Evening on the Black Pond Wildlife Drive

Florida 2013 continued

We left the Visitor Center and headed back out to the Black Pond Wildlife Drive around 4pm. I could not believe the change in the weather. Cold, 20 mph north winds had calmed to nearly nothing, and the air had warmed and softened. The light was amazing and the park nearly deserted. I think next time around I will either spend two days at the Merritt Island NWR, one at the Visitor Center and one along the drive, or do the center in the morning and the drive in the afternoon, as the light is so much better.

At any rate, we saw all sorts of birds, whose energy seemed a bit lower--the morning scramble for food was over and the birds were a bit more laid back, like these dowitchers.

Dowitchers--short or long billed, I have no idea--relaxing in the evening sun.

There was a large flock of lesser scaups in the pond where we'd seen the reddish egret earlier. I like this image, showing two females and a male.

Lesser scaup

We parked again at the Ducks Unlimited lot, where we had seen the shrike and sora earlier, and strolled down the path towards the far observation tower. There were quite a few birds in the pond along the trail, including a pair of napping blue-winged teal and these pied-billed grebes.

Pied-billed grebes. Such sweet faces!

 I was excited to see the mottled ducks were still there. Earlier they had been hanging out here with the teals but the light was behind them and so the photos were poor. I got lucky and caught this one very close to shore and right in the sun.  It was wary, though, and watched me carefully as it swam away to my left.

Mottled duck. This is a VAST improvement on the images I had of this duck.

I read somewhere recently that mottled ducks were not common so I looked them up on the Cornell site. According to Cornell they are the only duck adapted to breeding in southern marshes, so their range is limited to Florida and the Gulf coast. They are listed as a species of least concern, but they face the usual threats of habitat loss. They also breed with introduced mallards (who apparently are not native to the south?) so they could possibly be faced with being bread out of existence.

American coots are abundant at MINWR, and we saw several flocks that had to contain at least 500 birds each in several locations. This one was alone, though, and very close to the path.

American coot. Love the red knob that matches its eyes.

An anhinga swam by, looking all mysterious and snake-like.

Once at the platform we watched a number of birds, including this preening snowy egret.

Fun pose of a snowy egret.

Later, leaving the observation tower and getting back on the drive, we saw a pair of American wigeons. These are by far the best images I have gotten of these cute little ducks.

Female American wigeon.

Male American wigeon, perhaps my favorite duck.

As we approached the turn out for the bathrooms and the Cruickshank trail head we saw a large flock of Northern pintails.

Northern pintails.

 Most of them were at quite a distance but a small group was napping on a tiny island near shore. Another favorite, such gorgeous, stately birds.

We are not quite done with Florida. There will be at least one more post, perhaps two, where we'll go back in time just a bit and back to the observation tower and trail where we had two close encounters with two more birds.  Then we will be back to real time, as spring has finally sprung here in Southeast Michigan, and we will be looking to do some birding in our own neck of the woods.

Ibis and Egret

After our potty break we continued on around the Black Pond Wildlife Drive. The bathrooms are located at about the half-way point, but I would say that most of the best birding opportunities are on the first half. The second half of the drive is drier and better suited perhaps to the black bear and bobcat that live there. However, there is still water and there are birds to be found.

I had hopped out to shoot this adult Little blue heron, one of the lesser seen residents of the marsh, being far out-numbered by the egrets and tri-colored herons. But I was soon distracted by the two birds to my left.


I glanced over and noticed this White ibis probing for insects in the shallows. Following along behind was a Snowy egret.


The egret made no attempt to feed itself, merely followed the ibis as it moved back and forth through the water.




Egrets are also insect eaters, so one could assume it was just waiting for the ibis to stir something up.


Or maybe the egret, who is more of a stalker of its prey, was looking for a new hunting method.


In any case, the egret followed the ibis round and round....


We saw similar behavior at the end of our trip involving two Brown pelicans and some dolphins, but that is for a later post!

Of Egrets and Grackles

After spending some time watching the young Little blue heron chase down lunch, and after realizing that my neck was on fire from the hot Florida sun, I turned to head back to the van. There, on the other side of the road, against a backdrop of a dead palm frond, was this Snowy egret. The composition took my breath away!




