Yellowstone Hiking Trails

Birding in the National Parks: Spotting Vultures And Anhinga Along the Anhinga ...

I don’t often seek out the most-visited areas of national parks. Artist’s Point at Yellowstone National Park should probably be required viewing for every American, but please don’t take me there on a Saturday in summer!

Thus it came as a shock to my companions when I insisted during my first excursion to Everglades National Park that I wanted to head straight to the Anhinga Trail . Less than a mile long, this trail is a combination of pavement and boardwalk, fully handicapped accessible, and one of the most crowded areas of the whole park. For once, I didn’t care about the crush of humanity. Birds were on my mind.

The Everglades are a unique ecosystem to North America. It’s a vast sub-tropical wetland the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else on the continent. If you want to see virtually all of our wading birds in one place at one time, you go to Florida. The Atlantic coast’s Merrit Island National Wildlife Refuge draws lots of birders, as does Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island.

But the Everglades offer the most accessible and user-friendly experience, especially if you’re joined by non-birders, young children, or folks that have trouble getting around.

As you approach the parking lot at the Royal Palm area of Everglades National Park the vultures watch you intently. Seeing all of the black vultures ( Coragyps atratus ) glaring at me was bit disconcerting until I remembered that they were likely not waiting for me to die, but simply to park the car.

They wanted the windshield wipers.

Yes, the vultures are known to cause considerable damage by devouring the exposed rubber parts of cars. I have yet to receive a good explanation for why they do this when there are plenty of animal carcasses and other good food around, but we still hopped out of the car and immediately wrapped the wiper blades in plastic bags, which for some reason deters the birds. I was determined to not have to go back to the rental counter and tell them the wiper blades on their brand new Prius ), one of the oddest of our native water birds. The anhinga is the only member of the darter family found in the new world. The darters are collectively called “snake birds” because of their long serpent-like necks that are often the only part of the bird sticking out of the water as they swim past.

Bearing a superficial resemblance to the more well-known cormorants, anhinga are a joy to watch in clear water as they dive for fish and sometimes decide to just start walking, fully submerged, across the muddy bottom.