Exotics

Buenos días from Juno Beach, Florida!

In our last episode, your Intrepid Birders were scouring Arizona grasslands for a Short-eared Owl. Alas, the owls were absent, but we did take a nice panorama of the grasslands to show you loyal readers what it's like:

Heading back to our campground, our hearts nearly stopped when we saw an owl sitting on the post of a guard rail right beside the road!

Alas again, it was a Great Horned Owl, a perfectly nice owl, but just not the one we wanted to find.

The next phase of this operation takes place in South Florida, so we relocated our truck and trailer to Tucson International Airport's Long-term Parking, and flew into Miami Beach from TUS.

Our targets are a few local resident birds, as well as a couple of strays from elsewhere. We started bright and early the next morning, seeking one of the locals, White-winged Parakeet. Like so many birds we've seen this year, these birds aren't native to North America (the only native parrot, the Carolina Parakeet, went extinct about 100 years ago due to loss of habitat and hunting). In this case, the parakeets were brought here from South America as pets, escaped or were released, and set up colonies in South Florida.

Now, while some of these flocks hang around bird-friendly places like the University of Miami or lush residential neighborhoods, some of the easiest to find are near the Miami airport at a bank/movie theater complex. So, your Urban Parakeet Experience goes something like this:

We took this standing across the street from the bank, looking across six lanes of traffic toward the trees where the parakeets like to hang out. What you can't quite tell, but which made this experience Very Miami, is that we're standing in a used car lot, which for some reason has speakers blaring Latin music (nothing makes me want to buy a car more than a little La Vida Loca, amirite?). And yet, while we were deafened by cars + planes + tunes, the parakeets seemed perfectly happy to fly around and just be parakeets. After about ninety minutes of stress-accelerating, non-stop noise, a flock of five of them flew overhead and landed in one of the palms. Yay!

Parakeet lovers will note the diagnostic white patches on the back of the wings.

Our next target was another escaped-now-established bird, the Spot-breasted Oriole. We have tried to find these little rascals at least three other times this year, but failed each time. So, after our Parakeet Experience, we drove up to Fort Lauderdale, to a cemetery where they had been reported consistently and frequently. No brainer, right?

After another two hours of wandering between headstones and mausoleums, the only interesting thing we found was at least 30-40 Green Iguana hanging out in the trees:

These things are huge; Wikipedia says they can be between 5-6 feet long and weigh up to 20 lbs, and I believe it. 

And when I say "hanging", I should mean "precariously balanced", because we actually saw two of them FALL out of the trees, at least 15-20 foot drops. A Local walking her Spaniel told us that she sees them fall out of trees all the time, and it freaks out her dog!

That aside, we needed a new plan for this oriole, so we retreated to a nearby Greek restaurant, Gyroville ("Authentically Greek" is their tag line, which is really reflected in the very Greek name they chose). Munching our gyros, we debated different approaches, and then refreshed our phones to see where else we could look.

Wait, there's a report from today. Just an hour ago! And it's not far away! And the name of the person who reported it is familiar... (think, think)...it's somebody we met in Texas a few weeks ago who was a very good birder! And he left precise directions in their report about where the orioles were seen! And he saw three of them!

So we pounded the last of our gyros, washed it down with some Authentically Greek Coca-Cola, and practically sprinted across the parking lot to our car. Twenty minutes later, we were standing at the place where the orioles were reported. And we heard something.

It didn't sound quite right, but it was similar enough to our recordings to pique our interest. We wandered about, trying to get a look at whatever was making that call, for about 30 minutes in the blazing sun before I saw a flash of movement deep in the brush. Could it be?

The movement slowly climbed higher, until it popped into view. Oriole shape? Check. Bright orange with black mask and throat? Check. Black spots on the breast? Check. Bingo!

So while I was trying to get a NatGeo-quality shot of the bird, The Wife was watching the whole scene.

"There's a 2nd one in there," she narrated, "Oh, wait, there's the 3rd. 1, 2, 3....no, there's a 4th. 1, 2, 3, 4...wait, there's a 5th! There are 3 up here, and 2...no 3 down there! Wow, there are 6 of them!"

If he ever reads this, here's a big Shout Out to Kyle for helping us find our first six Spot-breasted Orioles!

Now, we're in Juno Beach, about 20 minutes south of Jonathan Dickinson State Park, the place where a Smooth-billed Ani, a visitor from the Bahamas or elsewhere in the Caribbean, has been reported for several weeks. Hopefully we can locate him tomorrow morning!

And now, we're off to battle the local retirees for dinner at a popular local restaurant. We're hungry, and know how to use our elbows, so I think we'll be OK.

Thirsty Turtle, here we come!
Me