art ee Oar beOoN” (BYU dah helok N 2) 
We reached Homestead late in the night of March 1, and met Mr. Jack 
Watson, assistant manager of the Florida Bay Wildlife Refuge (now 
merged with the Everglades National Park) at 9:00 a.m. at Combs’ Dock 
in Tavernier, Key Largo. The day was bright and sunshiny, and Mr. Wat- 
son took us around the principal breeding islands of the spoonbills, egrets, 
and various herons, including the great white, of which there are estimated 
to be 1600 in the refuge. First I must mention our great good fortune of 
finding the first flamingo authentically reported in the refuge since 1985, 
luckily spotted by Mr. Watson himself when it was only a pink blob on the 
waterscape. For years he had been hoping to find one or a pair without 
success, even scouting the refuge frequently by plane, in the hope of prov- 
ing that they can successfully be transplanted there. After enjoying a 
close-up, we motored over to the Audubon cruise boat to tell others about 
the rara avis, meeting on the way two of the Everglades. park rangers out 
in a small motor boat, who made so long an observation of the bird at close 
range that we beat them back to headquarters at Homestead with the news. 
Most of the birds were seen in large numbers. We were greeted at the 
dock by a singing prairie warbler. Out over the water were cormorants, 
laughing gulls, herring gulls, (both of which nest there) brown pelicans, 
and in the shallow water, great white herons, Ward’s heron, American 
egrets, reddish egrets, little blue herons, yellow-crowned night herons, and 
near the breeding island, roseate spoonbills; several bald eagles and os- 
preys in the air, and a number of each at nests. It was observed that the 
perching eagle sits vertically upright, the osprey at an angle. As there 
were no tall trees, the nests were low. It was estimated that there were 
250 osprey nests in the area. Mr. Watson told us there were 200 black 
skimmers there the day before, but we saw only a few that day. Blue- 
winged teal and red-breasted mergansers were the only ducks seen, but our 
eyes were so busy that we undoubtedly overlooked many others. While re- 
turning to Homestead we saw from the car window 2 king‘fishers, 2 marsh 
hawks, red-shouldered hawk, 3 vultures, coots, ospreys, 3 sparrow hawks, 
blue-gray gnatcatcher, palm warbler, 2 scaup ducks, 3 loggerhead shrike, 
and one crow. 
March 2 marked our visit to Everglades National Park. where we were 
met by Mr. William Dilley, Park Naturalist, who introduced us to the 
tropical vegetation so new to us. Interesting was the strangler fig, the 
seed of which, dropped into a tree crotch, throws out aerial roots which 
strike downward along the trunk of the host to the ground, eventually 
strangling the host. One live oak nearly a foot in diameter, like Sinbad the 
sailor, was carrying such an “old man of the sea.” Many of the trees were 
literally covered with orchids and bromeliads. The prevailing pine was the 
Caribbean, which can hardly be distinguished from the long leaf of Georgia. 
The shrubs were mostly unfamiliar, such as the coral bean with its bright 
red fruit, the satin tree with golden satin beneath the leaves, the mastic, 
a great tree with wavy leaves and the gumbo limbo with copper-colored 
bark. Known to us were most of the ferns, button bush, spice bush, Hupa- 
torium Utricularia, and pickerel weed. 
Our reception committee at the park entrance was a small flock of wood 
ibises, feeding alongside the road with stork-like dignity. We soon saw 
