One more lifer

Just when you think the year is about over and your chances of seeing any new birds are dwindling... surprise! Life birds have such a peculiar habit of popping up when you least expect them.

On my way back from visiting relatives this week, I spotted a pair of Whooping Cranes in someone's yard! I was super excited -- this has been one of my nemesis birds that I've been wanting to see forever, and there's no reason I haven't been able to see one up until now; just birder's luck, I guess. 

Long overdue report

I realized today that I haven't actually posted any birding trip reports since January, and it may seem as if I shirked my rightful birding duties these past few months. But do no be fooled, reader, though I do apologize for my failure to keep up this blog regularly. 

This semester I actually managed to get in several good birding days, a few thanks to some new birding acquaintances I made at school. Unfortunately, since I'm so backlogged, I think pictures with short descriptions will have to suffice to recap the last 4 months. 

Ospreys are still nesting all over campus; this one has taken up residence over the baseball field and the garden. Several nests were successful this year, and the chicks should be fledging about now.

About a month or two ago, I got my lifer Red-breasted Merganser on a hike near the beach. There were two of them, floating around in the waves. Very exciting!

Also got my FOY Black-bellied Plover the same day, in the same area.

On another birding trip, I tagged along with a friend to a local suburban park. Although we never found the Virginia Rail we had come to look for, the park was bursting with birds in the early morning.

There were tons of Red-winged Blackbirds. This one wasn't at all afraid of us, but instead rather cantankerous and tried to chase us off the boardwalk.

Got some nice views of Woodstorks as well, foraging in the pond.

Loggerhead Shrike

*Yawn*

*Scratch*

By far, my favorite bird in the park was the Limpkin. There were 3 residents there at different ponds, which isn't something you see too often around here.

As we were leaving, my friend spotted a raptor up in one of the trees. It was pretty far away, but we managed to ID it as a Cooper's Hawk, another FOY for me.

During a few less-busy days at school, I got out to hike around the preserve areas on campus. Never saw anything out of the ordinary, although I was very excited to see this group of wading birds all foraging together at one of the ponds! I've never seen 3 different species hanging around so closely, but they seemed very content.

So now the school year is over, and I'm back home for about another week and a half before I fly out to my next adventure. Details to come, so stay tuned!

Birding year in review

A poem. 

Another year has come and gone,
So here we are again.
Looking back at all we saw
In the year two-thousand-ten [2010!].

It started with the locals:
Palm warblers and Sandhill Cranes
Halfway around the world in back,
The year ended with just the same.

49 lifers from 4 different countries
Left much to be desired,
But between rooks and redshanks, ravens and wrens,
The journey was awe-inspired!

From guillemots to grey wagtails,
Europe showed me some new birds.
Red-crested pochards and chaffinches
Left me at a loss for words!

With 27 species total,
From England, Ireland and Wales,
After four months abroad,
I returned to the US trails.

In the Golden State for a month,
I learned my Western species,
From bushtits to Brandt's cormorants,
To California towhees!

31 was my California total,
With 17 life birds in all,
My favorite was the pigeon guillemot,
And the Heerman's gull.

Finally back in the Sunshine State
For school to start again,
It was back to the usual species,
Like the Carolina Wren.

But on breaks I saw some year birds,
Like harriers and wood-pewees,
And then I got a whole bunch more
On the local CBCs.

An old barred owl was my last bird
For the year 2010,
With 164 birds in all,
The year finally came to an end.

But I beat my goal of 150,
So I'm happy as you can see!
Good wishes for birding in 2011,
Hope it's as great is it can be!


Happy new year to all!

Slow, hot summer

So far, my ambitious plans to go birding all summer have been foiled by this dreadful hot weather and the resulting lack of my own motivation. Yes, I know. Tragic on all accounts. By pure dumb luck though, I have managed to add a few more birds to my year list without even trying.

The first was a pair of Red-tailed Hawks I saw from the road last week. Surprisingly I hadn't seen any yet this year (or had failed to record it). More exciting for me, however, was my first-of-the-year Ruby-throated Hummingbird yesterday! I only saw it for a few moments, but it was just long enough to realize what I was looking at.

It hovered for a few moments around a bush of blue pentas, before zipping down to feed. In the time it took me to get from the window to the front door, however, it was gone. Too bad. I only rarely see hummingbirds where I live, so it's always a treat.

Well, that's about the highlight of my last 2 weeks. I'll try and get myself outside sometime soon, if not for my own sanity then for something more interesting to post about!

