By Gary Lee
We have only seen a brief shower here on Sanibel Island this week. A big thunderstorm went south of us one day as we were soaking up sunshine on the beach, hitting Naples and Marco Island.
That’s what we need… to get some of these birds going north to stop by. Most are flying right on by being pushed by a south wind.
There have been new birds each day but no big fallout that birders wait for. The radar shows big flocks of birds are moving but not stopping by for a snack.
We did see three gray kingbirds working to catch some bugs right by the lighthouse yesterday morning (4/12) which was a new bird for the trip.
There was a northern water thrush seen by a few, and several prairie warblers are still hanging around.
The day before, a few night hawks flew over and one landed down in the picnic area at the lighthouse.
That same day one was found resting on a branch along the Shell Mound Trail in Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge.
The word went out by cell phone and several birders who don’t get to see this bird other than in-flight got a good look at one sitting not very far from the trail.
After a flight over the ocean from South America many birds take a rest and stock up on bugs and berries or fruit to get energy for the next leg of their trip north.
When you think about their flight back and forth each spring and fall, it is quite extraordinary.
Several of these birds live for six to eight years so they log lots of flight miles.
Many of our birds remain on territory all year. They may go to a feeder for a little extra food but stay where they are for the whole year.
Yesterday I also got a life bird which I had seen in books for years: the great white heron.
Though it has been reported many times in areas not so far away I had never seen one myself.
The bird is a white morph of the great blue heron.
It was in the ponds along the Apple Pond Trail here on Sanibel and let us get very close for pictures.
I was with my birding friends Julie and Dale. They had seen it before but they didn’t get as close as we did yesterday.
When Dale saw it a couple of days ago in the ponds, a big otter came up out of the pond with a big fish and ran off into the nearby woods.
While on yesterday’s hike we also saw a pair of swallow tailed kites which made several flights right overhead.
A pair of bald eagles was perched in a pine not far from the pond…one of which flew overhead as we were walking away.
This flushed from the pond many of the small cattle egrets that didn’t like that eagle overhead.
We took a little side trail from the ponds to see if we could find a black crowned night heron that had been seen there.
When we were on our way I heard Julie give a little “oops” as she had stepped on a black snake going through the grass.
It’s a good thing those things don’t bother her very much.
Then she related a story about a hike out in California during the winter when she almost stepped on a rattle snake, which would not have been a good thing.
When we met that morning I was photographing a box turtle that I had taken out of the highway and carried to the other side where it was headed.
It didn’t take the turtle long to scamper off into the brush away from people.
There isn’t much of a beach right in front of our unit here and there were no snowy plovers nesting.
We didn’t see any sanderlings on the beach our whole first week here.
But yesterday about fifty showed up so they may be a little late going north.
I did see several black bellied plovers and ruddy turnstones a little further down the beach while on a walk the other day.
There was also a pair of snowy plovers preparing a nest in a fenced off area.
People here for Easter…but that’s another story. See ya.