Wading Flurry

While staying near Cape Canaveral we desperately wanted to check out Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. After reading and hearing a lot about what was apparently one of the top birding locations in Florida, we wanted to see if it lived up to the hype...and it sure did. The refuge was created when unused land adjacent to NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center was set aside for conservation purposes. One of its top attractions is a scenic wildlife driving tour called Black Point Drive which follows a winding road through various wetland habitats and impoundments and offers periodic interpretive stops along the way which are explained in an informative pamphlet that is available at the beginning of the tour.

By the time we started our tour it was mid-morning and already fairly busy. I was initially worried that we would be holding up the traffic since we like to take our sweet time when it comes to birding. But, it turned out the road was wide enough to allow passing and most of the other tour-goers were actually equally bird-crazy.

A  male (right) and female (left) northern pintail.

It wasn't long before we came across some interesting avian action. A large mixed-species flotilla of ducks and coots occupied a small lake which the road crosses, providing some good close-up views. A large proportion of these were northern pintails but also mixed in were northern shovelers, blue-winged teals, lesser scaups and a few pied-billed grebes.

 Soon after we came upon a small convoy of vehicles that had pulled over on the side of the road. Wondering what all the commotion was about, we parked and wandered over and were greeted by the striking sight of roseate spoonbills and white ibises foraging in the water only a few meters from the road. Roseate spoonbills truly are odd birds with their mismatched appearance which combines beautiful scarlet plumes, a scaly and downright dinosaurian head and an oversized spoon of a bill, a strange but highly effective foraging adaptation. 

The birds in this small group took off one by one after a few minutes and led us to the real feast just a few hundred metres down the road. 

Here we discovered a sizeable congregation of herons, egrets, ibises and spoonbills eagerly gobbling up whatever juicy tidbits lay below the water's surface. It was a frantic flurry of white feathers interspersed with the pink and scarlet colours of the spoonbills, the navy blues of tricoloured and little blue herons and the dark shimmer of glossy ibises.

A male hooded maerganser cruised around trying to get in on the action.

We (and a few other birders) observed and photographed this mesmerizing event for nearly half an hour before we managed to tear ourselves away. 

We were surprised by a sora while watching from a viewing platform at the end of a short trail.

One of the stops about halfway through the drive provides access to a hiking trail that meanders through the wetland. Unfortunately we didn't have time for what would surely have been a long diversion. 

 Continuing along the 7-mile drive in a more hurried fashion (we had a lot of the wildlife refuge left to see and only a few hours) we arrived at another crowd of foraging waders. Here we observed several snowy egrets attempting to catch fish in flight, a strategy that leaves the normally composed and elegant birds looking clumsy and disheveled. 

The dark glossy ibises sorely stand out amongst their predominantly white neighbours.

On a nearby lake swam a small armada of American white pelicans and further back a flock of over 20 little blue herons waded  all together in one spot. We even caught a glimpse of three wild boars scampering through the grasses and into tree cover on the opposite shore of a small pond. All in all it was an exciting tour. 

Afterwards we continued on to explore more of the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge which produced other encounters that I will talk about in my next post.

Beach Birds

While camping in Oak Hill we took a day to enjoy the Canaveral National Seashore, a national park just south of the bustling New Smyrna Beach. By paying a lowly $5 entry fee, you can access natural, pristine beaches that are surprisingly empty of human traffic. Consisting of a barrier island flanked on one side by the open Atlantic Ocean and the other by Mosquito Lagoon, this park has one of the largest remaining undeveloped shorelines along the eastern coast of Florida. There are 5 seperate beach access points to Apollo Beach along with a visitor centre, boat launches and fishing docks and a couple of short trails. 

The (somewhat) cold water and rough conditions ruled out any swimming but the weather was absolutely gorgeous. An abundance of interesting seashells on the beach also makes for some good shelling.

After settling into a nice spot on the beach, we soon became aware of the fast-paced shorebird activity all around us. 

Sanderlings and ruddy turnstones scurried back and forth at lazer-like speeds, chasing the waves and sometimes, if one was seen with a particularly interesting morsel of food, each other. 

The turnstones even approached us very closely, coming within arm's reach before scrambling on. We figured they had been habituated to humuan presence as a result of feeding and, true enough, later we observed a large group of them swarming a fishermen as he discarded fish and shrimp scraps.

The speed at which the sanderlings chased the waves back and forth on their little legs was especially incomprehensible.

