 Photo by Marc Rosenthal |
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| Trip Report for St Lucie Audubon Society Field trip to Green Cay and Wakodahatchee, Feb. 2, 2009 | |
| Twenty participants joined leaders, Hart and
Jewel Rufe, in journeying to Green Cay Nature Center in Boynton Beach and
Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Delray Beach, on Saturday, February 7. Both
birding destinations are waste water treatment facilities operated by Palm
Beach County and feature extensive boardwalks through well maintained
wetlands. Both locations attract birders, photographers, nature lovers and family groups because birds, alligators, turtles, iguanas, occasionally snakes, and sometimes on rare occasions for lucky observers, bobcats, can be seen easily and observed “up close and personal.” Our group saw all but the bobcat on our trip. Particularly exciting for most participants were the number of elusive Soras seen at very close range, the colorful Purple Gallinules, the ubiquitous Green Herons, the several nesting Great Blue Herons and Anhingas with tiny just-born chicks, and the massive alligators. The day concluded with the hungry birders enjoying an all-you-can-eat feast at the Sweet Tomatoes restaurant in West Palm Beach on the way home. That may have been an even bigger hit then the birding. The following is a composite list of all the 57 species of birds seen by, or reported by, the group participants. |
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Mottled Duck Northern Shoveler (female) Blue-winged Teal Green-winged Teal Pied-billed Grebe Anhinga Double-crested Cormorant Black-crowned Night Heron Great Blue Heron Green Heron Little Blue heron Tricolored heron Cattle Egret (seen en route) Great Egret Snowy Egret Least Bittern (2 observers) Glossy Ibis White Ibis Wood Stork Black Vulture Turkey Vulture Osprey American Kestrel (seen en route) Red-shouldered Hawk Limpkin Sora Common Moorhen Purple Gallinule American Coot |
Ring-billed Gull Forster’s tern Eurasian Collared Dove (at Sweet Tomatoes) Mourning Dove Rock Pigeon (seen en route) Belted Kingfisher Downy Woodpecker (female) Red-bellied Woodpecker Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (at Sears Essentials) Pileated Woodpecker (at Loxahatchee by one group) Fish Crow Northern Rough-winged Swallow Tree Swallow Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Gray Catbird Northern Mockingbird European Starling Common Yellowthroat Palm Warbler Pine Warbler Prairie Warbler Yellow-rumped warbler Northern Cardinal Painted Bunting (female) Boat-tailed Grackle Common Grackle Red-winged Blackbird Sandhill Crane (seen en route) |
 Limpkin, by Hart Rufe (Click for larger version) |
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