Until next time,

Happy birding!

End of one journey, beginning of another

The past few days kept me busy out in the field as I finished up my final research project for Field Ornithology. Given the short amount of time we were allowed to do our research, I chose to compare species diversity and abundance at one of our ponds in the morning vs. the afternoon.

It wasn't all that hard to do, and mainly entailed hiking around the pond twice a day to count birds and inevitably led to some good photo ops, including the above 3 pictures (Great Blue Heron, Anhinga, and Pine Warbler, respectively).

On Tuesday we took a field trip to another local nature preserve where I added a good number of birds to my year list.

Photo quiz! Can you tell what this little headless guy is?

Some of our findings included a Caspian Tern (somewhat rare for this area), Black-and-White, Palm, and Yellow-rumped Warblers, Green Heron, Red-winged Blackbird, Red-shouldered Hawk, and Belted Kingfisher among others.

For all the birds we saw, there seemed to be just as many aligators. The above one is just a baby -- take a look below!

Now THAT's an aligator.

Northern Mockingbird giving us a close look

And thus, my fabulous 3 weeks of Field Ornithology have come to a close. The final exam was today, along with our research project presentations which all went surprisingly well.

The lovely thing about the end of one adventure is that there is always another waiting just around the corner. My next one starts in 3 days when I head off to the UK. I'm not sure what is going to happen then, if I'll be able to keep up my blog, or if I'll even get to go birding. I'm bringing the binocs just in case, but I've heard so many different stories about peoples' experiences through the program I'm going on, I have no idea what to expect anymore.

We'll see what happens though! I'll definitely try to keep posting and give you the scoop on the birds of London whenever I can.

So until the next adventure,

Happy birding!

Christmas Bird Count time!

We started off as the early morning sun began to illuminate the overcast sky, three birders armed with binoculars and shivering slightly in the 48 degree dawn. The morning was kicked off spectacularly; as we opened the gate to the access road we would be covering in our route, a coyote stood in plain view right in front of us! Not a mammal you see too often down here, despite reports that their population is growing in the area.

On top of that, once we started hiking we came across a plethora of common warbler species.

"Yellow-rump!"

"Palm!"

"Pine!"

"Black-and-White!"

We called out, marking down the numbers. One of the members of our group had never done a CBC before, but the other member was quite experienced. I had never met either before, so it was fun to get to know them. Together, with our combined keen eyes and ears, we managed to find nearly a dozen species of birds right off the bat.

The first part of the trail was quite easy. It was little more than a wide access road with a few deep puddles that were easy to walk around. However, as we got deeper into the woods and turned off onto a less straight-forward route, the terrain got a little more difficult -- and wetter.

After about a mile of trekking, we found ourselves in the heart of the swamp. The deeply rutted trail had been transformed into a winding creek, identifiable only by the orange blaze markings on the trees and its distinct trail-like shape. Eventually, there was no dry ground in sight, and we had no choice but to get our feet wet.

It was cold. Oh boy, was it cold! And the further we walked, the deeper it got. We had also reached a "dead zone" of birds -- not a sound or a flutter of wings in the vicinity. Knee-deep in freezing cold swamp water, we sloshed along for a several hundred yards before finally reaching "dry" ground again. By now, "dry" was a relative term; the trail was soggy and squelchy, and most parts were flooded with a few inches of tea-colored swamp water.

We managed to add more birds the list. Titmice, robins, tons of catbirds, more warblers, and chickadees.

About half way through our route (about 2 miles in), we were nearly scared to death when the birder in front of me almost stepped on none other than an American Woodcock! It burst up from the palmettos peeping loudly and flew right over our heads, close enough to get a fantastic look at the strange creature. We were all ecstatic! It was a lifer for the other two birders, and a year- and state bird for me.

We hiked through about another half mile or so over water-logged trail. It was beginning to get shallower, which was quite the relief, because the air temperature had decidedly topped out at about 50 degrees for the day and we were all a little cold by now.

We stopped at one point to count a flock of butterbutts and titmice, when a different bird caught my eye. It was a vireo for sure, with distinct markings, but I couldn't come up with the name. One of the other birders whipped out a field guide and asked me what it looked like. There it was exactly: A Solitary Vireo! I felt a little silly for not having remembered the name, but then again, it was a lifer.

After that point, the trail was much drier. We headed out to the powerline corridor where we saw a bobcat (lifer mammal!) and a bunch of deer. We also heard some Eastern Towhees here and managed to find a Winter Wren in the marsh grasses.

