Space Coast

Sunday evening, Rosana and I got to Lake Worth to meet up with Eva, who at the time, was the soon-to-be birthday girl. We got some pizza with her and Kim, and from there, Eva and I set off for birding the Space Coast a few hours north. That night, Eva and I set up camp and went to bed pretty early after a few shots and views of snorting manatees in the Indian River.


Monday morning, we woke up at about 6am to head out to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Just after sun-up on the Black Point Wildlife Drive, Eva discovered a SORA. A little further down the road, a CLAPPER RAIL called me in like a siren, and gave us incredible looks. Within this drive, other notable birds included BALD EAGLE, EASTERN TOWHEE, REDDISH EGRET, BUFFLEHEAD, and unbelievable views of a Bobcat. This first couple of hours gave us 52 bird species.


We checked out the Scrub Trail, as well as Playalinda Beach, without any surprising sitings. On that note, we decided to drive a bit further out, to Huntington Road and the Shiloh Marsh. On Huntington, we were treated to some semi-rarities for South Florida: EASTERN BLUEBIRD and AMERICAN GOLDFINCH. Shiloh did not produce the sparrows we had hoped for, as it seems we would need to be in knee-highs to flush out the desired NELSON'S SHARP-TAILED, SEASIDE, and SALT MARSH SHARP-TAILED SPARROWS.


Our last big birding stop of the day was Diceranda Scrub Sanctuary to try again for a FLORIDA SCRUB JAY, but were unsuccessful. We did manage to get looks at SHARP-SHINNED HAWK and CAROLINA CHICKADEE. At the campground, we took a few minutes to bird before freshening up, which proved fruitful. PILEATED WOODPECKER, SPOTTED SANDPIPER and YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER were all "yardbirds". After changing clothes, we picked up a couple other urban birds, and finished our day list at 85 species. Eva and I celebrated our great B-day big day birding with some Mexican food, a few beers, and some Monday Night Football at a local watering hole.


Yesterday morning, Eva and I broke camp at 5:30am and headed down to the Viera Wetlands at to see if we could relocate the NEOTROPIC CORMORANT that had been posted as being seen the day before. Within a few minutes of looking for it, we did find it, and were able to point it out to some of the other twitchers looking for it. Other notable birds that we saw at this site included CRESTED CARACARA, BLACK-BELLIED WHISTLING DUCK, WOOD STORK, EASTERN SANDHILL CRANE, and many vocal MARSH WRENS. One of the birders mentioned a PURPLE SANDPIPER he had seen at New Smyrna Beach the day before. Our curiosities peaked, Eva and I got the directions and headed north to see if we could pull in another rarity for the day.


A small jetty on the south side of the Ponce Inlet is the typical wintering feeding grounds of the of this slightly south individual PURPLE SANDPIPER. It seems that it feeds elsewhere until low tide, and then frequents this jetty filled with fishermen. Low tide was around 1pm, and Eva and I did not care to stick around that long. So after seeing SANDWICH TERN, and the many RUDDY TURNSTONES around the jetty for an hour and a half, we decided to leave. A stop at a Waffle House was our final meal of the trip, and only stop of our 3+ hour ride back to Lake Worth. Our final species count for the weekend-like weekdays were 94 - not too bad for this time of year.