Training a New Birder

Bird Watching is tough stuff, and not for the faint of heart, which is why I was both happy and surprised to learn a friend of mine really wanted to learn...



We have lots of volunteer opportunities in the Park, and Cathy already works on our turtle project, so this required even more of her time. But, she's a trooper, and she spent the last two days with me, freezing in the wind at Perido yesterday and enjoying a long day at Fort Pickens today.

I'm a bit of a task master, always asking too much of people, but I'm working on that. I hope Cathy had at least a little fun away from her other concerns.



She did great identifying birds! We only had one PIPL (piping plover) both days, but she was able to spot it right away.



We had lots of snowy egrets down by the old fort.



They seemed to enjoy playing follow the leader.



The little blue herons played a different game.



You can almost hear this one saying "I AM a tree."



It is great camouflage,



til they can't stand it anymore and just take off.



These two lesser yellowlegs (LEYE) seemed to agree with me that it was rather cold, as they huddled together on the beach,



rising in unison when we approached too closely on our mule.



There were literally hundreds of brown pelicans (BRPE), many choosing to roost on the roof of the boat lift at the Ranger Station. They were hard to count accurately!

In all, it was a gorgeous, if somewhat tiring, bird survey... but Cathy did a fantastic job!