Florida, 30 hours in

Dear Parrotheads,

Hola from Homestead, Florida! We've been on the ground here for just about 30 hours, and have already seen 19 new bird for the year, out of 65 total species. Oh, and we also did interviews for our Global Entry permits and of course had some interesting encounters with Floridians.

Some "quirks" we noticed just last night include:

• They love their car horns, and so use them frequently. I haven't heard so many horns in a month of Bay Area traffic.
• In a parking lot of one-way lanes, parking backwards is apparently A Thing. Imagine your favorite grocery store parking lot, with each lane headed a single direction and parking stalls angled toward traffic. Now, imagine driving past a spot, and then backing into (and making traffic behind you wait) it so you're facing the wrong direction. We saw this three times in two hours. Why do they do it? Because, Florida!
• They don't seem to realize that since LeBron James is no longer with the Miami Heat, the Heat are terrible. We went to a Homestead pub last night for dinner, and the place was packed with Heat fans watching that night's game. The Crown Jewel of Heat fans sat near us, wearing his white Heat hat and white jersey, with ragged white shorts and white hi-tops. The Heat have a player nicknamed "The Birdman", and every time he touched the ball, SuperFan shouted, "BiiiirrrdddMannnnn!" and then attempted to coo like a dove. It was amusing for the first 5 minutes, less so throughout the next hour. Seriously, take the guy from Offspring's Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) video, add 25 lbs and a few years, and that's SuperFan.

For more on South Florida and its denizens, I recommend books by Carl Hiassen. We've read a few and they're highly entertaining.

The birds have been great, too. 

Apparently, Black Vultures have a thing for rubber, so frequent visitors to the Everglades put tarps on their cars, which appears to just attract the vultures:

Sometimes the herons bite off a little more than they can chew:

Highlight of today was staying after dark in Everglades, getting to hear a Chuck-wills-widow call while watching fireflies flash about! Of course, while slapping at bugs that apparently eat DEET for lunch.

Down to the Keys tomorrow! 

Good birding, 

Me