Beginning Birding Tour MINWR

By Betty Salter, MINWR Volunteer

March 25 was another gorgeous day on the refuge! I felt a little sad in that this would be our last tour of this kind until next November. It has been so wonderful guiding others through the nature we love so much! We will still be out there and when we are not observing the wonderful birds who summer with us raising their young, I will be learning more about the butterflies and looking for good areas to set up as transects for the Florida Butterfly Monitoring Network. Ok enough about butterflies (Cary usually starts the tour group moving again when I get side tracked by the butterflies!) now about our tour...

The weather really was wonderful and the group with us enthusiastic! We started out by heading straight to SR 3 and the scrubjays. I spotted one and we pulled over, but as soon as everyone started exiting from their vehicles behind the van, the bird flew down into the scrub. Cary talked about the behaviours of the scrubjays while I walked a bit ahead of the van and tried to call them up. I crossed the road and continued to call with no answer coming back, but as I turned to return to the group I spotted one directly across from the group sitting up high and easily viewed. Even when I called back to the group to look across the road the bird just sat there as if to say, "Look at me". Actually several jays took turns perching close by. Another great beginning.

We also checked on the young owls in the nest on 406, they were not quite so accomodating, just showing their heads a bit now and then, but we did help one couple in the group identify the owls that are nesting near their home...also great horned owls. They were able to recognize the birds by Cary's imatation of the different owl calls. One gentleman in the group also did a marvelous rendition of the Screech Owl's trill.

We saw the young eagle that had fledged from the nest near the beginning of Black Point Wildlife Drive as he was perched in a pine tree not far from the nest tree. Below him perched one of the adults.

The water levels are way down and the feeding frenzies that were occurring near the beginning of the drive had moved on. We talked about what was visible including a group of wood storks kettling in the distance. There were a couple of stops where we could see least sandpipers in large numbers and a few other shorebirds including some dunlins and a few dowitchers. The black-necked stilts were visible in several areas mostly near stop 9 and more after that.

Just before stop 9 we watched as spoonbills preened or bathed. The snowy egrets are really showing their breeding plumage as are most of the egrets and herons. Some of the white ibis have vibrant red beaks and legs. The folks from the UK who were with our tour today were fascinated by the glossy ibis as they would turn in the sunshine and those lovely colors would jump out at you. Our first sighting of a glossy today, the bird just looked like a dull black ibis, so seeing all the colors later really was wonderful!

I am sometimes asked when is the best time to visit Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge...in the early morning any day of the year! Durinng the winter months there are more species, during the fall and spring months you also catch glimpses of migrants; but to me the summer is also magnificent!

Watching the behaviors of those birds who breed here is awesome. Have you ever seen a Black-necked Stilt tend it's nest or try to protect that nest from the elements or preditors? I once got to close to some young willets and had a face to face with the adult. I didn't mean to upset that adult, I was just walking along Black Point Wildlife Drive with my camera in hand. I didn't think to raise the camera as the willet did its broken wing display then flew at me with those marvelous black and white wings spread. It came straight at my face then passed a few feet over my head. I very quickly went back to the car.

So even as you notice that this list of species seen today is much shorter than other lists I have posted here, know that there is always something worth your time to be observed at MINWR.

Favorites of the group today were the scrubjays, great horned owls, bald eagles, glossy ibis, spoonbills, northern harrier (a female flew nearby), soras(many of them), Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs (it was nice to see these two close together for comparison) and black necked stilts.

Before the tour Cary and I did our usual scouting trip. At the causeway we had two Red-breasted mergansers and the usual Ruddy Turnstones and Ring-billed gulls as well as Willet. We figured most of these would move off when those who enjoy the 'beach' there arrived before we could get the tour to that area so we didn't go back there for the tour. We also had an American Bittern on the drive, but that was the only bird we saw on the drive that we didn't see later with the tour. We thought we would be back to the Visitor Information Center earlier than usual with fewer species to see than we had been observing this past month, but in fact we took just as long to enjoy what we did see.

It took a whle to get the group formed up and we didn't do our birding in the parking lot of the VIC. The catbirds, wrens, and some warblers were present there when we first arrived, but the group didn't get to see them.

As I stated in the beginning of this report, this was our last Sunday Beginning Birding Tour for the season. The Visitor Information Center will be closed on Sundays through the coming months. It will once again be open on Sundays in November. This is not a part of the cutbacks that the Fish & Wildlife Service will be experiencing due to cuts in budget. I still wish the VIC would remain open through the summer months, many visitors to our area have only a weekend to spend at MINWR and will miss the information and ammenities of the VIC on Sundays. Cary and I have made friends with many people from all over the USA and the world when we just stationed ourselves on Black Point Wildlife Drive and gave out information when the VIC was closed. Hopefully if we are not there on a Sunday this summer, another volunteer will be.