Bird Life Big Cypress Swamp Region 87 



For a week before entering upon this trip I visited at 

 Clearwater with my good friend, Oscar E. Baynard, going 

 over details and arrangements. I must thank him largely for 

 such measure of good fortune as came to me later, for he 

 gave me the benefit of the knowledge he had gained of the 

 country during the two previous winters, and also secured 

 for me the services of guides whom he had employed. 



I arrived at Fort Myers March 13th, where I met Mr. 

 Rhett Green, now employed as warden by the National Asso- 

 ciation of Audubon Societies, who was to conduct me to the 

 rookery under his charge. We started out just before noon 

 of the 14th in a light, single buggy and drove the rest of the 

 day through the open, sun-lit pine woods without particular 

 incident, and camped that night in a temperature that made 

 even the lightest covering a burden and stirred the mos- 

 quitoes to the highest pitches of fervor. 



By sun-up we were on the way again. The country was 

 now growing wilder. The dog started a Wild Turkey from 

 a clump of saw palmetto beside the trail, a Sandhill Crane 

 swung trumpeting across a near-by pond. Twice we stopped 

 while I slipped on my climbing irons and ran up to nests of 

 the Florida Red-shouldered Hawk, each time to find two eggs 

 apparently advanced in incubation. The ground was becom- 

 ing low and wet and cypress "heads" more and more fre- 

 quent. Toward noon we came out upon the edge of a big 

 open marsh stretching away four or five miles to the south, 

 far across which we could see a solid background of great 

 cypress trees. This was my first view of the Big Cypress 

 Swamp, which beginning here runs almost unbroken for sixty 

 or seventy miles to the south and to the eastward until it 

 finally merges with the Everglades. 



As we progressed slowly across the marsh, often hub deep 

 in water, singly and by flocks water birds began rising on 

 every hand; Ward Herons, Egrets, White and Wood Ibis, 

 Yellow-crowned Night Herons, Little Blue and Louisiana 

 Herons, and several species of Ducks, including three of the 

 rare Florida Duck (Anas fulvigula fulvigula). On an open 

 pond we also identified the Limpkin and Pui*ple Gallinule. 



