The Great Biscayne Birding Trail

If you read the page about Biscayne National Park’s wildlife, you’ll know there are between 110 – 214 bird species that either live within the park’s boundaries or migrate through on their way to other destinations. If you are a birder, bird photographer, or simply enjoy spotting and watching the birds, then the Great Biscayne Birding Trail should be on your list.

Ok, so this trail is not a traditional trail like the hiking trails you find in other units of the National Park System. The Great Biscayne Birding Trail is a collection of prime locations from which to watch the birds in their terrestrial and marine environments. Listed below are descriptions of these key bird watching locations. Some segments are easily reached by foot, while others can only be accessed by boat.

Convoy Point
This is the park’s main entrance road. Birds you might see include yellow-crowned night heron, loggerhead shrike, northern mockingbird, mangrove cuckoo (the park hosts the largest population of them in Florida), terns, cormorants, other shorebirds.

Black Point
The jetty is where you’ll see the greatest number of birds. The end of the jetty is a bird sanctuary, so please stay on the trail. Birds you might see: shorebirds (especially in winter).

Biscayne Bay/Black Point Shoreline
Birds you might see include wading birds like white ibis, great and little blue herons, and great and snowy egrets. Also brown pelicans and double-crested cormorants, spotted sandpipers, black and turkey vultures, gulls.

Biscayne Bay/Convoy Point Shoreline
The same birds seen along Black Point Shoreline may be seen here in addition to red-breasted mergansers.

Jones Lagoon
Here, you’ll see nesting colonies of wading birds and you are asked to observe them from at least 300 feet. Paddle craft are recommended to access this area.

Elliott Key
Because of this offshore location, you may occasionally spot Caribbean varieties such as a Bahama mockingbird or a bananaquit. Some mainland birds may also land here such as the red-headed woodpecker, warblers, or red-shouldered hawks. The marina and university dock often host shorebirds such as ruddy turnstones, least sandpipers, ring-billed and laughing gulls, and royal terns.

Boca Chita Key
Birds you might see include shorebirds and royal terns. Wading birds and brown pelicans may be seen on the abandoned pilings near Ragged Key #5. If you see a closed area on a grassy field, it might be a Wilson's plover nesting area. 

Stiltsville

These stilted houses above Biscayne Bay’s seagrass beds host an astonishing number of double-crested cormorants. In the winter, ring-billed and laughing gulls, and royal terns are often observed.

Fowey Rocks Light
This historic lighthouse often hosts brown boobies and brown pelicans. Peregrine falcons may be observed during spring migration. You might even see a frigatebird overhead, in addition to petrels and shearwaters.

Pacific Reef Light
Here is another lighthouse location with scores of the same birds as the Fowey Rocks Light.

Ebird.org also has a hotspot map for Biscayne National Park with real-time sightings and current data on bird species.

So, don’t forget to bring along binoculars, a spotting scope, or your camera and telephoto lens.

Featured In The National Parks Traveler

Birdy, Birdy In The Sky

For a number of years, the Traveler featured a regular column titled “Birding In The Parks,” by Kirby Adams. These wonderful articles by Adams provided the reader with examples of birds one might see when visiting a particular national park or other protected land. Now, I’m not a birder, nor am I a hardcore bird photographer, and I generally don’t think to research what kind of birdlife I might see during my travels (my bad). That said, if I can catch a photo of a bird, I’ll do it, because I know our avian friends help flesh out the story of a national park.

This month’s column is not so much about deliberately seeking, staking out a spot, and using a mega-telephoto lens to photograph a specific bird as it is about getting good photos of whatever bird you happen to see with whatever lens you have on your camera as you hike the trails and stop at the overlooks of national parks and other NPS units.

To read more of this article, head over to this page.