We were almost on the home stretch by now, with about another mile to go. We still hadn't seen a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, one of the species we were expected to find in this area. The whole rest of the way we searched, but to no avail.

All in all, however, we found a grand total of 27 species. Not as big as the counts I did last year, but we managed to get some good birds (like the Woodcock) which count for something, at least in my book. :-)

It was a fantastic morning. 5 1/2 hours of hiking, about a mile of which was through the water. It was by far the coldest and wettest CBC I've ever been on, but definitely one of the most fun.

Until the next adventure,

Happy birding!

Traveler or Tourist?

“The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.” -G.K. Chesterton

I've had traveling on the mind a lot lately, as we've been planning our expedition to SD in August.

If there's one thing my family does well together, it's travel. My mother has become the connoisseur rough-itinerary-writer and trip-planner over the years, and my father, captain of the road and master of the GPS.

As for the kids, well, I guess you could say we're support crew. We tend to jump in wherever needed, help plan, navigate, and so on. Like all families we have our issues, but if I do say so myself, we are mighty good travelers. :-)

All of our trips have mishaps. My main memory of the our roadtrip in the Southwest is of being altitude sick. In CA, we got lost in the Sierra Nevadas on an empty tank of gas (by the time we found our way back to the highway, we literally rolled downhill all the way to the gas station).

I guess what's so great about traveling with my family is that even when we are lost, having disagreements, or don't know where we're going, we always manage to see some amazing things. Like the quote above, we see what we see, and not always what we've actually come to see.

The small amount of traveling I have done by myself has led me to an interesting conclusion. It seems that while it is easier to be a traveler by yourself, the experience is a thousand times more meaningful when you have someone with whom to share it.

With that food for thought, I have gone completely off-topic from birding. But not for long!

On Monday, at the local nature park, a Cooper's Hawk swooped down right in front of me, going after a lizard. It crashed into the tree (scaring me half to death!), clawed up and down for a second, and when it failed to grab the anole, it flew up to a branch.

I ripped open my camera bag and started taking pictures. It was backlit by early morning sunlight, but I managed to get a couple good shots before it let out a sharp call and flew away.

That makes year bird #105.

Until next time,

Happy birding!

A wild Greater Sandplover chase, part 2

This is Part II. If you haven't already done so, please read Part I first! :-)
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Dave, Wes, and Erik wanted to know what other birds I needed for my list. I didn't have it with me (nor was I prepared for their generous offer to help me find whatever birds I needed!), so we decided to go after a Painted Bunting, since there were supposed to be a lot of them in the area.

As we drove down a narrow little road towards an old plantation, we stopped in front of a house with a plethora of feeders around it. There were tons of peacocks in the yard, but no buntings as far as we could tell. As we were inspecting the feeders from a distance with our binoculars, the homeowner came out and invited us into his back yard.

He said he had tons of Painted Buntings and other species that visited his feeders, but they come and go randomly (as birds often do). We didn't find any at his house, but when he learned we had been over to see the Greater Sandplover, he gave us an article about it that had come out in his local newspaper. He also showed us all of his peacocks (there were probably 20 or more strutting around on his roof, his car, in the bushes, etc).

It's amazing the interesting people you meet when birding! Just in that one day, we met people from all over the state and the country, talked to complete strangers who had fascinating stories to tell, and were all more than willing to help us in whatever way they could.

After leaving the peacock house, we went to the end of the road and birded around the plantation (really cool place, I wish I'd had more time to explore!). We ran into another birder we had talked to back at Huguenot, and she said she had seen a Painted Bunting back along the road where we had come from.

We headed back to the location she indicated. We stopped at one point along the way, and observed an American Redstart feeded a baby Brown-headed Cowbird. (I felt kind of bad for the Redstart -- the cowbird most likely pushed her babies out of the nest, but she will instinctively go on feeding it until it grows up).

Finally, we pulled over one more time and Wes played a tape of a Painted Bunting call. After a good 5 or 10 minutes, the bird swooped down out of nowhere and started chattering irritably at us.If at all possible, I was even more excited for the bunting than I was for the Greater Sandplover!
It wasn't exactly a lifer (I saw Painted Buntings when I was really little), but it was exciting to see it again and really appreciate it this time.

Wes, Dave and Erik asked what other birds I needed, and I mentioned that I didn't have very many sparrows, so we decided to grab lunch and then find some pine forests in which to go look for a Bachman's Sparrow.