I took several shots until the bird moved past the spiky frond.


We made a pit stop at the Cruikshank trail head to use the bathrooms. There were several people seated in the car next to us, and the back driver's side door was open. Perched upon the car next to them, watching intently as they ate their lunch, was this immature Boat-tailed grackle.



I would have found his stare rather unnerving, if it had been my sandwich he was eyeballing!





After I put the camera away he actually hopped onto the top of the open door. I am pretty sure the person in back gave him a bit of bread for his efforts.

Florida Birds Return

Let me start by saying that we had a wonderful trip to Florida last week. The weather was the nicest, most pleasant I've ever experienced there, and we had six consecutive days of it. And then seeing what the weather was doing here in Michigan (cold, cold, and did I mention, it's cold?!?) I really didn't want to come home.

However, I was also looking forward to writing about spring in Michigan, or at least not writing more about Florida for a while. Well...the weather here has not lent itself to growing things, much less to wanting to get outside and see if anything is growing. So back to Florida I go. Not that this is really a hardship.

Our first stop was a return to the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. As I had feared, the waters were low and most of the waterfowl were gone. There were still lots of wading birds around, and we spent lots of time enjoying them.


While we watched this diverse group of birds that included a White ibis, a Tri-colored heron, a Snowy egret and a pair of Pied-billed grebes and an unidentified shorebird in the grass, this Snowy egret flew up and strutted past.


The water was like glass, and it seemed as if the bird was standing on a mirror.



Mirror mirror on the wall....


I could have watched for days....

A Trio of White

Florida 2010 posts continued....

One of the most frustrating things for me in bird watching is trying to identify white wading birds. You really have to look closely, and have a bird book in hand, in order to learn the sometimes subtle differences.

Along a stretch of Black Point Drive I came across three such birds. The first I recognized as a Great egret thanks to its size. At 40 inches tall they are nearly double the size of the cattle and snowy egrets. Don't be complacent, though--there is a white-morph Great blue heron that is very similar. The best way to tell them apart? The Great blue heron has yellow legs, the Great egret has black legs.


Next was this Snowy egret, its breeding plumage tossed about in the wind. The snowy stands about 24 inches tall, and is distinguishable from the cattle egret by its black bill and legs (although the snowy does have shockingly yellow feet).






Last was this little fellow. Had I not seen one at the Maritime Hammock Sanctuary I would not have known it on sight. This is an immature Little blue heron. When he's all grown up he'll have a purple-ish head and neck and a blue body. But at this age he is distinguished by his pale bill and gray forehead.




Next we'll take a look at some Northern shovelers.

A Tern for the Better

2010 Florida posts con't....


As I have mentioned, I know nothing about waterfowl, a rather ironic state since I grew up on a lake. So a bit of advice--if you want to immerse yourself in them, go to Florida in mid-winter. Holy Cow! I was taking pictures of birds I couldn't identify, until I got home and put them on the computer. Below is my first American wigeon, with a Northern pintail behind.



I will refrain from posting any more ducks for the time being as I have better shots coming later on. Let me just say that I was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of them.

To see the most stuff along the Black Point Wildlife Drive, or any other wildlife excursion, it is best to get out as early as possible, and drive very slow, and stop often to just sit and watch. This Killdeer was hardly a speck moving along the mudflat in the morning sun. Go too fast and this bird gets missed.


Here a Snowy egret shows off its ridiculous yellow feet. Makes me think of the University of Oregon's player's shoes they wore in the BCS Championship game last week.


As I paused on the side of the road I noticed an occasional splash in the water along the drive. I thought at first it was a fish jumping, but as I moved farther down the road I realized I was wrong.


It was this fellow, a Forsters tern, fishing the canal along the road.


I had a blast, standing next to the car, trying to get shots of him as he zipped by.


Back and forth he went, and without warning he would suddenly plunge into the water, so quickly that I was not able to get a shot of it. I never did see him come up with a fish.


What a beautiful, graceful bird.