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Birding Belize 2006 Journal 11 Jan 06 |
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Up at 6:00 AM and on the road for Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. After bad coffee at a Dunkin Donuts, we lost the road to Corkscrew to a combination of construction, changed road alignments and no signs. But we did eventually find it. Excellent boardwalk birding. We did one full lap and one shortcut lap, split by a delightful lunch at the visitor center with National Audubon's Wayne Mones. Photography was a little harder at Corkscrew, but the bird diversity was a little higher. Another place you could spend a week and never get bored. We were able to give it half a day.
It's not something I've experienced before: it was sometimes hard to hear other birds for the screaming disputes of Red-shouldered Hawks as they sorted out the turf. A nice selection of woodpeckers: Pileated, Red-bellied, Downy and Hairy, and a couple of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers. A Great-crested Flycatcher that was a lifer. A White-eyed and a Blue-headed Vireo in the same tree for easy comparison. Just very nice birding. From there we headed to Imahokee, but by then we were so far behind schedule that we couldn't stay. So we headed back across the peninsula on the Tamiami Highway. Lots of Loggerhead Shrikes. The drive to Miami was uneventful except that we got lost in Miami, and ended up exploring various unsavory nooks and crannies before finding the airport and calling for instructions to our hotel. Not all points visited were prudent, but we emerged unscathed. Tomorrow we leave for Belize. Click on the thumbnails below for a larger photo |
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