Shark Valley Visitor Center 2

These photos are also from our 22 January 2018 visit to the Everglades National Park’s Shark Valley Visitor’s Center. The first is of a White Ibis. These ibis have blue eyes as adults, brown as young. As the bird ages, the skin and bill color changes from dusky pinkish to a more intense red (Heath et al. 2009).

We were able to get so close to so many of the birds that I started taking portraits of heads. The photo above is of a Great Egret. The photo below, a Turkey Vulture. Having a bare head helps keep junk out of your feathers when you feed on dead creatures.

Wood Storks were common this year at Shark Valley. We were surprised, since we have not seen them there during our previous visits. Like the other birds we observed, the storks were remarkably tame. Throughout this post, I linked the bird names to previous blog posts.

We saw fewer land birds at Shark Valley. We were pleased to add this Northern Parula warbler to our ever-growing bird list. Parulas breed across the eastern United States and southern Canada. Most winter in eastern Mexico and in the West Indies, although they also can be found in southern Florida. The middle of the Everglades would not seem to be typical habitat for this forest warbler.