Birding Brevard: Rites of Spring, Florida Style

By Dave Freeland

(Editor's Note: This column inaugurates a new feature of The Limpkin covering birds, birding tips, sites where you can bird and questions asked by people interested in Space Coast birding.)

If you grew up birding in the Northeast, as I did, this is the time of year when you could expect some casual observer to call the editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Newark Star-Ledger, Buffalo Evening News or wherever and report seeing the "first robin of spring." It made for good reading on an early March day with a warm waft of spring air bringing residents out of their winter cocoons to see what was in their neighborhoods. As often as not, that lurker was an American Robin, or more than one.

I was the spoilsport who occasionally had to remind the editor and others that there had been lots of robins around all winter. It was just the observer's first time out without a winter coat in a while, suddenly encountering what might have been there for months.

To us Floridians, of course, the first American Robin is more a harbinger of fall than of spring. Thousands are with us all winter, snatching fruits from the Brazilian pepper trees and other good-food stops around Brevard County. But by this time of year, the robins have all flown north to greet the New Yorkers, Pennsylvanians and New Jerseyans with their annual surprise.

Up north, the better "first-of-the-spring bird" is either Tree Swallow or Eastern Phoebe. Neither is a regular overwinterer, and late March is a target date for them to be back in their familiar haunts.

For us, I think the true harbinger of spring is the Least Tern. There aren't any around (anywhere in the United States probably) through our winter, having spent it in South America. But by April 1, they start to appear along the Indian River, in Viera Wetlands and other favored sites. They are a pretty bird, a troubled species as its favorite beachfront nesting sites face relentless development and encroachment by humans and predators, but an adapter as well.

Least Terns often nest now on gravelly rooftops of buildings in urban areas. All those you may see at Viera Wetlands probably nest on the roof of the Publix market in Suntree. Two years ago, I asked permission to climb to the top of a healthcare facility near Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne. At least 30 pairs of Least Terns were breeding there as well as a few pairs of Black Skimmers. Some beach birds they!

Whatever your favorite birds of spring, now is the time to get out and look for them. They are returning to breed here or simply to pass through en route to historic nesting sites further north. They are the ornithological counterparts of the snowbirds who populate our state each winter, then migrate back to year-round homes for the summer.

Where to Go: One of the easiest places to see the jewels of spring bird migration -- the warblers --is Lori Wilson Park, between A1A and the Atlantic Ocean in Cocoa Beach. This small parcel of remnant maritime hammock snags migrating warblers on every southeast breeze. Our own Phyllis Mansfield is the expert on Lori Wilson's birds as she and her husband, Howard, live nearby within easy reach of the park. If you visit there this month, don't be surprised to find Phyllis among the warblers. She birds it at least daily, sometimes more frequently, to see what's in and what's moved along.

A walk around the plank trail at Lori Wilson may turn up Prothonotary and Black-throated Green Warblers in the upper branches and Swainson's Warbler and Ovenbird lurking in the understory. It's not unusual to see a dozen or more species of warbler there in a day.

Bird of the Month: Snow Goose. Always a beautiful sight, an immature of the white morph has spent most of the winter delighting observers at Merritt Island NWR. As of the mid-March writing of this column, the goose was still feeding daily in an impoundment along Peacock's Pocket Road, which begins a short distance past the refuge's visitors center, arcs south toward the Indian River Lagoon, then retreats westward toward Gator Creek. The location is 3.2 miles in from the main road, though the bird was another mile further along on March 15. The goose, a vegetarian like so many birds, could be seen pulling up grasses, often reaching down into the water and tugging with all its might to get a meal. Those geese have to work so hard!

Your Questions: If you have a question to ask about birds or birding, please forward it to me at freela148@aol.com. I'll answer as many as I can directly and will publish one each month in The Limpkin. If I don't actually know the answer, I'll make it up! (Just kidding.)