#22: Boat-tailed Grackle - Random Rest Stop, Florida

EDITOR'S NOTE: Well folks, we're getting to that point in the birding album where we're beginning to go on trips outside of North Carolina. For the next series of entries, James is going to recount the time he left the States for a far more exotic locale. Enjoy!

When you’ve been birding in one county for long enough, you eventually rack up all the normal birds for the area, and the only ways for you to get new birds are to go after any reported vagrants, or you could just take the easy route and travel. I decided to opt for the second and head down to Nicaragua just over a year ago. While I didn’t go for birding per se, it sure was a nice little bonus. My flight was out of Fort Lauderdale, which meant a nice 14-hour road trip. However, the birds in Florida are almost as foreign as the birds that I would be finding in Nicaragua. 

On the way down, I saw several new birds, including Wood Storks, a Swallow-tailed Kite and what I believe was a Sandhill Crane. However, I only managed to get off one picture, and that was of a very cooperative female Boat-tailed Grackle.

Editor's Note aka Robert: This bird appears to be sick or injured, but not
having accompanied James on his trip, I can't confirm this.

Our road trip route just happened to take us past a rest station that hosted this nice bird, meaning my first life bird of the trip!