Charlotte Harbor Buffer Preserve 12/10--Loggerhead Shrike

Photo: Shari Zirlin

Despite the species diversity in Florida, there are not a lot of potential lifers down there for us. The one endemic species that was a possibility was Florida Scrub-Jay. (We've seen the closely related Western Scrub-Jay.) Scrub-Jays had been reported north of Cape Coral in a spot with which we weren't familiar, but aided by maps and GPS we blundered around and up and down Burnt House Road until we found a very poorly marked trailhead for the Charlotte Harbor Buffer Preserve.  The trails are similar to the fire breaks we have here in the WMA and the one we walked led through scrubby fields full of palmetto on one side and cattle on the other. It reminded me a little of New Egypt here in Ocean County.

We'd already seen Killdeer when we had stopped once to get our bearings, but not much else was flying--oh sure, a Wood Stork flew overhead, but that wasn't the bird we wanted. I don't really like looking for a single species--especially when I have no idea of the best place to look in a large area. But we walked along--when the sun went behind clouds the weather was fairly pleasant. Along a barbed wire fence we saw a bird perched--I didn't feel like lugging the scope so we had to approach slowly. It kept moving off but eventually we caught sight of it close enough to identify our consolation prize: Loggerhead Shrike. Then we saw another. And another. Heard an odd cheeping we couldn't identify until we realized it was coming from yet another shrike. In all we had at least 7 Loggerhead Shrikes along that sandy trail--far more in one place than I've seen altogether.

I was happy to see the shrike so the trip wasn't a waste of our limited time. I also had a back up plan: We were going to the library.
13 species
Wood Stork  1
Double-crested Cormorant  1
Turkey Vulture  5
Bald Eagle  3
Killdeer  8
Mourning Dove  6
Merlin  1
Eastern Phoebe  1
Loggerhead Shrike  7
Blue Jay  1 Heard
Gray Catbird  3
Northern Mockingbird  2
Palm Warbler  1