January 17, 2021 We drove up to Homestead, Fla.which is at the beginning of Hwy 1.
This time we are in search of the Smooth-billed Ani. Interesting information about the Smooth-billed Ani is that it is a glossy black cuckoo. We had previously been looking for this bird on the wrong side of the L31W canal. With better information on the location of this bird, we started our long hike to where the bird previously had been reported. We came upon several other birders which had seen the bird a bit earlier in the day. We connected with another birder Gemma she was younger and ran ahead to locate the bird. When we caught up to her she hadn't as yet located the bird. We searched for quite a while. We abandon our search and started to work our way back to the van. We were quickly distracted by 4 Scissor-tailed Flycatchers chasing each other on the other side of the canal, unfortunately a bully Northern Mockingbird came and chased them away. The good news was Gemma caught up to us and shared she had found the bird, very near the location we were originally looking. We thanked her and quickly made our way back down the canal. After a brief period of search, we heard the bird call. It's a very distinct nasally Aaannnii. We did see a medium size black bird pop out of the grasses but, could not determine it was the Smooth-billed Ani. This photo of a Scissor-tail Flycatcher is from out trip in December.
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