Lake Tohopekaliga

The easiest place I know to find Limpkins and Snail Kites

(Listen to the radio version here.)

Lake Tohopekaliga, nicknamed Lake Toho, is a 22,700 acre lake right smack in the center of the Florida peninsula. Ever since we discovered Kissimmee Lakefront Park about 20 years ago, Russ and I have visited it virtually every time we visit our son. Tiny Brinson Park, at the northernmost point of Lake Toho, is extremely popular with anglers fishing from piers jutting out from the shore. I like to walk along the bridge on Neptune Road, a very busy highway, where I’ve taken some of my best photos of Snail Kites perched on the powerlines running right along the highway.

Brinson Park melds into Lakefront Park’s lovely walkway, popular with local runners and families out for a stroll. Across the street is a quiet residential neighborhood where I’ve taken many of my best photos of Sandhill Cranes, pairs feeding on lawns with abundant White Ibises.

When not looking at cranes, I focus on the vegetation near shore, where I’ve taken most of my best Limpkin photos, including my only shots of chicks.

Kissimmee Lakefront Park is the most reliable place I’ve been for seeing adorable little marsh rabbits, along with a splendid assortment of herons and egrets, Mottled Ducks and both Black-bellied and Fulvous Whistling-Ducks, and Loggerhead Shrikes. Best of all, most of the birds, and those marsh rabbits, tend to be up close and personal, making visits there fun for non-birding members of my family, too.

When I visited Kissimmee in April, our group went to Lakefront Park our first evening. We started near the miniature lighthouse around the middle of the lakefront, not coming near Brinson Park. Our group saw 12 Limpkins, lots of baby gallinules, a very close Anhinga, and a most cooperative marsh rabbit. I didn’t learn anything new about my familiar old park except that there are some very nice restaurants nearby.

We didn’t return to Lake Tohopekaliga again during the trip, but on our last morning, we took a boat ride on East Lake Toho—a smaller separate lake I’d never been to before, with Toho Riverboat Adventures.

This was an extremely touristy activity, exactly the kind of thing I never consider when I’m planning days in Florida, but the owner and captain, Richard Lawrence (“Captain Stitch”) was charming, and he and his delightful first mate Haley set up some hokey but hilarious jokes—exactly the kind I enjoy.

Music played on the intercom the entire ride. I normally consider that a bug, not a feature, when I’m trying to hear birds, but all the selections were songs I like, the volume was just high enough to hear the music clearly without making conversation difficult, and birds weren’t singing anyway so the music did not detract from the birding experience. The “destination” of the cruise was a privately owned island where a small herd of goats wander about, again exactly the kind of thing I tend to avoid, but when we reached the landing and the goats walked right up to us, we could take handfuls of a healthy goat chow formulation to feed them—again, not at all a birding activity, but I absolutely loved it and couldn’t stop thinking how much my grandchild Walter would enjoy it.

The riverboat ride may have been, in every way, touristy, but it was also splendid for me as a monomaniacal birder. Why? On the boat are enough binoculars for anyone who wants them, and bird identification cards showing all the likely suspects. The captain doesn’t consider himself a birder, but he sure knew the birds on this lake. He pointed out Mottled Ducks—a dangerously declining Florida specialty often confused with Mallards.

And the riverboat took us through a marshy area where Snail Kites are so used to regular boat activity that they stayed put, watching us pass by.

The captain recognized them individually, knew where they nested, and made the ride slow and steady, allowing me to get a bazillion close-ups photos.

(Interestingly, we didn’t see a single Snail Kite on the VENT South Florida and the Keys birding trip. If I didn’t already have them on my life list, this touristy boat ride would have done the trick.)

(Pro Tip: Any time you find yourself on a ferry or a boat ride catering to fishermen, whale watchers, or general tourists, it’s a good idea to let someone on the crew know you’re a birder. Sometimes they won’t care or may even be dismissive, but surprisingly often, the captain or a crew member pays close attention to birds and will be happy to point out good species.)

When birders find themselves in central Florida to please their families, a walk in Kissimmee Lakefront Park can be a quiet, pleasant break from theme parks for everyone. And now I’m impatient to go back for a Toho Riverboat Adventure with Walter. I don’t know how much he’d appreciate Snail Kites and Limpkins, but I know he’d love “Captain Stitch” and would thrill at feeding those goats.