We are “home” again even if only for less than a week to see Chuck’s parents, our daughter, our house, and a bit of that good old South Mountain springtime. We drove here yesterday from Cherokee where our motorhome remains waiting for our return this weekend. The drive was long and the Ford Focus is not the most comfortable vehicle for a long driving day, but the radio and a book on tape made the time go by more quickly. The greening Appalachians and blooming dogwoods and redbuds provided fine scenery. We made a stop at Greencastle PA for some of the best roasted-peanuts anywhere and another stop at Wallmart for a few groceries before climbing into the forest of South Mountain. In transition, our minds are full of many places and people. The campground we found near Cherokee, five miles from the hospital where Anne will work for two months, is rustic and off the beaten path. There last evening wood thrushes and Carolina wrens blessed the quiet air with song. The campground owners are from Long Island and seem cheerful and pleasant. They are preparing for the tourist season, which is still a month away. Frost was forecast for last night. We welcomed the “blanket weather” in the Carolina mountains after our last week in the Florida Keys where the warmth was becoming intense and awoke yesterday to a 33 degree dawn. The evening before our departure from the Keys we were made uncomfortable by our failure to find two birds, the Antillean nighthawk and the mangrove cuckoo. The original plan was to spot these birds during the first week of May after our trip to the Tortugas, but then Cherokee called for us to be there on that week and family called us to Pennsylvania a week earlier. We had sought these birds before our visit to the Tortugas, but had failed to find them. The nighthawk is the less intriguing of the two birds, though it would be a life-bird for both Anne and Chuck. It is very similar to the common nighthawk, but slightly smaller and browner. The only reliable distinction is a difference in calls. The male common nighthawk has a nasal “peent” call. The male Antillean nighthawk says “pity-pit-pit.” Both species are present in the Florida Keys. So, one goes to a place where nighthawks are displaying – the Marathon Airport is one such place – at sunset and waits for the nighthawks to come out. They can be dimly observed in the fading daylight or moonlight. If the birder hears the “pity-pit-pit” call, he gives a cheer and tics off the species. Unfortunately, the nighthawks were not yet displaying. We saw several nighthawks while in the Keys, but none of them were calling. We even found a roosting bird on Garden Key in the Tortugas. After much examination, we concluded it looked more like a common nighthawk than an Antillean nighthawk, but no one was sure. On our last evening at Marathon, we arrived at the airport at sunset. We heard the call of the common nighthawk and saw one flying nighthawk, but heard no “pity-pit-pit.” Probably the Antillean species had yet to arrive or had not yet started to display. We drove home from the airport disappointed. We were more frustrated this final evening in the Keys by our failure to find the mangrove cuckoo. Chuck has seen these species in his youth, but it would be a life-bird for Anne. It is a handsome diurnal species and one both of us wanted to see this year. Some are rumored to stay year-round in the mangrove forests of southwestern Florida and the Keys, but it is a secretive species and not easily observed until breeding season. We had started to look for it at Ft. Myers and then much more seriously after we arrived in the Florida Keys. We checked out nearly every location mentioned in Pranty’s bird guide to Florida. Arriving at Marathon, we went the first day to check out Boot Key where the book reported their breeding. This island is seaward of Vaca Key, the island on which the town of Marathon has grown. Boot Key remains undeveloped. We were sorely disappointed when turning down the road to Boot Key we found a barricade and the words “bridge closed.” That didn’t stop us. We paddled the canoe across the channel and through the mangrove creeks of Boot Key. We listened and watched. We played a recording of the bird. We found no sign of it. While at the Tortugas we looked for migrant mangrove cuckoos. We found several yellow-billed cuckoos, but none of this target species. Returning to Marathon for two nights and one day before starting north, Chuck fretted. He knew that we would spend our final day recovering from our wilderness adventure and preparing for departure. We had failed to find the bird near Marathon a week before. Perhaps we should camp at Florida City or Everglades City for two nights and search these areas. Still, the bird might just not be here yet. Anne pointed out that we needed to drive each day to arrive in Pennsylvania in time to meet our daughter. She suggested that we check Boot Key again. This island seemed provide the best habitat in the near vicinity. What if we canoed there again the morning of our departure day? We could spend two or three hours in the search and still break camp by Noon. Chuck was hesitant. He likes to focus on travel during travel days and likes to start early. Still, it seemed the only option. Perhaps the birds arrived while we were at the Tortugas. We set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. as usual on Saturday, April 26, but we ignored its ring and rose a half hour later. Not a good start, but we ate breakfast smartly and arrived at Sombrero Beach Park at 7:00 a.m. The gate was open but was chained to a width of two feet. Anne was concerned that we could get the canoe through that passage. Chuck commented that we could do it and began loading the boat. We tipped the canoe to negociate the gate, launched from the beach and quickly crossed the channel to the landing on Boot Key. We walked the trail to the road and studied the mangrove forest. This was the spot where the book said the bird could be found. Chuck played a recording of its call, and we waited quietly. Nothing. Walking back a long-tailed bird flew across the trail ahead. “That could be it,” Chuck commented, but we never saw it again. Returning to the canoe we paddled across a sharp breeze in bright sunlight to the mouth of Whiskey Creek. Chuck didn’t like the conditions. Both the wind and the glare would make it difficult to see this bird. Still, we entered the creek and played the call a few times. The creek was more peaceful and the mangroves were lovely. As the channel narrowed we could begin to look into the dark interior of the swamp. That seemed to be where we might find the bird. Now the stream narrowed and the trees formed a tunnel. Chuck played the call one more time and began steering through the narrow winding tidal creek. A call came from the forest. “Gaw-gaw-gaw-gaw-gaw-gaw-gaw.” Chuck heard it but was uncertain of its source. He didn’t want to