For the second part of our trip to Merritt Island NWR today, we drove around East Gator Creek. We walked a little bit at first but then we decided to drive around the road. The highlight was seeing at least 50 white pelicans. Some of …
We mainly walked along the following trails: Wetlands Blvd, Night Heron Lane, Bobcat Trail, Cypress Boardwalk, and Osprey Blvd. The highlight of the was was seeing about 20 roseate spoonbills from the boardwalk. Other birds seen included wood stork, limpkin, American anhinga, sandhill crane, blue-winged …
We saw a few birds from the parking lot including blue-gray gnatcatcher, red-shouldered hawk, yellow-rumped warbler, and ruby-crowned kinglet. From there, we walked a complete loop around Pool 1. Some of the birds we saw were common gallinule, American coot, belted kingfisher, blue-winged teal, eastern …
The trails were still covered in snow in many places although the beach areas were mostly cleared. We birded in two areas of the park starting from the beach below The Point parking lot. The tide was low and we saw many brants and gulls …
In the water to the south of the parking lot, we saw tundra swan, American black duck, and bufflehead. We walked to the beach next and, unfortunately, we saw about a dozen dead snow geese along the beach. We learned that there is a contagious …
I went on a late afternoon walk down Dike Trail hoping to find the rare northern lapwing that was seen the past two days but it was not there. Instead, some of the other birds I saw along the trail were great blue heron, tundra …
We went to Fowler Beach to hopefully spot a short-eared owl or two, but we didn’t see any. There were very few northern harriers hunting, too. Some of the birds we saw in the parking lot area included great blue heron, bufflehead, American black duck, …
I went on a field trip with the Sussex Bird Club to Assawoman Wildlife Area. A few turkey vultures were seen in the main, gravel parling lot area before we moved on to the tower on Mulberry Landing Road. We saw several species of waterfowl …
After James Farm Ecological Preserve, we drove up to Quillen’s Point and birded from the area around the parking lot out towards Indian River Bay. We identified 12 birds in the short time we were there: bald eagle, bufflehead, common loon, Forster’s tern, peregrine falcon, …
We first birded from the parking lot to the bay and back again. Some of the birds we identified were hermit thrush, golden-crowned kinglet, bald eagle, great blue heron, eastern bluebird, belted kingfisher, hairy woodpecker, and American robin. We estimated about 50 brants were swimming …
