March 17 – 24th
It was a
relatively cool and wet week by Florida standards for the end of winter. Birding was generally confined to short
walks on those days when Mother Nature was a little less than perfectly
cooperatively, but we did manage to squeeze a couple of nice ventures into the
week’s schedule. The prime birding
was on Tuesday morning on our weekly walks with the Marine Discovery Center
here in New Smyrna. We recorded 44
species and noted a slow but steady influx of the migrant warblers into our
area. The prettiest of the bunch
is the Northern parula which was content to remain high in the canopy, often
within the cover of the Spanish moss.
Betrayed by its song, however, we’ve begun to find the bird on virtually
each and every outing….a sure sign of spring.
On Thursday, we spent the
afternoon on the St. John’s River, first at Blue Spring State Park in Orange
City and later at Hontoon Landing in DeLand. We floated along on the St. John’s via a pontoon boat out of
Blue Spring and found a nice variety of waders. Center stage was shared by an elusive Purple gallinule, an
equally shy Limpkin, and a nice young little blue heron still in the white plumage
of its first year. A second more
mature little blue was hesitant to share the limelight with the younger bird
and continually chased it off territory.
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| Purple gallinule |
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| Limpkin |
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| Juvenile Little blue heron |
While the birds are plentiful
here at the spring, the star of the show is the West Indian Manatee. The spring here at the State Park pumps
in millions of gallons of fresh water at a constant 72 degrees and the manatees
will congregate here to avoid the chilly and potentially lethal colder waters
of the main rivers during winter.
It was a nice calm day to witness the interactions of the young manatees
as they actually hugged some of the older and larger individuals. We’ve had a pretty bad winter for these mammals here in
Florida, especially on the west coast where red tide has led to the demise of
more than one hundred of this already numbered species.
After our visit
to the spring, we headed over to nearby Hontoon Island where our first
hummingbirds of the year normally are found. The marina is kind enough to set up a number of nectar
feeders which tend to attract a good number of these little beauties each
year. Sure enough, we were treated
to our first-of-the-year Ruby-throated hummingbirds just as we had hoped
for. Each year, more and more
vagrant species such as the Rufous have been showing up, so we are hopeful that
we might find some new hummers here before we head north at the end of ext
month.
Finally, this week we’ve been
seeing more and more Northern gannets in close to shore. These oceanic deep divers are usually associated with the
waters far off-shore, so to see them in so close to the beach is a real
treat. This bird was photographed
from the deck of our condo…..close enough for you?
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| Northern gannet from the deck of our condo..... |
Now that spring has officially
arrived, we hope to see more and more of our migrants on their way back to New
York and points north. We’ll keep
you abreast as to what shows up and when.
See you soon……
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