Winter 2008 Week 2

In the morning we checked out the computer and DVD player in the classroom we will be using then watched a presentation on the butterflies of South Florida. It is amazing how selecting exactly the right plants can attract large numbers of butterflies. We were on next and our presentation went well with a few rough edges that will smooth out as we do it more often. This was the first year they have had a Friday session of this festival and the crowds were small. We had eight people in our session, most of whom were already volunteers looking for other opportunities. Later in the afternoon we attended presentations about Short Tailed Hawks and Florida Panthers. They were interesting and thought provoking. The principle key to survival of these and so many other species is habitat protection and restoration. In the evening we saw the keynote speaker, Scott Weidensaul. He had intended to talk about his new book but due to technical difficulties this was impossible so he gave a presentation on his book, Return to Wild America. Although we had seen him give the same presentation last year, it was still wonderful and we enjoyed it a lot.

We were up at 5:30 to go on one of the festival birding trips to 10,000 Islands. It was a great trip led by two refuge rangers. We hiked over a mile into the mangrove scrub on a road built so they could drill for oil in the 70’s. Fortunately for us and the birds, they didn’t find enough to make a producing well. The early morning fog burned off and it was sunny and hot as the morning wore on. The sky was full of wood storks, white and glossy ibis, brown and American white pelicans and magnificent roseate spoonbills Out on the mud flats were an assortment of shorebirds including greater and lesser yellowlegs, least sandpiper, dunlin, black bellied plover and killdeer. The two “rarities” for the trip were a short tailed hawk (a life bird for us and one of fewer than 200 in the US) and a Canada goose. A rare Canada goose you ask! Well, it turns out this bird might never before have been seen this far south in Florida. It is not shown here on the range maps and is not on the area checklists. After the birding trip we attended a couple of festival presentations back at Rookery Bay then went back to the coach for a nap. Later in the afternoon we went to a local outlet mall and then to a great seafood restaurant recommended by several of the local people at the festival.

Up again at 5:30 to go birding. What a difference a day can make. Yesterday was hot and humid; today was cold and windy as we walked along the beach at Estero Lagoon in search of shorebirds and wading birds. Just to give you an example of the “joys” of bird identification, let us tell you about the perched hawk we saw at the start of the walk. Long, slim, banded tail, it was either a sharp-shinned or coopers hawk. Size is a major discriminator but this bird was in between size; either a male coopers or a female sharpie. Another way to tell them apart is the sharpie has a flat end to the tail while the coopers tail is rounded. However, when coopers hawks spend a lot of time on the ground, the tail feathers tend to wear flat. This bird had flat tail end but the feathers were worn and frayed. Head shape is another clue but the wind was blowing so hard that it was fluffing the head feathers making it impossible to see the actual head shape. We learned a lot about ID techniques from our trip leaders but the ultimate ID of this particular bird was uncertain. Things were clearer by the lagoon where we saw all six species of plover, semi-palmated, piping, wilsons, snowy, black bellied and killdeer. The most interesting wading bird we saw was a white form reddish egret. Back at Rookery Bay we did our presentation to a small (3 people) but engaged audience. We then attended the final festival presentation on shorebird identification. After the festival we packed up our handouts from the display tables and headed to a nearby bar to watch the Patriots beat the Chargers 21-12. We might have been the only two people in the place rooting for the Pats.

We started the day birding at a local county park with trails that circle a series of ponds. We saw lots of birds. The best sighting was a loggerhead shrike that had caught a small frog. We have two days to get to the next birding festival in Titusville, FL so we drove part way today to Sebastian. We had another navigation software hiccup when we were directed down a side road that is now the gated entrance to a closed community. Oh, well; we stopped, unhooked the car, turned the coach around, reconnected the car and were on the way. Once at the campground, we cleaned the coach, did two loads of laundry and were ready for the next birding festival.

In July of 1715, a fleet of Spanish ships loaded with treasure was driven ashore in this area during a hurricane. Since the mid-1950’s, millions of dollars in silver, gold and jewels have been recovered from the ocean and nearby beaches. Today we tried our hand at searching for some of that treasure. Actually, Carl used his metal detector to look for treasure, Sandy used her binoculars to look for birds. Sandy had more luck and then the rain started. We abandoned the search and checked out the nearby State Park Campground, a neat park just south of Sebastian inlet with views of the Indian River Lagoon and hundreds of birds. Perhaps next year we can stay here for a week or two. Back at the coach we headed north to Titusville where we will have a booth at the Space Coast Birding Festival. After we got the coach set up we went to Merritt Island NWR for some birding. Great looks at roseate spoonbills and a bald eagle nest with adults and chicks. Back in the campground we spent a quiet evening getting ready for the festival.

We set up the booth this morning in advance of the 1:00 PM opening of the exhibit space. We both thought it came together very well with the large display panels highlighting Georgia Refuges, lots of brochures and maps as handouts, some typical Okefenokee “props” like a cypress knee, Spanish moss, alligator head, red cockaded woodpecker nest insert and our laptop alternately showing the Okefenokee visitor center video and our presentation on visiting and volunteering at refuges. We talked to the festival exhibit coordinator and she told us that there were 750 advanced registrations compared to last year’s 300. She expected in excess of 3,500 total visitors. Well, it sure started out busy. Lots of people stopping at the booth asking about refuges and collecting information for future visits (we hope). At 5 PM they served wine and snacks to everyone and the exhibitors got to go first so we could get back to our booths. Just before the social started Roberta and Elliot Schultz arrived. They were visiting family in Florida and happened to come to visit Kennedy Space Center today so we got to have dinner with them.

This morning we met the Schultz’s for breakfast then took them birding at the Merritt Island NWR. It was a great morning with lots of interesting birds including the Bald eagle nest with two eaglets. After the wildlife drive, Roberta and Elliot headed across the state to see manatee at Homasassa Springs and we went back to the festival for the 12:00 opening of the exhibits. It was slower than yesterday but still a steady stream of people with questions about refuges and /or volunteering. We had several different wildlife posters that we gave to kids as well as a brochure about the junior duck stamp program. We left the booth a little early to drive down to Fort Pierce to meet Al and Eileen Kates who were driving up from West Palm. It was great to see them, especially since we missed spending New Years with them as we had done for the past few years. After the 90 minute drive back from Fort Pierce we went right to bed in anticipation of the 9:00 AM booth opening tomorrow.