Big Cypress Preserve, The Western Everglades, Day 1

It can get pretty easy to just sit in place and get lazy. The whole world is out there waiting and yet you watch television and grouse about unimportant things…. So we decided to head further south and go birding at Big Cypress Preserve.

I, for one didn’t know that the Preserve was the western extension of the Everglades. Composed of cypress strands, pinelands, seas of sawgrass, and inhospitable swamps, and thousands of islands, Big Cypress Preserve immediately impressed us with the magnitude of its size.

It was obvious we wouldn’t be able to see everything and so we divided the three days we will be here into three distinct field trips. Our first excursion was to the very western edge where we would see the Thousand Island Area, The Turner River-Wagonwheel-Birdon Loop, and birding at some of the other campgrounds.

As usual, when visiting a National Park, our first stop was at the three visitor centers. There we talked with Park Interpreters and their infomation caused us to adjust our new plans. The Rangers, and I know they are now called Park Interpreters, told us of the different birds we could see and with these insights decided to spend most of the time getting an overview while still attempting to add some new birds to our life list.

The first day found us heading to Everglades City. It’s a small community but one of the gas stations had diesel fuel at a good price. We also found a fresh water container we needed and with our to do list done we headed to the Park Headquarters. Here besides a very helpful ranger, one can access the Thousand Islands Area.

However, we decided our time would be best spent by birding along the loop road and so after taking a few images we drove up the first road, the Birdon Road. Not far up the road we passed a canal/waterway that was filled with feeding long legged waders.  Wood storks, rosette spoonbills, snowy egrets, and others all feed in the muddy shallows. An alligator slept peacefully besides them all, probably dreaming of a bird sandwich.

Just past a house, there are many private inholdings, white lilies bloomed among the saw grass. I carefully stepped into the dry swamp and keeping an eye out for threatening critters, and took images of the Sting Lily. A deputy sheriff stopped and asked up if we had seen any of the deer. I am sure he doesn’t see too many truck with Wyoming plates.

We pulled over along the Wagonwheel road and watched for birds hoping of course to see a snail kite but it’s the wrong habitat, we plan on visiting that tomorrow. No kites appeared so we continued on and found a birders paradise along the Turner River Road.

Of all the images we took Renita got the best one! She was focusing on a snowy egret and just as she snapped the image a little blue heron photobombed the image of the snowy. You can see the snowy is looking at the Little Blue Heron with a look of disgust/fear/hate, (these similar size birds often fight for roosts).

Our last stops of the day were at Burns and Monument Lake campgrounds. At the very last one Renita spotted a black ibis, and after quite a bit of study of its eye color, brown verses red, we decided we had a new bird for our life list. It’s a glossy ibis and is very similar to a white-faced ibis.