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Posted by joel rosenthal on 21:56:28 03/15/08
Having been intrigued by reports posted here about last month s visit to STA5, I made the necessary arrangements to attend the scheduled tour today. After a leisurely breakfast at the local Dunkin Donuts(Bird Road at the on ramp to 826-they don t deliver..) Emily and I hit the road in her chariot at 6:45, leaving , I thought, plenty of time to obey the speed limits and arrive at the STA5 gate at the appointed 8:30 time. Along the way, I eschewed some photo ops of a surreal low lying fog blanketing dead trees off Rte 27, a caracara feeding on roadkill, and cows that seemed to levitate in the fog. State Road 835 stretched for an eternity, it seemed, and despite some serious speeding on my part, to Emily s expressed consternation, we arrived at Blumberg Road, 9 miles from the Gate, at 8:24.I covered the 8 miles or so of paved road in under 6 minutes, and when we hit the potholed dirt portion, I slowed to avoid terminal damage to the car s suspension, and because other latecomers were negotiating the potholes ahead of me .It soon became apparent that we d not be shut out.
Emily ticked off the first avian observation: snowbirds. Representative license plates included Michigan, Missouri, Massachusetts, New York, and the assembled throng appeared to be 20-30 cars snaking along single file for about a quarter mile. We were told there were more attendees than last month, when 88 people were admitted. Birding and photography interest and expertise ran the gamut: serious birders debating recent revisions to field guides all the way to one gentleman about my age(boomer) who possessed a reasonably sophisticated digital single lens reflex, who asked, upon seeing a spotting scope at the first stop,: Is that some sort of telescope? Every brand of binocular and scope seemed represented. It was an excellent day to use a scope, as the high water levels seemed to keep the birds at a distance.
As it turns out, others had greater difficulty in arriving at the gate in time: the couple ahead of us were picking large metal parts off the seriously trashed front end of their car, and bits and pieces of their exposed undercarriage detached at intervals along the 4 hour tour. Their explanation: they d had a 40+ mph encounter with a feral hog along the way over from the west coast fatal, apparently for the porker, and unsurprisingly traumatic for the couple. But being dedicated birders they limped in, miraculously intact, even if their car was not..In retrospect, I was lucky not to encounter any road-encroaching wildlife at the speeds I was traveling.
Oh yes, the birds it was unseasonably hot, with bright, mostly unrelieved sun with a strong, somewhat cooling wind blowing. Since I keep no lists, you will have to rely on Vince Lucas no doubt complete list, which will likely surface here soon enough. Among the highlights for Emily and me however, were a close fly over of a pair of bald eagles, pelican flocks flying symmetrically in a cloudless sky, large flocks of black skimmers racing over the water, and solitary individuals doing their skimming thing(frustratingly out of camera range, for the most part)black necked stilts flying as a group, and gaudy roseate spoonbills adding color to blinding white agglomerations of egrets and herons. After eating our self catered lunches, the remnants of the group encountered a flock of about 300(Vince s count) fulvous whistling ducks, unfortunately out of range to hear their whistling. A few western kingbirds bade us adieu. Other birds of note were at least 3 perigrine falcons, a juvenile bald eagle, some camera shy limkin(s) , green winged teal, snipes and dowitchers and a distant purple swamphen.
Going home, shortly after exiting Blumberg Road, I missed the best photo op of the day: in a field to my right , a crop duster was doing his aerobatics perhaps 300 yards away, and as his banked his bright yellow craft to the right, in the foreground 50 yards away, the last of a number of northern harriers we d see for the day, put on his own display. A photo of the juxtaposition of these aviators would have been a perfect finish to the day, but I ll happily settle for the mental image.
And, speaking of images, I ve attached a link to some of the photos I took today.(Click on the set labelled STA 5 3/15.)
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