After my morning visit with bad light at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge last weekend, I decided to use my Monday off to return in the afternoon.  My dad came with me to see his lifer Long-tailed Duck.  What I didn’t expect was to see my lifer Clapper Rail that afternoon as well.  It was a great afternoon!

We first stopped at Parrish Park to see the Long-tailed Duck.  The Long-tailed Duck is considered a very good bird in Florida.  This bird breeds in northern Canada on the Arctic tundra.  Normally its winter range in the US extends to New England and no further.  Florida was a big detour for this bird!  We spotted the duck waaaaay out in the ocean under the Max Brewer bridge.  I thought my pictures from Sunday were bad, but these were worse!  Then the duck took flight and my dad and I both clicked away, hoping for maybe one image in focus.  Well, kinda…

We then headed to Blackpoint Wildlife Drive.  I’d forgotten how busy it is in the afternoon.  Note to self: schedule an extra hour to get to the good birdy spots!  I was disappointed that many of the birds I’d seen on Sunday morning were no longer hanging around on Monday afternoon.  I kept promising my dad that we’d see Pintail Heaven, and when we finally got there, there were just a few pintails!  But the ones that were there were nice and close…

A bunch of birders with scopes were set up near Pintail Heaven, so we walked down there to see what they were looking at.  It turned out that a Sora and a Clapper Rail were both feeding along the edge of the vegetation.  Finally – the exception that proves the rule – my lifer shot of a Clapper Rail wasn’t terrible!!

The poor little Sora was jealous.  Everybody was taking photos of the Clapper while the Sora foraged wide out in the open.  By this time the afternoon light was just gorgeous on these shy birds.

A Green Heron lurked in the shadows.  He said that he deserved to have his photo taken, too, even if he wasn’t a rail.

A bunch of coots were splashing about.  I just can’t resist a good coot shot sometimes, especially when he’s in beautiful light.

Just when we thought the afternoon couldn’t get any better, it did.  The Clapper Rail left the safety of the vegetation line and started swimming out in open water, right towards us!  “Too much lens” was heard as I scrambled to get on a good angle.  What a fun bird!

The clouds were really pretty in the sky, so we stayed an extra few minutes and photographed the sunset.  The sun glowed orange on the horizon as the breeze blew around us, the end to a great afternoon.

As we drove out, we had my mom on speakerphone telling her about our lifers. For my dad it was a 3-lifer day – the Long-tailed Duck, a Common Loon, and the Clapper Rail.  In the midst of our excitement I slammed on my brakes and hopped out of the car to grab one last image.  I love this shot of the post-sunset clouds.  It’s pure Florida. :)