Day 38: February 7th - Stalk 'em or Wait 'em out?

Cloudy, breezy, mild with temps in the mid 60's

A Dark and Dreary morning on the Indian River Lagoon

     It’s Tuesday morning and that means heading over to Indian River Lagoon Preserve where we join others for our Marine Discovery Center’s Tuesday birding walks with leader Don.  The weather is cloudy and there is a threat of rain, but we know we’re never too far from the cars and we are only 5 minutes from home.  So, there is no reason not to go!  We are joined by birding friends from New York and Alaska, so the trip is a must. 

      We always begin with a short walk around the loop through the park.  You never can be sure of what you’ll find at the park.  Some days, this short walk is super productive, and on other days, the birds don’t wish to cooperate.  Today, there is no reason for the birds to be up and about since the sun has not warmed the vegetation enough to get the insects moving.  We do manage to hear more birds than we see, many of which we hear in the parking lot.  Our major visual sightings are a Gray catbird, a Yellow-rumped warbler and a nice Carolina wren singing its little heart out. 

      As is the norm, we head down to the dock on the Indian River for the second half of our outing.  Here, it’s a case of set up the scopes and wait for the birds to come to us.  Fellow Mearns Bird Club member Alan, who is staying down in the same condo complex as us for the next two months makes a great sighting as soon as we reach the dock.  He has a Greater scaup and two Ruddy ducks in the same field of view at the same time.  While non-birders won’t find this all that exciting, the point is that we’ve been conducting these walks for four years now and Don believes that this is the first time we’ve had Ruddies!  That makes it a really neat sighting.  All in all, we end up with 31 species for the day and many of those were found by hanging out on the dock in one place and letting the birds come to us.  Not all days are the same, and the next time around, we may find more birds by trekking through the woods.  But for today, it’s better to sit and wait ‘em out.

Brown pelicans on the lagoon