Some of you may be familiar with the play / movie, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Donny Osmond made this brilliant coat famous (email subscribers: video link to see the coat … skip forward to the one minute mark). Dolly Parton please accept my apologies … this is the coat of many colors! LOL.
Recently while birding in both Minnesota and Florida, I saw birds with “coats of many colors”! In Florida I watched Painted Buntings at the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp and in Minnesota I watched Ring-Necked Pheasants on a snowy backroad. First here are the birds, followed by a discussion about Corkscrew Swamp vs Six Mile Cypress Slough (both in the Fort Myers area).
Technicolor Plumage #1: Painted Bunting
Technicolor Plumage #2: Ring-Necked Pheasant
Now the promised discussion … admission to Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp is very expensive ($17 per person). While 2.5 mile boardwalk is impressive, AND I am an Audubon member, I really don’t think the price justifies the cost of admission … particularly if there are multiple people in your group. The cypress trees are truly majestic at Corkscrew, but I actually find the birding there much worse than at Six Mile Cypress Slough (Google Maps Link) which is right in Fort Myers. Six Mile Cypress’ entrance fee is only the cost of your parking … depending upon how long you wish to stay … a couple dollars for your car. It is important to get to Six Mile Cypress EARLY in the morning before the crowds arrive. If one walks their boardwalk shortly after sunrise it will be just you, the birds and one or two other people. The boardwalks are impressive at either location and should be a part of any trip to southern Florida. My wife, a non birder, visited Six Mile Cypress with friends “in the afternoon” and came home raving about the beautiful birds!
