Travel Journals

Today was the last day of our Thanksgiving trip, and we spent it at Everglades National Park and some nearby nature area. It turned out to be a really exciting birding day! I was super happy to add a Painted Bunting and two kinds of Anis to my list. We also got a Purple Gallinule […]

Today was another full day of birding in Southeast Florida! In the morning, we visited Wakodahatchee Wetlands and Green Cay, two of the best places for wetland birds in this area. Wakodahatchee was especially active — we saw a lot of great species, including two beautiful Roseate Spoonbills. The highlight of the morning was definitely

Today was another exciting day in Southwest Florida! We spent most of our time at J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, driving the Wildlife Drive twice to look for the Mangrove Cuckoo. The staff at the entrance told us that a cuckoo was seen yesterday between Mile Marker 1 and 1.5, so we checked

We had another great day of birding today! Our first stop was the lake near the FGCU Food Forest. It was still early in the morning, and the light over the water looked amazing. We picked up some of the “common locals” we were still missing from our trip list, so it was a nice

Today was another amazing day in Key West! We visited two great spots: Fort Zachary Taylor and the Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden. We managed to catch up on most of the “common locals” that didn’t show up yesterday, and even added a few rare birds! Early in the morning, we headed towards

South Florida, One of the southern most part of the United States, with tropical waders filling the everglades, distinctive songbirds singing in the mangrove, and frigatebirds souring above the shore line, has become our destination for this year’s Thanksgiving Break. Today, the first day of the trip, was an amazing start! Early in the morning,

By Miles     The week before last week, we followed a PAS (Pasadena Audubon Society) field trip to the Santa Barbara Channel and the Channel Islands NP – Santa Cruz Island. We started our trip at Ventura with Alex Coffey and Grigory Heaton aboard Island Explorer, operated by Island Packers, went birding in a

By Miles Bear Divide Birding – D9:     This is probably our last day at Bear Divide this season. The migrant numbers are greatly declining, and nearly no one was there. Even the banding station stopped banding last week. We were also not coming for the migration today, we were here for the Black-chinned Sparrows!

By Miles Bear Divide Birding – D8:    We started our day with a weekly Bear Divide birding and some backyard birding before heading out.    It’s our eighth day at Bear Divide this year, although we probably missed the peak, because it is a school day, the species variety and total bird counts were

 By Miles * THIS IS A LATE POST FOR APRIL 19th AND 20th (D4 AND 5)，IT IS ALREADY D6 AND 7 NOW    It’s our fourth and fifth day at Bear Divide this year, the species variety and total bird counts are both getting higher, but the greatest forces of Warblers are still not coming.     Bear