Our Bird Blog

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Sunday, January 16

Not much activity on the lagoon this morning. A few pelicans and a small group of hooded mergansers (photographed on the lagoon in front of our other home at 19 Wren Drive).

Feeder birds this morning:

• American crows (could not really get to the seed in the feeder, but they tried mightily - later gave up and took a bath in the bird bath at the house next door)
• Northern cardinals
• Blue jays
• Tufted titmice
• Brown-headed nuthatches

Took a beach walk just before noon, starting at Tower Beach and turning to the left (roughly east-north-east). A mild breeze, not too cold. Lots of wading birds at the water line.

Saw pelicans, ibis and tricolored herons on Sprunt Pond. No bluebirds, which is unusual. We rarely visit Sprunt Pond without seeing some bluebirds.

Saturday, January 15

Filled the bird feeder this morning. (After about an hour the birds started to find the feeder.)

The pelicans were swimming and diving on the lagoon, as they do in the winter. Saw a great egret at the edge of the lagoon, and when I went to try to take a photo, I realized that not only was there a great egret, but also a snowy egret and a tricolor heron at the edge of the lagoon. Then I realized that there were hooded mergansersswimming in the lagoon. I don't think we have ever seen that before.

One thing led to another, and Art and I walked down to South Beach Marina Village along the edge of Braddock Cove. Saw LOTS of birds, without trying very hard.

Here's a list of the birds we saw on this morning's walk.

• Osprey (pretty high up so identification is tentative, but they are very common here)
• Turkey vulture
• Brown pelicans (lagoon and cove - on almost every piling)
• Great egret (lagoon and cove)
• Snowy egret (lagoon and cove) - See MY photo from today here.
• Great blue heron (lagoon and cove) - See MY photo here.
• Little blue heron (cove)
• Tri-color heron (lagoon and cove) - See MY photo from today here.
• Black-crowned night heron (in a tree near Bluff Villas, next to South Beach Marina)
• White ibis (lagoon - an unusual sighting for the lagoon)
• Willets (maybe, no clear identification, but these are common around here)
• Belted kingfishers (bushes along the lagoon and docks on the cove)
• Hooded mergansers (lagoon and cove)
• Double-crested cormorant (cove)
• Northern flicker (grass next to cove)
• Red-bellied woodpecker (saw a male carving out a hole in a dead tree, and a female at a nearby feeder)
• Yellow-rumped warblers (the most common warbler on the island - everywhere)
• House sparrows
• Eastern bluebirds
• Carolina chickadees
• Brown-headed nuthatches
• Red-winged blackbirds
• American crows
• Northern mockingbirds
• Mourning doves

The birds were so plentiful and easy to spot that it reminded us of a day many years ago when we spotted five species of woodpeckers (northern flickers, red-bellied woodpeckers, piliated woodpeckers, red-headed woodpeckers, and a hairy woodpecker) on a live oak outside the window without moving off of our chairs at the dining room table at 19 Wren Drive.

Last updated January 16, 2011.