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Posted by tricia on 23:45:18 01/28/08
Saturday morning found EagleEye and me on the road to Titusville for a whirlwind weekend at the Spacecoast Birding Festival.
Thanks to the gracious help of Suzie Stuckey, I was able to get a late registration for both the festival and secure two spots on the Gull Id trip to the Volusia landfill Sunday morning.
Our first stop was at the home where the Black Chinned Hummingbird is wintering.
It appeared quickly along with Titmouse, B. Oriole, Painted Bunting, Wrens etc.
Soon we were joined by a small crowd (which unbeknownst to me included our Sunday trip leader (!) ) and we left the backyard to head over to the Festival.
The vendors were great and the people very nice and Julie and I found some awesome late xmas presents for ourselves too.
Not wanting to waste any time ,we drove on out to Wildlife Drive and had a great time with Spoonbills, Pintail Ducks, Scaups, Northern Shovelers, Hooded Mergansers and others all in breeding plumage. It was AWESOME!! We then made a stop at the Scrub trail where the Scrub Jays quickly found us. If you were on the trail that day and heard high pitched screams don t worry-it was just me as I was dive bombed by Scrub Jays looking to drill the buttons off our fancy new Swarovsky caps. Turning left up the road, we drove around to see what we could find and ended up with a Great Horned Owl on a power pole. Heading back to town, and rapidly losing light , we stopped on the causeway in the vain hope of finding one of the uncommon Loons that have been seen there recently. Julie spotted a bird in the waves and we couldn t decide quite what it was-she said Loon , I thought Merganser. {The next day, Gallus Quigley had us wondering if we had indeed found one of the Loons as he described the key points of the birds.}
We split the difference and drove over to the famous Dixie Crossroads which was jam packed with birders waiting in line for a lovely seafood dinner. And some fantastic corn fritters too. As we were heading out , we ran into Larry the bird whisperer Manfredi and his table mates of Uber birders ,Brian Raposa and Murray Gardler.
Sunday morning found us sitting in a cold carat dawn in the dark and wind and light rain at Marina Park hoping to get enough daylight to find a Loon. Any Loon. All we saw was darkness so we left for our Gull field trip at the Volusia Landfill.
Words cannot describe our time at the landfill-all I can say is it reminded me of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane and parachuting safely to the ground. It was an adrenaline rush and I want to do it again as soon as possible. Fabulous birders-really nice folks and really helpful in pointing out fieldmarks on the rare birds we kept finding---Iceland Gull, Glaucous Gull, California Gull, European Herring Gull, possible Nelsons or Thayers Gull {lots of discussion on this one and it was fun to listen to everyone sort it out together).Other birds seen were lots of Eagles, American Pipits ( another unexpected lifer) wood storks, Ruddy Turnstones, Great Egret, White Ibis etc.
Our trip leader had a plane to catch so we broke up the party a little after noon. Folks headed out to other destinations including us-we wanted to see a Purple Sandpiper and what better place to look than Ponce Inlet?
We decided to stop at Smyrna Dunes Park on the way home. There on the jetty was a Purple Sandpiper in with a small group of Ruddy Turnstones. Across the inlet, the Geat Cormorant was perched on his tower and tons of Bonapartes Gulls were fishing in the waves.
It was a spectacular weekend.
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