Elegant willets also graced the shoreline and with their larger size, they seemed less concerned about escaping the power of the surf with each incoming wave. While walking along the beach we came upon a small group of them feeding in the waves and moving about in near synchronization.

Further out, brown pelicans casually surfed the tumbling waves and northern gannets dove into the ocean from high above.

After leaving the beach we stopped at Turtle Mound, an ancient shell midden created by the Timucuan natives which is crested by a short boardwalk  At the beginning of the boardwalk, on the shore of Mosquito Lagoon, we were excited to spot two pairs of mating horeshoe crabs! We were in awe at seeing them for the first time but for fear of disturbing them, we quickly moved on.

The boardwalk passes through some dense and interesting vegetation until ascending up through the low canopy to the top of the mound. The flatforms at the top offer stunning views of the barrier island.

Marsh Quarrels

We camped at a small private RV Park in Oak Hill, FL with a great site overlooking Mosquito Lagoon last week. While there we had the chance to do some birding at a nearby roadside marsh. There's even a small pier into the marsh there that provides a great viewpoint of all ongoings. We arrived early in the morning and had settled into watching the quiet great blue heron and pair of ospreys perched nearby when to our delight, two sandhill cranes landed in front of us and began foraging. Sandhill cranes may not be the rarest of birds but they are magnificent in every sighting and demand attention with their elegant plumage and monumental stature.

They actively foraged for a while until, upon encroaching on the nearby stationary heron, suddenly becoming confrontational. I was lucky enough to get both pictures and videos of the event. The heron seemd unperturbed at first until the cranes came close enough to cause alarm and suddenly it turned and took off, squacking loudly in discontent. While I like to think a great blue heron would be more than a match for a sandhill crane in (imaginary) combat, I suppose it would have a hard time against two...

 

Not long after we had another suprise when a hen-sized bird suddenly sprang out of the mangroves directly in front of the pier to the opposite side of the narrow channel. Upon getting a better look as it foraged along the bank for a few moments before disappearing into the vegetation again we determined it to be a clapper rail, the so called "marsh hen". Though clapper rails are fairly common, like most rails, they are not often seen and this one was certainly a lifer for us.

Eventually things quieted down as the sun rose higher in the sky. As the cranes busied themselves preening, we moved on to look for birds elsewhere.

Manatees in Blue Spring

Florida and Longnose gar inhabit the spring run.

In the mysteriously beautiful yet completely accessible (it’s literally adjacent to Orange City) Blue Spring State Park, Florida, where majestic live oaks draped in spanish moss hang over the stream bank, manatees and alligators coexist in crystal clear spring waters, along with a plethora of fish, turtles and birds. The manatees spend cold nights during the winter months in the warm spring (the water is 73 degrees F year-round) while venturing into the St. Johns River to forage during the day. Up to 200 manatees have been recorded in the tiny spring run during the coldest nights. They are all monitored closely for the park’s research and conservation programs. Of course we visited on a rather warm couple of days so there were only a few manatees out and about. Nonetheless, they are a special sight and with a board walk that proceeds along the spring run (with intermittent viewing platforms) and water that’s about as clear as water can be, Blue Spring is a great place to see them. The platforms give you a personal close-up view of the action from schools of giant gars and tarpons, nesting tilapias and fishing anhingas, to lazy turtles, gliding gators and of course, frolicking manatees. The proximity of the wildlife also provides for great photo opportunities.

We were lucky enough to watch a mother and calf and see a group of 5 manatees swimming together and flopping lazily about. There are some pretty big alligators here too and, according to one of the park’s interpreters, they sometimes endure taunting from the younger more playful manatees.

During the summer (Apr-Oct) when the manatees are away you can go swimming and snorkeling in the spring and get really close to the rest of the wildlife. You can even go scuba diving and observe the unique spring geology. However, swim with the alligators at your own peril.

Manatees and alligators side-by-side

While I don’t usually plan to do ‘reviews’ of parks on this blog, this place is just too awesome to ignore. It has a full-facility campground, a camp store, souvenir shop and concession. You can rent kayaks and take boat tours of the St. Johns River and there’s a 4 mile (one way) hiking trail that traverses some interesting scrub-pine habitat. There’s even a manatee festival which we unfortunately missed by one day. All in all this is a fantastic place for anyone to visit. I thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it!

http://www.floridastateparks.org/bluespring/