Hi everyone,

It's good to be back in the northwest. I was down in Miami for 3 days and on
a cruise for 4 days. In Miami I saw some MOCKINGBIRDS and BOAT-TAILED
GRACKLES in the city. BROWN PELICANS were present as were ROYAL and/or
CASPIAN TERNS. I wasn't able to get a very good look at any of the terns I
saw. LAUGHING GULLS were around the beaches patroling the area for any food.
There were a lot of EURASIAN COLLARED DOVES around and on our way to the
ship I saw a MALE KESTREL and 3 or so MONK PARAKEETS. On our cruise we were
able to go to Nassau, Key West and their private island, Coco Cay. Nassau
had some what I believed to be CAPE MAY WARBLERS. They were all over the
place in the palm trees. Coco Cay had many wintering RUDDY TURNSTONES which
were very tame. They would let you come extremely close (like 2 feet away)
to them and would even venture more toward the inner area of the beach,
about 20 yards or so from the water. There was also a bird native to the
Bahamas that I have yet to look up, it was a very beautiful bird. Again many
gulls and terns, I think that the laughing gulls are much more aggressive
than our gulls. They were constantly chasing each other getting into some
pretty intense scuffles, and would even chase the turnstones if they had
some bread in their beak with them or something. At Key West I saw on
another MALE KESTREL sitting on the wire in front of a house like in Miami,
and another MALE KESTREL flying into the vegetation being extremely vocal.
GREAT EGRETS were present like always too. I think I might have seen either
a SHORT TAILED HAWK or a BROAD-WINGED HAWK (not quite sure because I was in
the middle of a tour and couldn't stop to see it. You all tell me, how
common are STH's compared to BWH's in Key West?). That's about all I can
think of right now. Hope birding's going great!!

Winter ruddy turnstones
Laughing gulls
Caspian and/or royal terns
Kestrels, male
Monk parakeets
Cape may warblers
Eurasian collared doves
Brown pelicans, imm. and ad.
Great egrets
Short -tailed hawk or broad-winged hawk
Boat-tailed grackles
Mocking birds

Blake Iverson
Arlington, WA
coopershwk at hotmail.com


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