2013: Week 4 – Florida specialties

       We arrived down in New Smyrna Beach on Sunday night and wasted no time in getting out into the field in search of those birds we always expect to find in Florida.  Our first day at Merritt Island was everything we hoped for with the exception of one miss…..a Cinnamon teal reported to be on one of the ponds.  We and many others (including Greg Miller of The Big Year fame!) searched for that bird in vain.  (On a sad note, the Cinnamon teal did appear later in the week....at the waterfowl hunters check out station!)  We did manage to find a huge flock of American wigeons with a pair of adult male Eurasians mixed in, so that was not a bad consolation prize.

       Early on our first loop around, we found a small pond which must have had some concentration of bait fish as the birds were jammed in shoulder to shoulder to take advantage of the feast.  Truly, it was a great sight to see the Great egret, snowies, tri-colors, little blues and white ibises all together within the frame of the camera.  With such close quarters, there was bound to be a bit of irritability displayed among the individuals of the gathering and this Snowy and Tri-color did get into it a bit until they both decided to go on about their business and enjoy the banquet.  Gotta love the sunshine state.

       Later, over at the Visitor’s Center, we found the Painted bunting we had been hoping for on the feeders.  In truth, we had really hoped for the male, but it was only the female, also a beautiful bird, that made an appearance…..one more check off the 2013 Year list.

        For whatever reason, it seemed to both of us that we don’t get to see the Reddish egret until later in the season.  But, here they were.  Good numbers of them and just as entertaining as ever.  You certainly hope that the bird gets a good bite to eat on each hunting maneuver because few birds work as hard as the reddish to nail that one fish.  Dancing, bouncing, hooding, and finally striking all make for a lot of effort, but who knows?  Maybe the bird really enjoys this sport!

       Another of the Florida specialties we found with little effort was the Florida scrub jay.  These birds as always reliable and if you know where to look, you can be sure to find them.  One of our favorite locations is by the Ranger station at the southern entrance to Canaveral National Seashore.  As promised, here they were.  Four of the family members showed up and proudly posed for us as we walked around the property.  Florida birding at its best….and easiest.

       This was the week of the Space Coast Birding Festival and we found it took a bit of work on the part of my Enrichment Activities Planner (aka Sharon) to get in all the birding we wished to do on our own along with the planned workshops and trips of the festival.  Thursday, we had a day off until the keynote speaker of the evening, so we journeyed south to Viera Wetlands in the hopes of getting our first of the year limpkins and Caracaras among others.

        (Later that week....) Well, we did get those Caracaras, but not until we were exiting the park!  We had all but given up hope of finding these “handsome” birds, but as we drove out the gate, a beautiful specimen flew right in front of the RAV and landed in plain sight on top of a pine.  Posing for the ideal shot in ideal lighting made for the perfect end to a wonderful day. 

       Previously that same day, we got our Barred owl (see video below), actually a pair of them, perched out in broad daylight at a location where two of our birding buddies had previously found them earlier this week.  It is not all that rare to find these birds out in the middle of the day in Florida.  Everything is just so much more relaxed down here….for us and for the birds!  We followed these owls up with a Great horned at Lake Apopka on Saturday. 

       The trip to Apopka also yielded several nice finds for year birds in the form of a Say’s phoebe, Western kingbird, and Ash-throated flycatcher.   All-in-all, it’s been a great start to 2013 with 150 birds on the Year list with three days and a pelagic trip yet to go.  I’ll report on the pelagic on the Week 5 blog.  Till then…..