One Hundred & Counting
We drove up to Kissimmee Prairie hopeful to see crested caracaras but I was mostly determined to break the 100 mark. I was at 97 and just needed three species. Driving up was a scenic drive off beeline highway filled with cow pastures, livestock, and that old Florida look of oak trees covered in Spanish moss. The drive into the prairie was a beautiful, long dirt road with vegetation and wildlife on either side. We drove past deer, alligators, and plenty of heron as we got closer to the trail heads. As we pulled up and met up with the rest of our group, we saw four wild turkey and I thought to myself “that’s one”. We made our way to five mile trail and if you haven’t figured out by the name, it’s a decent walk. Shortly into the trail there was water on it, and as many times as I’ve heard the term Everglades (aka “river of grass”) I had caracaras on the brain and thought “how deep could it really be?”. I lead us forward and we all came to the quick realization that the water was waist deep (as I stood in the middle of it… waist deep). At this point I lead those of us willing to have wet shoes and socks for the rest of the day forward deeper into the prairie. We heard eastern meadowlarks and then saw three of them pop up all together (“there’s number two”). We kept our eyes peeled as we continued forward looking for caracaras and double checking every turkey vulture in the sky wishing the sun would change and we would realized we were in fact looking at a crested caracara. Spoiler alert: we didn’t actually see a caracara on this trip, but that’s okay! We continued forward getting punked out by palm warblers (of course) and then a sweet little savannah sparrow popped into the middle of the trail (“one hundred!”). Savannah sparrows are tiny, fast, and blend in so incredibly well with their environment. One minute you see it and the moment you blink you lose which blade of grass it’s on. The weather was beautiful and the clouds were out so we stayed out as long as we could. As we walked back to the cars we saw American crows, that put me at 101 and ready for a nap and some dry socks.
