January 30, 31 Florida

Updated: Feb 2, 2022

The lure of four rare birds within a two-hour drive of Miami proved to be irresistible. I flew to Miami Saturday morning with a Sunday evening return flight. The plan was to head north for two birds on Saturday and head south for the other two on Sunday.

By the time I got to John D. MacArthur Park in Palm Beach County Florida, There were only three hours of daylight remaining. I spent all three in search of the diminutive thick-billed vireo, a bird normally found in the Bahamas. I was surprised by the lack of birds and lack of birders. I dipped on the vireo.

This caused a change of plans, I abandoned any hope of heading to the Keys for the Zenaida dove and yellow-faced grassquit. Instead I got up at 6:00 a.m. and headed west for the tricolored munia. There were lots of beautiful birds and I was able to get a good look at a juvenile tricolored munia. Unfortunately, two inconsiderate photographers walked right up to the bird and flushed it before i could get a photo.

I resisted the temptation to stay longer and instead returned to MacArthur Park to try again for the vireo. The weather was sunnier and warmer than yesterday, and there were about ten other birders looking for the vireo. After nearly two hours searching in vain, I realised I hadn't seen any other birders in a while. Perhaps they were all gathered around the bird and I was missing it. I picked up my pace and turned a corner in time to confirm my suspicions. They all waved me over to show me the place where they had just seen the bird. But I was too late.

I spent another half hour searching through the thick foliage and located a small group of birds that were foraging. I waved over to the others to join me. It took another 20 minutes to finally located the vireo. I didn't even try to get a picture, but I did take some photos of pictures on the back of other birders' cameras.

With two rare birds and 8 other new birds for my year list, it was time to head to the airport.

Total count through january 31: 209.

Back of camera shot of thick-billed vireo

Most of my pictures are taken with my iphone paired up with my Swarovski spotting scope. I use a phoneSkope which is a phone case with a circular extension that fits nicely over the eyepiece of the scope. The scope has an adjustable magnification of 20 to 60 times. In order to get a rectangular picture with the iphone, I need to zoom the phone to 4X which results in a minimum magnification factor of 80X (20 X 4). This is great for distant birds, but creates a problem with closer birds. Sometimes i can’t get the whole bird in the picture.