of the trip.

Crested Caracara

Flying Steamer-Ducks!  Remember the species we had at the beginning of the trip were the Flightless ones, these are the smaller cousins that can fly.

They stayed fairly distant.

Kelp Geese

Southern Lapwing

Magellanic Cormorant or Rock Shag

Crested Duck!

Imperial Cormorant or Blue-eyed Shag

Dark-bellied Cinclodes - these are very similar to Gray-flanked but we were fairly confident in the ID based on the streaking and overall dark appearance.

Brown-hooded Gull

Crested Duck revealing the red velvet wing bars.

Not bad for a short walk along the Ushuaia waterfront!  We made it back with a few minutes to spare and jumped back on the shuttle to the airport.  We knew we had a couple more hours to our flight when we got to the airport, so instead of checking in Matt and I walked outside and went birding!  Airports are usually great places to bird and this one was no exception.

One of our first birds was this Dark-faced Ground-Tyrant.  Unfortunately we were not able to get closer before it flushed.

Long-tailed Meadowlark!  We had a really red looking male with red in the face but it was not super cooperative.

Buff-winged Cinclodes 

These Black-faced Ibis were absolutely stunning.

Buff-winged Cinclodes

Ok pardon the poor picture here but this was taken at long range on the other side of a chain-linked fence. We were looking at the two ducks in the middle but later in looking at my pics we noticed that we missed a lifer Red Shoveler on the far right side of the frame!  Its the only bird with such a honking bill in the area.

The ones in the middle were all Yellow-billed Teal

The coy adult male Long-tailed Meadowlark

And the juvenile male.

We had covered a mile or two and needed to get back to check in for the long flight home which included a midnight stop in the Bahamas for some reason related to security checks.

What an amazing trip!  Thanks to Matt for making it possible and extending the invite to me.  

Next post will cover some cool birds from Florida as I had a day layover in Miami on the way home.