raise false hope. Anne heard it and was certain. She said it came from behind us. Chuck began backing the boat out of the mangroves. He worked carefully, but the wind and current made the process slow. He looked up and saw a bird fly to the edge of the channel in the tops of the trees some six meters above the water. It gave a short call. He paused and picked up his binoculars to glance at it while treading water with the paddle in the other hand. “That’s it!” he said with a low voice, and he returned his attention to controlling the boat. Anne looked up but could not find the bird. She saw it only when it flew across the channel and into the forest again. Her view was not satisfactory. Chuck stabilized the boat, played the call one more time, and then tried to hold the boat steady. The bird floated across the channel and took a position in clear view some ten meters away in the mangroves at the edge of the channel. We both brought up our glasses to watch it perched in its namesake tree. A male, it was beautiful and angry. It raised his head, gave a long call, and looked fiercely in several directions. If there was another male mangrove cuckoo there, he wanted it to know that it had no business being there. We observed its pale buff belly, the dark stripe through the eye, the lack of rufous coloration in the wing, the more strongly curved beak, and the wider tail spots. We watched it make its distinctive call. Anne scored the “killer view” that one always wants but does not always get of a life-bird. In a minute it would begin moving deeper into the swamp and bits and pieces of it would vanish until finally it would be completely gone except for its call, but we were now deeply satisfied. For Anne the bird went from an image and a description in a text to a deeply personal experience. This is the thrill of victory in the sport of birding. Birding is the sport, art, or hobby by which one confirms the presence of a species in nature by sight or sound. Finding a new bird may be easy in that many species are conspicuous at the right time in the right place. It may not, however, be so easy for the birder to be in that place at that time, and numerous species are not so easy to find anywhere at any time. Others are at best only transient and there is no predicable right place. The birder is blessed to add such species to his list. Probably our “best bird” of the Keys was the red-footed booby. We saw one while in the Tortugas. This is a bird that appears only every year or so and only briefly in Florida, usually in the Tortugas. This individual appeared roosting with frigate birds on Long Key. Our guide had noticed it from Garden Key where we had spent the afternoon, but he could not identify it from a distance of a kilometer. Still, his experience told him that a pale brown booby-shaped bird perched among the frigate birds was probably a red-footed booby. So, he interrupted the ferrying of his tour group from the shore to the boat to take the skiff across to Long Key. The “excuse” was to take there four members of the group who had not yet seen the frigate bird rookery. He radioed back to the boat that the rare bird was there and that he would take everyone across – four at a time – to see it. We were already on the boat. The sea being calm, Chuck grabbed the spotting scope and took it to the upper deck. Setting it up he saw the skiff starting back from Long Key. He found the bird and focused the scope at 30 power. He saw what was clearly a booby, but he could not identify it. Then he zoomed the lens to 60 power. Normally this would not have provided a view while on a boat, but amazingly the wind and seas were so calm that the bird came into sharp focus. It was pale brown with a breast band and bubble gum pink feet. He scored the bird and called to Anne to come up. Se saw the bird too. We were elated but still wanted a better view. Suddenly something, perhaps a coursing peregrine falcon, disturbed the roosting birds on Long Key. They were all taking off. Chuck looked for the booby through the scope and found it missing. He scanned the scattering birds with binoculars and found the booby flying. This bird appeared very different from the multitude of frigate birds, and the frigate birds would sometimes turn and briefly pursue the booby even while within the pandemonium of stampede. Chuck realized that he was probably the only person to have the bird in view. He dared not loose sight of it. He followed it as it coursed from east to west and then watched it turn south and cross over the boat. He urged Anne to spot it with her glasses, but she couldn’t find it. Then the bird turned to the east and made its way back with numerous frigate birds to Bush Key. Finally it landed. Chuck studied its position and then lowered the binoculars to see its location on the island. He raised the glasses again to confirm the location and then radioed the new location to the guide. The bird remained at the new perch as three more runs of the skiff took members of our group in for close views. Chuck was very pleased to have obtained a reasonably close view of the bird in flight, but both of us eagerly awaited our chance to motor across to see it perched. The bird wore immature plumage, as do most of the red-footed boobies that appear in the Tortugas. While not as handsome as an adult, it was still a sweet bird to see there. This was actually only an “ABA Area Life-bird” for us. We once saw hundreds of red-footed boobies on Kauai, Hawaii. Many of these were handsome adults. Certainly we enjoyed seeing them there, but it was very special to see one in Florida. We joined a very small group of birders who have added this bird to their “North American” life list. While finding the booby was sweet, Chuck returned to Marathon disappointed at not finding the mangrove cuckoo for Anne. Finally turning up the bird on our last morning in the Keys gave great satisfaction. This bird had clearly arrived while we were in the Tortugas. If it had delayed his arrival by another week, we would have missed it. Such is birding. After seeing the bird, we immediately brought the boat around and returned to our place of departure. Both of us hooted and “gawed” a bit. Chuck asked Anne if she had noticed a pair of white-crowned pigeons, another “south Florida specialty” fly by while we were watching the cuckoo. She had. “Sweet,” he said. We were back at the car at 9:30 and pulled out of the campground an hour latter. Our mood had gone from melancholy to triumphant. We still felt bad about missing the nighthawk, but after finding the cuckoo were very satisfied to take the view that the failure to find the nighthawk only “provides a reason to come back to the Keys.” The next time, we will make sure that it is at least May 1 before we come looking for the Antillean nighthawks. We’ll probably want to look again for our cuckoo. It will be time to refresh our vision of this marvelous bird.