Florida Trip ~ February 12, 2017

After constantly reading about a Bananaquit that was being seen in southern Florida, I told Jason Horn I was thinking about going down there to try for it. He was interested in trying for Western Spindalis, which was also being seen down there since he had never seen one in the A.B.A. area. So, I told him I'd check out United Airlines flights since we both had $100.00 vouchers that we got after having to spend seven hours to get from Philadelphia to Scranton on our last trip, a distance that we could have driven in less than three! Surprisingly, I found round-trip flights to Fort Lauderdale for under $105.00 and decided to 'pull the trigger', costing each of us a measly total of $4.60!

At 2:00 AM on Sunday, I picked up Jason at his house and we headed for the Philadelphia Airport. We boarded our flight to Washington, D.C., switched planes, and flew on to Fort Lauderdale. We got our rental car and drove to Richardson Historic Park and Nature Preserve, where the Bananaquit was hanging out. There, we met Ken Rieker and his wife, who drove over from the west coast. We spent the remainder of the afternoon there looking for it at the two places it visited the most, but it never showed. The area next to Building 'K' held a couple Spot-breasted Orioles.

A Western Tanager, a pretty good bird for Florida, also made an appearance there.

Jason spotted a dark morph Short-tailed Hawk soaring overhead.

Several Painted Buntings were in the brush inside the park.

Other notable birds seen there included White Ibis, Cooper's Hawk, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, several Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, White-eyed Vireo, and warblers that included Palm, Prairie, Yellow-rumped, Common Yellowthroat, and Northern Parula.

We spent the night at the Galt Villas Inn in Fort Lauderdale.

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