Day 45: February 14 - Indian River Lagoon Preserve - The eye of the beholder

Sunny, breezy and getting warmer!

       Once again, it’s back to the Indian River Lagoon Preserve as we continue our Tuesday morning walks for the Marine Discovery Center.  We started out the morning with a rather sparse crowd of 5.  Don, leader of the pack, suggested that this might be a good day to go for our year high since fewer people means moving along faster.  We begin in the parking lot of the site as we always do and picked up several standards….Yellow-rump warblers, Northern cardinals, and Mockingbirds.  A “walk-on” joined our group, swelling the number to 6, and mentioned that as she had walked by the pond just outside the gate to the preserve, she had seen an Anhinga.  We all took the short jaunt over to the area and checked this bird out for ourselves.  As we walked by the trees along the entrance road, Don heard a call of a mimic…..this one making two repetitions of each mimicked song each time it sang.  Birders know that the three birds in the group known as mimics each has its own set number of repetitions.  One “lyric” each means the bird is a Gray catbird.  Three times for each different set of notes is a Northern mockingbird.  But this bird was one we had not seen nor heard since we began our Year-list.  It repeated each phrase twice before moving on to the next.  That could mean only one thing…..a Brown thrasher! 

Brown thrasher 

       Don played a call of the thrasher for a total of 5 seconds, and in the bird flew right to the top of a tree in great light and in plain view.  It called to us for several minutes as we observed and photographed the bird.  Extraordinary?  Well, hardly.  But when it’s a FOY (first of the year) bird, it becomes special.

Another mimic- the Northern mockingbird

Northern cardinal

       

       We ended the day with a total of 34 birds, not bad for a 2 ½ hour session in a small localized setting.  The Brown thrasher was indeed the only “new” bird for the year.  But what we did have were really nice views of some of our more common species.  The lighting was so good and the birds were so cooperative, I decided to include several images of these “usual” finds.  We often take many of these birds for granted, but when you really take the time to observe them closely, you realize how unique each species is and how beautiful each creature is in and of itself.  

Mourning dove