We went to a park called Haw's Creek, but it was overgrown with scrub and the wrong kind of habitat for sparrows. Plus, by now there were thunderstorms all around us and it was raining off and on, so we decided to take a quick break and then head back across the state. Before we left, we did manage to see a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird feeding on some trumpet vine flowers over the parking lot, which was a fun treat.

As we headed back west, we saw quite a few Swallowtail Kites flying over the road. When we drove under three of them together -- a juvenile and two adults -- we pulled over and Wes brought out his bird call tape.

The Kites doubled back and flew towards us, swooping in low and turning their heads inquisitively towards us to figure out what the sound was.

It was really cool to see them up close. They seem like very curious birds; after a while, two of them lost interest, but the third one hung around for a bit, still trying to figure us out.

In that one trip, I got 12 year birds, 7 lifers, and an unforgettable experience.

On the way back, driving through rain and thunderstorms, Wes and Dave told more tales about their birding adventures.

Once again, I am simply in awe of the incredible people I've met through birding. How amazing it is that three random folks who I don't even know would offer to take me across the state, show me new birds, and share their fantastic stories and wealth of knowledge.

I am infinitely grateful to Wes, Dave and Erik for taking me along on their great adventure, and putting up with my newbieness and ornithological ignorance. I am also indebted to my mom for getting up at 4am for me, tolerating my insanity, and supporting me in this wonderful journey. I can never thank you enough!

Until next time,

Happy birding!

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To see the rest of my photos from the trip, click here.

Morning birding

"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order." - John Burroughs

This morning my sister and I headed down to the local park for a hike and some birding. It was a little late -- around 9:15 or so, and quite damp and cloudy, but the woods were nonetheless alive with dozens of bird songs.

Our first encounter was a female Pine Warbler gathering palm fibers for her nest. Although she was only a few feet away, she was incredibly fast, and my camera refused to focus correctly. I played with the settings, and only managed to get a couple mediocre shots before she disappeared.
Further down the trail, we found a tiny juvenile ground skink. My sister caught it and we looked at it for a few minutes before letting it go again.

The lake was incredibly dry, despite the rain showers we've been getting lately, but it provided us with a good opportunity to get off trail and hike along the bank. Where there had once been water was now filled with a huge field of yellow flowers and wire grasses.

On the opposite side of the lake, we saw an incredibly pink Roseate Spoonbill land, so we decided to try and catch up to it. It took about a half hour to get close enough for the above photo (which is blurry, I know), before it flew off to the opposite side of the lake where we had just come from.
There was another, more intriguing bird that grabbed my attention though.

Three dark wading birds were foraging along the shore, some distance away from us. Glossy Ibises! I haven't seen one of these since 2007, and I've never seen one in FL before. They were extremely skittish, and I was unable to get up close, but the pictures are decent enough to confirm the ID.

I'm really excited -- the Glossy Ibis is year bird #90!

The total list from the short hike:

1. Pine Warbler
2. Fish Crow
3. Laughing Gull
4. Osprey
5. White Ibis
6. Glossy Ibis
7. Roseate Spoonbill
8. Cardinal
9. Great-crested Flycatcher
10. Northern Parula
11. Tufted Titmouse
12. Mourning Dove
13. Cattle Egret
14. Ruddy Turnstone
15. Tree Swallow

It's a relatively small list, but I don't really care. We had a lot of fun, and I saw a new year bird!

Until next time,

Happy birding!

Recent sightings

Despite being completely swamped with work over the last few weeks, I've managed to add a few more birds to my year list.

On April 21st, I observed my first-of-the-year Ruby-throated Hummingbird at around 8am, flying outside the window of the cafeteria. It was the last place I'd expect to see one, but I wonderful surprise nonetheless.

Five days later, I saw 5 Canada Geese fly over (they must have been quite lost!). And on May 1st, I saw my first Black-throated Blue Warbler in almost 2 years. The last one I saw was in Maine in 2007, so it also marked the first Black-throated Blue I've seen in my state.

And finally, on Sunday, coming back from a short boat ride out into the bay and back, I saw a Magnificent Frigatebird wheeling overhead a few hundred yards offshore.

These birds bring my meager year list up to 89 -- not bad for someone who never gets to go birding!

Well, hopefully that won't be the case for long, come next week after finals.

Happy birding!

after-Christmas Bird Count

"Birding, after all, is just a game. Going beyond that is what is important."- Roger Tory Peterson

I just spent the last 8 hours or so on my second Christmas Bird Count. This one was at a different park than the last one, but the procedure was more or less the same for the first few hours.

