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Posted by Paul-the-other on 20:17:04 01/15/07
A three day field trip to Sanibel/Ding Darling was most productive. We hit DD at 7:30 gate open time on Saturday (after fortuitously not going on Friday when THEY ARE CLOSED!). The tide was incoming by 30 minutes and the flats were alive with birds. About 75 Roseate Spoonbills (one was tagged) twenty "dancing" reddish egrets, over 50 little blues and hundreds of snowy egrets and great egrets in numbers that stretched to the horizon. We watched white pelicans "work" the water and in a similar fashion so did the pied bill grebes. On Sunday a small flock of merganzers came in but stayed warily at a greater distance. One ring billed gull was quite comical. It followed two white ibis. Each time the ibis grabbed a small crab it stole it from the ibis. Several large flocks of blue winged teal arrived as did dunlins, black bellied plovers, yellowlegs, and many other "peepers". Three spotted sandpipers were apparent. Osprey were everywhere and most were incubating. A red shouldered hawk was finishing up a nest in the Wild Tamarind in the DD parking lot. Raccoons were abundant both alive as well as squashed on the road. As the day progressed to noon, mottled ducks arrived and the trees around the info center were vibrant with warbler...most all were yellow rumped. We circled three times to get the best of all the lagoons and ponds. Sunday and then again monday the same drill. Sunday found the hundreds of birds coming within 35-40 feet of the road...great photo ops. Many yellow crowned night herons dutifully posed along the road just short of the buttonwoods. For those that haven't been there in a while the entire road is now stone pressed into tar. No more clouds of dust. A crocidile was spotted by many people but having seen those in the Glades we stayed with the birds. All in all a fabulous trip with hunhdreds of photos in cool weather, blue skies, and light winds. But, to our dismay, clouds came in every evening and we didn't see the comet. Ding Darling is showing well now and should only get better as winter progresses. But to my judgement, tide is all important and makes a good day into an outstanding day. Sunday the tide was full out and the lagoons were mostly all mud. Few birds were in close. We contented ourselves with red shouldered hawks but could see hundreds upon hundreds of birds off to the west in the water areas.
Most of the European tourists were overwhelmed by the unbelievable numbers of wading birds. So was one group of photographers that literally used up all their batteries on pictures of reddish egrest. We are talking about 1400 -1500 pictures on digital. They were as agitated in their photography as the egrest were in food gathering! It all made for three wonderful days in the great outdoors! And never above 82 and never below 62. How do you like that, Oklahoma?
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