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| American Flamingo at Bunche Beach Park |
Checking
out my notes from last January 2015 I discovered quite a number of 80 degree days. Not the same situation this year: low 70’s at best with most days in the 60’s
plus lots of rain and a number of serious storms with tornado activity. In the last two weeks there were at least two
tornadoes touching down fairly close to our condo but no direct hits. In fact one night Susan and I slept through a
cell phone tornado alert and only the next day discovered many folks in our
community spent part of the night huddled in their closets as per the direction
of the National Weather Service. Luckily
we dodged a bullet! Still the weather
failed to stop us in our jobs as real life beach combers and naturalists.
Generally the day would start slowly with
breakfast and the crossword puzzle (unfortunately I just read that working on
these puzzles does not prevent senility). After packing our lunches and loading up the car we were usually off to
some beach for exploration. One benefit
of all the storm activity is the profuse animal and plant deposits left behind
on the beaches. On a visit to South
Beach on Marco Island we found thousands of Florida Fighting Conchs almost all
of them still alive washed up on the beaches and jetties.
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| Florida Fighting Conch |
Like a flashback from a year earlier we
discovered the same large numbers of Black Skimmers and Royal Terns along with small
numbers of Sandwich and Forster’s Terns in the same area of beach.
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| Royal and Sandwich Tern |
New this year was a very tame Brown Pelican
and an Osprey devouring a striped bass only a few feet from us passer byes.
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| Gary and his trained Osprey |
A Magnificent Frigatebird briefly soared
overhead but there was no Peregrine Falcon (a usual sighting on past
visits). From here we hiked up to the
more northern part of the beach, Tigertail Beach. Here I was treated to some of the same birds
that were lifers for me last year including Snowy and Wilson’s Plovers in
addition to Black-bellied and Semipalmated Plovers, Dunlins, Western Sandpipers
and Short-billed Dowitchers.
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| Snowy Plover - notice the black bill |
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| Wilson's Plover - notice large bulky bill |
Another
morning we visited Delnor-Wiggins Park following a different storm. On entering the beach we discovered a large
pile of Nine-armed Starfish in a spot we were clearing for our beach chairs. Initially, I assumed some folks had collected
them earlier and just left them behind rather than drag the bounty home and
have it smell up their car. As we
started exploring the beach however, we discovered hundreds of the spiny-bodied
creatures covering the entire beach!
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| Susan debating rather to use this starfish as a Ninja weapon |
We also got to witness a life and death struggle between a Sheepshead (a
rather attractive bait fish) and a Brown Pelican. Good for the Pelican but not so great for the
unfortunate fish. The bird struggled for
at least 10 minutes attempting to get the fish properly positioned in his pouch
to allow passage down his throat which ultimately he succeeded in
accomplishing.
On days
that were not so great for beach exploration we would trek over to one of my
favorite birding hotspots: Eagle Lakes
Park. This wonderful suburban park with
its ponds, lush vegetation and great walking paths is just 15 minutes from our
abode. My wife’s son gave us both Fitbits
for Christmas and we try to put them to good use daily. I am not sure how the device works but it
logs our steps and translates them into miles and calories burned. Hoping to reach the hundred year milestone we
are attempting to cover 4 to 5 miles per day.
I had
previously reported on a retired ornithologist who frequented the park and kept
tabs on the local Loggerhead Shrike population. I have not yet run into him
this season but I have seen at least one Shrike with a leg band which is far
short of the usual 4 or 5 birds seen in past years.
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| Banded Loggerhead Shrike - short bill and broad mask |
On our first visit to the park we saw a pair
of Limpkins and a pair of Roseate Spoonbills.
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| Roseate Spoonbills |
A Caspian Tern was regularly seen fishing at the largest of the three
ponds. The usual assortment of birds
were present including Storks, Osprey,
Coots, Common Gallinules, Red Shouldered
Hawks, Peregrine Falcon, Anhingas,
Double Crested Cormorants, Wilson’s
Snipe, Least and Solitary Sandpipers, Lesser Yellowlegs, Snowy, Cattle
and Great Egrets, Tri-colored, Green, Little Blue and Great Blue Herons, Palm and
Yellow-rumped Warblers and Blue-Grey Gnatcatchers.
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| Gary goes snipe hunting - Wilson's Snipe |
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| Solitary Sandpiper |
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A
surprise lifer for me was an American Flamingo at the San Carlos Preserve in
Fort Meyers. Al Guarente sent me an
e-mail alerting me to this magnificent bird which Susan quickly discovered just
a block off the beach. Always the
entrepreneur Susan tried to recoup our gas expenses by charging the numerous
passing gawkers a dollar to check out the bird through our spotting scope!
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| Add caption |
To date we sought unsuccessfully to locate two
target birds: a Western Spindalis and
Spot-breasted Oriole in southeastern Florida. We made two trips to Markham Park
in Sunrise without seeing either bird but did get some nice looks at a female
Painted Bunting and quick looks at a flock of Monk Parakeets.
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| Painted Bunting |
We still have time to revisit the area and
hope to return. I’m writing this during
a torrential rainstorm. Hopefully it will bring in a few birds. The adventure continues….
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| The one that got away _Western Spindalis |
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| The other escapee - Spot-breasted Oriole |