As the 5 of us in our group hiked out into an open field, the sun rose in a great burst of peach and orange rays off to our left. As it rose, the sky filled with a bubbly, chortling chorus of birdsong. Looking up, we observed a seemingly endless river of Tree Swallows flying south-west above us.

We counted them for what seemed like an eternity, and by the time they finally disappeared from sight, we had counted 409 of them. Not only did these count as year birds for my list, they were also lifers as well!

Further down the trail through the field, we stopped to try and identify some sparrows. This area was apparently known for its wide variety sparrow species, but the little birds proved impossible to ID, even by the experienced birder in our group.

After about an hour (perhaps a little less), we came to an area where there had been reports of an American Kestrel. Just as one of the birders was telling us this, I saw one land on top of a tree, and quickly pointed it out.

Kind of funny, I seem to be the one that has found the American Kestrel on both the CBCs I've attended so far. (Well, at least I'm good for something!)

Not far past the Kestrel, we found feathers from some kind of medium-sized black and white bird. Unfortunately, we weren't able to ID it, so we took some photos to look at them closer later on. I have a couple ideas of what it could be, but nothing I'm willing to bet on yet.

Hiking down another trail, we picked up some Eastern Towhees, a Swamp Sparrow (finally!!)Carolina and House Wrens, tons of Palm and Pine Warblers, Sandhill Cranes, and a few Tufted Titmice among other species.

At one point, we went along a bike path in search of a Brown-headed Nuthatch. I was especially eager to find this bird, as it would be another lifer for me. Just as we were nearing the very edge of our assigned CBC area, one of the birders spotted it. I got a brief, but sufficient look at the Nuthatch before it flew off.

Traveling around to different areas, we also picked up a Blue-headed Vireo, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Red-shouldered Hawks, a couple Ovenbirds, over 200 Robins, three different species of Woodpecker, and even heard a couple Barred Owls.

After lunch, we drove back to the education center where all the CBC groups were gathering to turn in their midday reports. Most seemed to be leaving by the time we got there, but there was still a significant number of birders milling about. The above picture is of a giant checklist taped to the wall of all the birds that had been seen that morning (I was really bummed out to find I my photo cut off the last panel of the checklist! :-().

The man in charge of this CBC was intent upon checking off every single bird, and was sending out groups to find certain target species. It was then that I realized how competitive this Audubon chapter was, and how they had managed to have allegedly gotten so many local records in the past.

After turning in our reports, we were getting ready to head out again, when a reporter for the local newspaper walked up to me and asked if I was "the college student."

Oh god, I thought, my heart sinking. I hate reporters. I did a lot of journalism in high school so I do have sympathy for them, but I hate being the interviewee.

After having to carefully spell out my name for him, he asked me various questions about how long I had been birding, how I got into it, my favorite birds had I seen today. At this last question, I was not feeling too happy about being interviewed, and I drew a complete blank.

"Nuthatches," I said off the top of my head, feeling myself blush. "Uh, Brown-headed... Nuthatches. And an American Kestrel. I like those."

Real smooth, I thought to myself. Just blurt something out.

The reporter and his photographer decided to follow our group for a little while, so we headed out around the education center. We didn't see much, and after about 15 minutes we came back out to the parking lot, at which point the journalists left claiming they had everything they needed. I guess we'll see -- I might be in the newspaper in a couple weeks! It'll be interesting to see what the article is like when it comes out.

After that little adventure, we birded for another couple hours. We found more Palm and Pine Warblers, like those in the picture above, and I and another birder even heard a Bald Eagle in the distance. One of our last birds we saw as we were heading out was another lifer for me -- a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.

Our final list count was 45 species, which I would say is a pretty good start for the year!

Until next time,

Happy birding!

Birding update

After a short hiatus from Project Feederwatch, I have begun collecting data again. I was surprised to find the significant increase in species this week than there had been just a couple weeks ago when we started the preliminary surveys. It is clear that migration is coming in full swing.

On Tuesday, when I was getting ready to leave after a couple hours of feederwatching, I looked behind me at the pond and saw a large, striped wading bird disappearing into the reeds.

Bittern! I thought immediately. I have never seen a Bittern before, but I remembered seeing pictures of them in my guide. I grabbed my backpack and camera, and clambered through the knee-high grass that grew on the bank, trying to ignore the large spiders that scuttled up their webs nearby.

