Things are looking grim for getting 350. We are not getting some of the species that we should be getting. I hate when the guides say something is common or abundant but we don’t see the damn things.
Christmas Day, after the obligatory delay for opening presents, we went down to Corkscrew Swamp. A National Audubon preserve, Corkscrew Swamp is one of those special places. The largest remaining track of old growth cypress trees in North America. There is a range of distinct habitat types, from very dry to very wet, with distinctly different vegetation types. All driven by at most a change of 20 inches in elevation. At the high point there is dry saw grass pine barrens, at the low point standing water. With cypress trees standing in water, ferns with 12 foot fronds, and plants that don’t need soil. And gators. You walk through there expecting to see a conquistador in armor looking for the fountain of youth. Unfortunately, after about 10:00 you get every manner of person walking through there. They need to do a better screening of their clientele. I start hoping for the conquistadors to start taking out of few of the undeserving. I love Corkscrew but we didn’t get any new species there. Even though they see yellow-throated warblers every day there.
Then we went driving around. Somewhere outside of Immokolee, while Lise was on the phone with Gretchen, we got a crested caracara. Not too long after that ground doves popped up. We ended up going down to Everglades City. Nothing too exciting there except the vultures on the Depot Restaurant. Wonder why the parking lot was empty. Coming out of Everglades City we had a short-tailed hawk fly over. Not great looks at a lifer but enough we could ID it. 
Is this appetizing or what?
Today the ladies slept in and I went back to Corkscrew. I was there right after they opened at 7:00 AM. There was only a couple people there, either birders, photographers, or both. Good people that deserve a place like Corkscrew. By the time I left the place was overrun with tourists speaking at least three languages other than English. And a few versions of English I wasn’t too familiar with. Some of the ladies started down the boardwalk wearing heels. At least I did get a painted bunting. Great views of a totally out of place loggerhead shrike too.
Loggerhead shrike at Corkscrew Swamp.
Cooperative pied-billed grebe at Corkscrew Swamp.
Then I headed out to a place in the Everglades called Shark Valley, hoping for a purple gallinule. The place was completely overrun with tourists. But, I did get the purple gallinule. A few other cool things were there too.
Purple gallinule.
Green heron.
Teeth with an attitude. Lots of fat tourists to munch on too. Time to thin the herd.
Shark Valley is about half an hour past Clyde Butcher’s studio. Clyde is pretty much the premier landscape photographer since Ansel Adams. He does absolutely stunning work. I stopped in and bought my second Butcher photograph. It’s worth checking out his work (clydebutcher.com) .
The gallinule put me at 342 species for the year. 97.7 % of the goal with 98.4% of the year gone. Getting another 8 species is going to be really tough. No time to elaborate though. The family is whining about not getting in their sleep allotment so I need to shut down.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 