The Birds Of The Everglades

By: Glenn Wilsey, Sr.

As you know, I’m a tour guide. One of the biggest questions I hear while on tour is “where are all of the birds?” This question is asked of me mostly in the summer and fall months from June to February. It seems that a lot of people believe that there are thousands of birds in The Everglades all year long.

There are some birds that do live here all year long. In The Tamiami Trail area, we mostly see Herons, Egrets, the American bittern, the Limpkin, Anhingas, the Everglades snail kite, Ospreys and occasionally a Bald eagle.

While driving on the trail, on a good day, you can see many of these birds. The Anhinga likes to eat in the morning, swimming through the water spearing fish and eating them. By 10:00 am you’ll see these birds sitting on tree branches close to the water with their wings spread out, gently waving them to dry them. Anhingas don’t have oil in their feathers like most aquatic birds, so they have to dry them in the sun. While driving through the glades keep looking across the open grass prairie. You’re likely to see the Great blue heron standing in the knee-deep water spearing the fish that inhabit the grassy prairies with its long beak. The Great blue heron is the tallest of the wadding birds in The Everglades and can stand in the deeper waters of the slues, areas in the open grass that are a little bit deeper than the surrounding area. If the water in the open sawgrass is one foot deep then the slue pond will be up to two and a half feet deep. Because the great blue heron is taller than the rest of the birds he can stand and spear fish in the deeper water. You might see other birds like the osprey, snail kite or the red tail hawk. Unlike the eagles that swoop down and grab a fish close to the surface with their claws, Ospreys will dive like a jet fighter and instead of grabbing the fish as he flies over it, he will dive right into the water after the fish. These are the birds that we see all year round.

The migratory birds and the birds of the salt-water estuaries around South Florida start to show up about February and only stay to about May.

In my past stories, you may remember me talking about our water levels rising and falling depending on the time of the year. As the water levels start to drop in January all of the small fish on the sawgrass prairie swim into the slue ponds where they are so concentrated that it is easy for the birds to feed themselves and their babies. This time of the year is when you will see hundreds of birds in large open areas. The birds come from all over the world to gorge themselves on fish and on the crustaceans that are exposed by the falling water level. Now you will see large flocks of American wood storks, Ibis and the Roseate spoonbill. When the Roseate spoonbill first shows up in The Everglades, north of the Florida bay, they are a vibrant red and pink. They get their bright colors from the crustaceans in the salt-water estuaries that are a major part of their diet. As the Roseate spoonbills spend more time away from the salt-water estuaries they start to lose their bright colors. This time of the year is so cool because the birds build their nests on the edge of the channel that we use on a daily basis. We pull our boats to within one foot of the nests. The cool thing about getting so close to the nests is that when the babies are born they already know what we sound like and since mom and dad are not afraid of us, the babies aren’t afraid of us. As I’ve said before, people, animals and machinery can get along in any ecosystem! The birds also tend to build their nests over alligator holes, because they know that other animals will have a hard time getting to their nest and eating their eggs or babies if there’s a gator around. By April, the baby birds are flying and mom and dad are teaching them to fend for themselves. By May, most of the migrating birds have all flown back home, mostly to places in South America. June starts our rainy season and what fish are left will make their way back out to the newly flooded sawgrass prairies and start the cycle all over gain.

So, what’s the bottom line? If you want to come to Florida to see birds, any time is a good time, but the best variety of birds can be seen after February and before May.

Well on the behalf of my self and the airboat association web staff we would like to thank all of you from around the world for checking out our web site. Keep the questions coming.

ALWAYS REMEMBER NATURE RULES!!!! Sincerely: Glenn W. Wilsey Sr. GATORMAN

*This story or any part of it can not be used or reproduced with out written permission of the author!

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