When considering a vacation in the Florida Keys, most people think of diving and/or other water related sports. But bird watching is extremely lucrative in the Florida Keys, and many bird lovers travel there to observe birds that cannot be found anywhere else. The Florida Keys are located at the very end of the Florida peninsula. After passing through Florida City on US1, vacationers are officially in the Florida Keys. The Keys are distance measured by MMs, or mile markers. In the Florida Keys MMs denote location. For example, when you are on MM-88, you know you're in Islamorada, and so forth.
Bird Watching - Where to Go
When heading south in the Florida Keys, Key Largo is the first Key you come to. The 2009 Christmas Bird Count logged over a hundred individual bird species in one day in Key Largo. Key Largo is home to the Dagney Johnson Hammocks Botanical State Park, located at MM 102.5, and is noted for their annual birding tours and lecture series held in Jan., Feb., and March. Key Largo serves as an anchor for the Great Florida Birding Trail, that extends through 116 Florida counties, as many birds use the Florida Keys for their migration north. At the DJHB State Park birders are likely to see breeding populations of mangrove cuckoos, white-crowned pigeons, black-whiskered vireos, and migrating warblers. Bird enthusiasts have also seen Zenaida dove, thick-billed vireo and the rare Lasagra's Flycatcher.
Popular Ornithology Site
Just across the street from the DJHB Park is John Pennekamp State Park. JPSP is famous for it's coral reef exploration, but it is also an excellent park for nature walks and birding. Birders can check with the information center and will be supplied with a list of potential bird sightings. Some of the birds spotted regularly in JPSP are Bahamas mockingbird, gray kingbirds, Gannets, petrels, sooty terns, thick billed vireo and many more. Also for an added excursion, the park has daily glass bottomed boat trips. The Florida Keys Wild Bird Center is located on Key Largo also, (mm 93.6) and this is where they take in sick or injured birds. The hope of the bird specialists there is always to return any rescued bird back into the wild, but many will have to live the remainder of their lives in the on-site sanctuary. Birders may visit the entire facility and speak with any of the many Ornithology experts. As an added treat the center has recently built a World Parrot Mission that is open for visitors and includes daily parrot behavioral demonstrations.
More Birding in the Upper Keys
Windley Key, located near MM90, offers Windley Key Fossil Reef Park where you have a choice of 5 hiking trails with numbered stations for bird watching. At the park's store you can acquire a 70 page illustrated list of birds and other forms of nature potentially spotted along the way.
Traveling along down US1 is the island of Islamorada and Islamorada Adventure Tours (MM 81.5). Here, they offer something for the whole family including wildlife identification. Boat trips and bird tours are offered where many unusual bird sightings are likely. Bird sightings documented by Islamorada Adventure Tours include, but are not limited to, roseate spoonbills, reddish egrets and birds of prey such as bald eagles and osprey.
Long Key State Park can be found on MM 67.5 where they have birding trails and canoe rentals. On Long Key birders are likely to spot migrating spoon bills, warblers, egrets, and great blue herons. Long Key State Park offers the ideal habitat for a wide variety of birds that cannot be found further north. Habitats like mud flats, hammocks, and mangrove swamps, just to name a few. Also many long legged birds can be sighted there searching the shallows for food.
The variety of birds and possible sightings attributed to the Florida Keys are far too many to mention, but that is not the only reason birding is so popular in the Keys. Bird watching is possible in the Florida Keys all year long, and beginning in April the Keys are famous for migrating bird sightings. With the warming temperatures many birds will leave the tropics and use the Keys as their travel route to the north. Another great prospect for birdwatching in the Florida Keys is that the weather permits birding during the months when it is not possible because of snow or poor weather conditions to the north.
Valerie Modreski - Ms. Modreski has worked as a writer for over 30 years. Valerie began her career on the editorial staff of the Broward College academic ...
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