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a u g u s t Spotted Owls and St. Paul Sandpipers new bird species seen this month: 17 totaL bird species by the end of the month: 666 pLaces birded: Florida,Texas, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Alaska August 2 Florida turned out better than expected. It started out well because I arrived in Miami a bit earlier than booked. Of course, some of that benefit was eaten up by a long wait at the car rental spot, compounded by a problem car (flat tire warning on instrument panel) requiring me to return the car immediately and get in a shorter line to get a different car. I slept three and a half hours in Florida City and was in such a hurry to get going that I left my alarm clock at the motel. At about 4:30 I got up and drove south as fast as I legally could toward the Marathon airport, which seemed to be the first possible place for Antillean Nighthawk that I might reach by around dawn. The Florida bird books mostly noted that these nighthawks were active at dusk, but at least once I had seen the phrase “dawn and dusk” in the discussion of Antillean Nighthawks. I assumed I would need all three dawn-dusks of this trip to get the nighthawk. I didn’t know if dawn would work or if Marathon airport still had any nighthawks. I was delighted when with windows rolled down as I approached the airport at early daylight (6:30), I heard the unmistakable pit a pit pat of Antillean Nighthawks. It was still too dark to see their zooming bodies, but eventually I saw a dot in the light sky out over the trees across the airport. Soon I could hear more of them overhead and see three close by. I didn’t hear any Common Nighthawks for about 20 minutes after I got there. By sound only it seemed like there were four to five Antillean Nighthawks and one to two Common Nighthawks. extreme birder 150 With my goal accomplished, I continued south, uncertain of what to do. I had no lead on my other needed Florida birds (Smooth-billed Ani and Mangrove Cuckoo) and/or time to go for them (Budgerigar on the west coast of Florida), but who knew? Maybe I would find a rarity. It’s a good thing that I stopped at Marathon. On my way south I stopped at five or more so-called Mangrove Cuckoo spots and then wandered aimlessly around Key West and the birdless airport after an early supper. There were no nighthawks at all at Key West. This morning I slept in until 5:30 and then headed to the spot that had seemed to have the most potential of the Mangrove Cuckoo places I had checked yesterday. I arrived at a road into the mangroves on Sugarloaf Key and drove slowly to the bridge, beyond which was the best area as far as I could tell. Slowly I cruised down, periodically stopping, getting out, and listening. As it got hot and the birds became silent, I reminded myself how grateful I had been for the nighthawks at Marathon and gave up to head toward Miami. Birding was done, and it was time to move onward. Finding a Mangrove Cuckoo would either have to wait for another trip, or this hard-to-find cuckoo would become one more of my growing number of misses for my big year. About an hour later I found an NPR station with my favorite program, “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me,” and settled in for a relatively happy hour of slow driving in heavy traffic, hoping the radio signal would last. Everyone in Florida who owned a boat or a mobile home was heading north, slowly, ahead of me. Birding was almost forgotten, and then the second astoundingly good thing happened on the trip—a Mangrove Cuckoo flew across the road immediately ahead of me with its unmistakable cuckoo shape and brown buffy underside. I was completely stunned by the unexpected bird out of nowhere! I have now gone beyond my originally stated goal for this year of 650. And of course I am slowly working toward my real goal of 700. I was pretty sure that I would make it to 650, but 700 is not a certainty. It does require that all my pelagic trips go out. For now, I’m very happy with where I...

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