Day 69: March 9th – Marine Science Center, Ponce Inlet

Warm but threatening, occasional sprinkles

       Our good friend John who is staying at a nearby unit in our condo was walking the beach yesterday afternoon when he came upon a young Common loon in distress.  These birds are elegant swimmers and rarely leave the water.  This loon was on dry land on the beach and obviously hurting.  John lives in the North Country of New York State where he regularly has loons swimming in front of his home.  He felt that he just had to help this creature and went about its capture.  Loons have a lot of trouble maneuvering on land and John had little trouble in cornering it.  As for picking up the wounded bird, the loon had other thoughts about that. 

        Several minutes later as well as several bleeding bite marks later, John had to loon under his arm.  He called me for advice, but I was out on another birding venture quite some distance from New Smyrna and could only tell him to try to get the bird to the Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet.  The Center is renown for its work in rehabilitating birds and if this bird had a chance, the Center was the place to go.  John flagged down a beach clean-up vehicle and got back to our unit, bird in tow.  After discussing how to get the bird over to Ponce Inlet with the management here at the condo, the Beach Patrol was called in to take possession of the bird and bring it over to the rehab center.  Kudos to John for  giving it his all to help out this loon. 

       We travelled over to the MSC to see if we could find out how the bird ventured over the night.  We were saddened to hear that the young loon had succumbed, apparently suffering from a wound as well as malnutrition.  They had managed to get the bird hydrated and nourished him, but the bird simply was too far gone and didn’t make it through the night. 

Snowy egret

        While at the MSC, we did find several new species of lizards to add to our list, the Ground skink and Eastern Fence Lizard.  On the jetty, we had plenty of turnstones, a gorgeous Snowy egret coming in for a landing and the omnipresent Red-breasted merganser.  Still, at the end of the day, we were truly disappointed to learn of the outcome of John’s efforts.  Still, the bird managed to have a peaceful end to its life rather than starving and being preyed upon by scavengers, so we found solice in knowing that John’s efforts had saved the bird from a much worse fate.