My Life’s Birds: #219

June 15, 1994 – Everglades National Park, Fl – There are certain places in North America that birders go to get certain birds. For birds with a restricted range, these special places quickly percolate there way down through the grapevine until they become the stuff of birding lore to the point where the appeal of the bird is partially wrapped up in the appeal of being part of a long line of birders who saw it at the exact same place before you and will see it again after. Perfect places for perfect birds.

Florida, or course, has no shortage of those places, but there’s a particularly well-known one halfway across the famous Tamiami Trail towards Miami. On a road that cuts across the northern expanse of Everglades National Park, there’s a road that injects visitors deep into the veins of water and grass. Called Shark Valley for some reason (as unlikely as it is that a shark would be here), it’s a somewhat famous stop, especially for birders looking to see one specific bird.

When my family got there we rented bicyles to ride on the paved loop that leads to a large lookout tower. We never made it to the tower, not least because it was seven miles in the Florida mid-summer sun, but because it didn’t take long before we found Snail Kites coursing over the grass hunting the Apple Snails they famously and exclusively consume. The Kites weren’t the only siginificant sighting, there were some impressive American Alligators too. Bird in hand, and careful not to ride the bikes into the Alligator’s abode in our post-lifer haze, we headed back to the interpretive center. We had our target, like so many other birders had before and hopefully many more still will.

photo from Lip Kee via flickr