There was another birder there as well, and she approached the reeds from the other side. We heard a crashing about, and all of the sudden the bird launched itself to the top of the reeds and froze in a strange position with its wing outstretched. (We figured out that the bird was playing dead, after a few moments of inspection)

It was a Bittern! An American Bittern, to be exact. I snapped bunch of pictures, and then felt guilty for scaring it, so we left it alone.

On Friday, I had another close encounter with a large bird. It was 7:30am and I was having breakfast in the common room of my dorm. I was sitting by the window (watching birds, of course), when I noticed a large avian flying towards the window.

Its wingspan was big enough to be a Great Blue Heron, but it had a short neck. As it got closer, closer, closer -- so close I held my breath, sure it was going to smack into the window -- I realized it was a Bald Eagle!

The bird was less than 10 feet away outside the window when it pulled up and soared right over the building, right in front of me. I have never seen a wild Bald Eagle so close before, much less watched in flight -- at eye level.

Well, needless to say, it was a good week for birding. I saw a couple year birds, a life bird (the Bittern) and a spectacular view of a Bald Eagle.

I'll post pictures later.

Happy birding!

Night [wild]Life

No college experience is complete without a night out on the town. Yesterday evening a bunch of us hopped on the bus and spent a few hours amidst the luminous glare of streetlights and the alien environment of the waterfront metropolis.

If you read this blog often, you'll know I'm not much of an urbanite; I prefer solitude and wilderness to the overpowering stimulous of the city. However, I am also an adventurer, and willing to embrace new experiences, even if they are not particularly my cup of tea.


After dinner, we decided to walk down to the pier, a touristy, waterfront area with a building full of shops at the end. As it was nighttime, the streets were populated by a wide diversity of people, from fishermen to hippies to hobos to couples to other groups of college kids.

Had I not been with a large group of friends, the setting would have been quite uninviting. But as it were, and perhaps because of my anthropological interests, the environment and the people we encountered were fascinating.

On the walk back from the pier, I heard someone say, "Oh look, a bird! Andrea, what is it?" As I made my way to the front of the group, I saw what they were pointing to: a Black-crowned Night Heron! Another year bird for my list.

Everyone waited patiently while I snapped pictures of the bird, and some even asked a couple questions about it, for which I did my best to answer. It was a really exciting find, and not one I would have expected to see, walking down the pier at 11 o'clock at night. But I shouldn't be surprised. It IS a night heron!

Happy birding

Nesting Seabirds!

Yesterday my class went on a field trip with two professors who are working on a project to protect the local nesting seabirds on the beach. Needless to say, I was ecstatic.

After a short hike across the sugar sand, we came across flocks of hundreds of birds. Black Skimmers, Wilson's Plovers, Black-bellied Plovers, Marbled Godwits and Least Terns swarmed the beach. I had never seen so many birds of different species grouped together such as they were.


The professors led us out to a tidal pool of knee-deep water so we could get closer to the colonies. The whole time, I was simply amazed at what I was seeing. Four of the species I saw in the first few minutes were life birds!
How many different species can you see in the above picture?

Above is a black-bellied plover sitting near a tidal pool with several different species of birds in the background.
I had never seen a godwit before yesterday (even though they're supposed to be fairly common around here) so I was really excited to see groups of them clustered around on the beach.


Tons of birds! According to the professors, there are only 5 species that nest on the beaches in our county, a couple of which are endangered or threatened.

I have seen pictures of Black Skimmers lying on the ground before, but it was still startling to come upon a colony of them laying there looking dead! I learned that there are approximately 2,000 breeding pairs of Black Skimmers in FL.



I just thought this was a cool picture, with the lighthouse in the background... :-)

Other things I learned:

• There are 216 pairs of Snowy Plover in FL
• 400 pairs of oystercatchers
• 12,000 pairs of Least Terns in the country
• And 500 pairs of Wilson's Plover in Florida

(I believe I have got all this data right; if you see any inaccuracies, please let me know. My notes are not always very legible...)

My bird list for the day:

1. Black Skimmer
2. American Oystercatcher
3. Wilson's Plover
4. Red Knot
5. Ruddy Turnstone
6. Willet
7. Marbled Godwit
8. Laughing Gull
9. Least Tern
10. Royal Tern
11. Osprey
12. Black-bellied Plover
13. Monk Parakeet
14. Mockingbird
15. Mourning Dove

It was an amazing trip. I am definitely going to try and get involved in some sort of bird project while I'm here in college and I want to check out that beach again sometime to see what other species are out there.

Happy birding!