Valentine's Day

  
  What better way to treat your wife than to take her out birding on Valentine's Day?  We had reports of a Common Eider being seen on several days at the Jetty Park near Port Canaveral.  While we did not need the bird for a year bird, we had never seen one here in Florida.  Indeed, they are quite a rarity and were being sought after as a state bird by many of the locals.  When we arrived at the park, we began our search by scanning the sides of the jetty where the duck had last been seen.  Alas, plenty of gulls and terns, hundreds of Brown pelicans, scores of egrets and herons, but nary an eider.  Walking out to the end of the fishing pier, we ran into several other birders who reported similar results for their efforts.  What we did find, however, were many Northern gannets plunging into the surf and into the quieter waters within the jetty.  The weather today was the calmest its been in over a week, and the gannets were taking advantage of the calmer and clearer waters.  One nearby gannet was lucky enough to nail an eel as we watched on.  After photographing the gannets doing their thing, we resumed our quest for the target bird.  We did find a Common loon which turned out to be the find of the day.  A number of birders reported that this was their "year loon" and if we couldn't get the eider, this was the next best thing.  To us folks from the northeast, however, we found the gannets much more intriguing.  Along with the Eurasian collared doves we spotted on our way out of the park, these birds made the trip all worth our efforts in spite of getting skunked by the eider. 

Bobcat and White-faced ibis

     Well, it's been quite a week.  It began with a phone call from good friends who rent a condo about a quarter of a mile south of us.  They had seen three wild cats, one considerably bigger than the others, in a field opposite their unit and wanted me to know about this rare photo-op.  The bad news was, we were all the way down in Merritt Island, and it would take us about an hour to get back up to the site of the cats.  Hoping for what could be a once in a lifetime opportunity, we headed north and made the return trip in close to record time.  As we neared the site, we called friend Jack who said he had just seen the cats again and to get over to his place ASAP.  We arrived just after he had seen the larger of the cats.  We did get a view of a distant cat which emerged from the woodlands and came out for a late afternoon session of posing for the camera.  We pushed the ISO to the limit and managed to get a couple of passable photos.  This cat was identified as a bobcat once we could get a closer look at the photos.  We decided to try again in the morning for a look at the larger cat or at least another shot of this one. 

       In the morning, we took the short drive down to the field.  Not seeing any sign of either cat, we walked out into the field and were headed around a very large pile of construction debris when around the corner, from the opposite direction, came the bobcat!  We stared at one another while I fumbled with the camera and managed to get several close up shots before he bolted for the woodlands edge.  What a sight!  The question of the id of the larger cat is still up in the air until we get a better shot.  Until then, we assume bobcat.

      Later in the week, we ventured out to Orlando Wetlands following reports of a rare White-faced ibis.  We followed the excellent directions and found the bird just as promised.  Although not in breeding plumage yer the red iris was hard to miss and we got excellent shots of this life-bird.  All in all, this has been a great start ot our winter in Florida.  More to come......

Florida Masked duck

     Well, we are back in the Sunshine state and while it is not exactly totally sunny, we are getting periods of good light for photography and general viewing of the southern birds.  For several weeks prior to our coming down to Florida, I've been following reports of a pretty rare bird not too far from where we spend out winters  The bird is the Masked duck, and although it is generally a tropical bird, it does make an occasional venture into south Texas and Florida.  When we arrive in Florida for the season, we normally spend the first day at Merritt Island....kind of a tradition with us for the past 9 years.  But the Masked duck was cause to change the paradigm and go chasing birds once again.

      When we arrived at the site, Viera Wetlands, we were greeted by a compliment of birders from the Space Coast Birding Festival which was held at Brevard Community College this past weekend.  They had positve reports regarding the duck and once we felt confident we knew the whereabouts of this rarity, we hopped in the car and headed out onto the dikes of the impoundments.  We found a group of 5 or 6 folks with scopes trained out onto the shallow body of water  and they immediately put us on the bird.  Normally, Masked ducks are tough to see because they like to honker down in the thicker weeds.  Florida got hit with some abnormally cold weather the past couple of weeks, however, and the weeds were knocked way down.  Hence, we had little trouble finding and following the little guy around the pond.  As we watched and photographed the duck, another "skulker", the Limpkin, happened by and flew right in front of me.  Since I was already making images of the duck, it was simply a matter of pointing the camera in a slightly different direction to get a nice shot of this Florida specialty.  Along with hundreds of black and turkey vultures which had descended upon a nearby pond which had suffered a major fish kill due to the freezing temps, we had around 40 other species including plenty of ducks, a nice American bittern, anhingas, herons and so on.  But the catch of the day was certainly the elusive Masked duck with a little dash of Limpkin on the side.