Eco Pond at Flamingo, & A Few Park Road Stops - Everglades National Park - Florida

This was our first time staying at the Flamingo Campground in the remote Flamingo area of Everglades National Park. Today we did some brief exploring with our best sightings at Eco Pond near the campground.

Spoonbills & Egrets at Eco Pond - Flamingo Area - Everglades National Park - Florida

We arrived at the campground in the Flamingo section of the Everglades yesterday.

This morning, while Linda was having her coffee time, I rode my bike over to the Eco Pond located right outside the campground.  There were herons and egrets and storks and other wading birds feeding.  But my main focus was on the Roseate Spoonbills that we don't get to see up close very often.

 

 

Sometimes they are a drab pink, but the ones here now have some nice color to them. 

 

 

Here's a video clip from the observation deck showing the many birds at Eco Pond this morning.

 

 

The Snowy Egrets often stalk their pray like other egrets and herons, but today they were feeding on the fly.  They would drag their yellow feet in the water and snatch a small fish - the timing had to be perfect and it happened so fast it was hard to see.  You have to look close to catch it in this video.

 

 

Finally, I got a really short video of the spoonbills ... it's really short 'cause my battery died.

 

 

While I was out, I got a nice shot of this White-eyed Vireo singing.

 

 

This Lesser Yellowlegs was feeding with all the other birds.

 

 

Later, we drove out of Flamingo and headed north for awhile to check out some of the trails and ponds we passed on the way in yesterday.

 

Eventually, after about 25 miles, we reached the Pa-hay-okee Overlook (which rises above the river of grass and the scrub). We saw nothing there except an improved cell signal.

After Pa-hay-okee, we stopped at the Mahogany Hammock which has a .4-mile boardwalk through a hardwood oasis.  We had heard that a Barred Owl with owlets was seen yesterday, but we didn't have any luck finding them.  We had to settle for the one on the sign.

 

 

We made a short stop at Paurotis Pond.  It's a great place to put in a boat and do some fishing, but the pond is closed to boating right now due to nesting Wood Storks and Roseate Spoonbills.  We could see them in the distance with the binoculars, but they weren't close enough for photos.

Between Paurotis and the campground, there were a few other ponds, canoe trails, and hiking trails, but we'll save them for other days.

 

That was about it for today. We'll spend a lot of time at Eco Pond, and we'll do some paddling in the next few days.