When a Bananaquit showed up in late October at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center near Boca Raton, it gave me that little push that I needed to commit to a trip down there. I had seen a Bananaquit down there in 2017, but it was a fairly quick look at it, so I never got a photograph of it. The bird was being seen daily there, so it looked like a really good chance to see one better. On top of that, a Fork-tailed Flycatcher was being seen on the west side of the state near St. Petersburg, which was another bird I had seen but never got a photograph of. So, early on December 10th, I drove to the Newark Airport and boarded a non-stop flight to Fort Lauderdale.
I got my rental car pretty quickly and drove to Oleta River State Park, arriving there around 2:00 PM. I drove to 'Parking Lot 3', which is the one that has a line of green dumpsters along its edge. The bird was most often seen here scavenging around them, but it was not present at the time. I drove over to 'Lot 5' and walked out to the Panther Pavilion, which was another area that it had often been reported at. Again, there was no sign of it. I checked the beach area and spotted a Lesser Black-backed Gull there among the Laughing Gulls. I remember all the excitment when a Lesser Black-backed Gull was seen in Pennsylvania back in 1986. They have since spread to all parts of the country.
I returned to 'Lot 3' and watched some more from there. Luckily around 2:45, I noticed a bird perched at least a hundred yards away in one of the taller, leafless trees at the west edge of the park. It was the Yellow-headed Caracara!
As I started walking towards it, it took off and flew right past me! I got some fairly good photos of it considering it was overcast.
I watched it fly towards the White Ibis Pavilion, so I headed over there. That's when I noticed it getting harassed by a Laughing Gull as it flew across the water and landed at Haulover Park. I thought about driving over there, but the beach traffic made me decide to stay where I was, hoping that it would return to the dumpsters late in the day like it had many times before. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
Near sunset, I headed for my motel room near Deerfield Beach. It took a long time to get there because of the rush hour traffic. Driving bumper-to-bumper on the five or six lanes wide of I-95 in south Florida is an experience that rivals the gridlock in Los Angeles. I stayed in a very nice motel right on the ocean for all three nights that I was there.
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