Florida: Scrub-Jays and lots of Exotics

 On the fourth full day of our Florida adventure, January 3rd, Caleb and I went south again from Port St. Lucie toward Miami.  Our objective of this day was to go to Miami and find as many established exotic species as we could.  In birding, there are escapes or introduced exotic species that establish feral populations in the wild.  When these populations grow, they become part of the wild avifuana and are considered countable on birders lifelists if they are detected in places where they are countable.  In the greater Phoenix area here in Phoenix, we have the Rosy-faced Lovebird as a countable established exotic.  Florida has many more, especially in Miami.  Exotic birds we would be looking for included Common Myna, Egyptian Goose, White-winged Parakeet, Nanday Parkakeet, Monk Parakeet, Mitred Parakeet, and the rather-cool Spot-breasted Oriole (my favorite exotic).  Others that are in Florida include Scaly-breasted Munia and Red-whiskered Bulbul.  Birding for exotics is far from being my favorite, and on the way to Miami we had something much more fun to start the day off with as we would search for the Florida Scrub-Jay.  When birders visit Florida, this well-named jay is one of the most obvious targets.

Florida Scrub-Jay is a threatened species who's range is restricted to the central portion of Florida.  In the 20th century, the population of this bird declined by 90 percent due to the destruction of the low oak scrub habitat that it requires.  The optimal habitat for the Jays is produced by fire, as the habitat they need is burned every 10 to 15 years or the scrub habitat will overgrow beyond the requirements of the birds.  What they prefer is a maximum height of 10 feet with small openings in the oak scrub.  The place we started at with the Jay as the main target was at Jonathan Dickinson State Park.  This location is said to be one of the best spots in Florida to see the Florida Scrub-Jay.  Caleb and I searched for about thirty minutes before we heard and then saw a Scrub-Jay, and eventually it was joined by a second jay and the pair came very close to the path.  We had great looks at the birds, both of which were banded.  To keep tabs on the populations of this bird, most of the other ones are banded too and one is actually less likely to find one without bands.  Florida Scrub-Jays differ from other scrub-jays with the field marks of a whitish forehead and eyebrow, shorter and wider bill, paler back, distinct collar, and a longer tail.  It was great to get this bird as a lifer!  Something else that was cool was getting to see a little bit of Jonathan Dickinson State Park, which contains a wide array of different habitats that include oak scrub, pinewoods, and wetlands.  Many other birds were present while we looked for Florida Scrub-Jays.

 

Florida Scrub-Jay.  Yes!

Florida Scrub-Jay habitat

Up close!

Blue Jay

Northern Cardinal

Myrtle Warbler

Pine Warbler

After we finished up at Jonathan, we headed south for Miami and we had a little over an hour's drive before we would start looking for exotics.  It took awhile to start finding them, but we 6 of them that we were looking for (I got 6 lifers, and Caleb got 5.  He already had 1 of the 6 that I did though in Egyptian Goose).  We walked over a mile through the city and some neighborhoods where Parakeets were reported often.  There were no Parakeets detected, but we did see plenty of the established Muscovy Ducks.  In ways I wish these birds weren't countable, I love the remote chance of seeing a true wild one in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.  Now that these Florida birds are countable, I fear that maybe the Texas ones won't matter as....nevermind.....

 

Muscovy Ducks

As we spent some time at the first stop, we got lunch and then went to a gas station parking lot to try for Common Myna at the next stop.  We were successful!  Common Mynas are pretty cool-looking and are in the Starling family.  They are a South Asian species.  Up next we went to a golf course at a hotel, and the eBird hotspot is called "Country Golf Biltmore Hotel".  Parrots were flying around the hotel and golf course, but they were the uncountable Red-masked Parakeets.  We were trying for countable ones, with the White-winged Parakeet being one of them.  As we searched for them, we walked out on the golf course which had a huge tournament event going on.  We saw spectators walking around the course, and technically we were qualified "spectators" too.  And then we accidentally interfered with the tournament itself and were told to get out of the way.  Ha ha, whoops.  We did find a few Egyptian Geese though, a lifer for me.  These geese are native to Africa, and are established and countable in southern Florida.  After some patience, we did see the flock of White-winged Parakeets, an established exotic that is native the Amazon area south to east-central Peru.  Following the golf course event birding, we ended up at A.D. Barnes Park, which is a great birding location that features a variety of habitats and is great for a variety of birds.  Our main target here was Spot-breasted Oriole, which didn't take us too long to find as Caleb detected a singing male.  Spot-breasted Oriole is a Middle American bird and was introduced to Florida.  It was first found nesting in the state in 1949 and is now established.  To me, this bird is as good as an exotic can get.  After the oriole, we birded for native species in some of the trees in the park and had an awesome flock of vireos and warblers.  This flock included a few Cape May Warblers.  As we walked out of the park we got another lifer, Monk Parakeet.  A few of them called loudly and flew by as we were almost done birding.  Monk Parakeets are native to South America, and are the most widespread of the established parrots in Florida.  Our last stop of the day came from the neighborhood areas were we first started the day.  Parrots become noisier toward the evening, and this was certainly the case.  We saw some species that aren't established, weird ones, and then we got one more established one for a lifer, which was the Mitred Parakeet.  Mitred Parakeets are native to western South America, and while in this Florida neighborhood, we probably had a flock of about 8 of them.  And that concluded the exotic search.

Common Myna

Egyptian Goose

White-winged Parakeets.  On the trailing bird you can see it's wing pattern.

Some weird established lizard.  You might as well introduce everything into Florida...

Spot-breasted Oriole, really a cool bird.

woah, a Black-and-white Warbler in midst of it all!

Mitred Parakeets

Scrub-Jays and lots of exotics are an interesting mix for a day of birding.  On the way back to Port St. Lucie we said, "at least we got these exotics out of the way so we don't have to look for these species in the United States again".  And there are a few more south Florida established exotics we didn't have time to get to as well on January 3rd...