Plenty of Pelicans

Today, I recorded changes in the north shore tideline along Fort Pickens. Once I was finished, I was able to take time for a bird survey on the south shore. It's so much fun to watch the birdies!



I ran into another park employee walking down by the fort, trying not to disturb the flock of pelicans resting on a sand bar. They were everywhere today!

I did cause them to fly after I counted them and drove by. I try to give them space, but the sound of the ATV always seems to spook them.



That may not be the worst thing on a cold day as the activity warms them, and their sandwich tern (SATE), laughing gull (LAGU) and herring gull (HERG) friends!



Watching them float en masse on the wind, I wondered about the parallel behaviors between schools of fish and bird flocks. The impressive synchronized behavior can help protect them from predators, leaving the vulnerable, weak or slow more exposed to attack than the strong. Did the behavior evolve separately in these two divergent vertebrate groups?



Of course, there were other birds about as well, like this pair of wading willets (WILL). They sound like squeaky wheels when startled.



My favorite RUTUs (ruddy turnstones) were active as well.



This lucky one found a clam washed out by a passing wave. It looks like hard work to get at the tiny meal!



The pre-Ivan road is much more visible on the south shore these days as well. It's interesting to see how it's becoming part of the habitat, supporting algal growth and who knows what else... I may have to go tidepooling a bit next time I'm out there!

Piping Plover Surveys at Fort Pickens

Today was a much better day for bird surveys, though it was still a little chilly.



The birds like to point that out as they hide behind whatever windbreak there is on the mudflats. The birds, like this snowy plover (SNPL) have the right idea!



There was one banded piping plover (PIPL) near the asphalt pile,



who seemed to be quite thirsty!



Another was fighting with a sanderling (SAND). Just look at those bright orange legs.



A young eagle (BAEA) hid in the woods,



Brown pelicans (BRPE) floated on the updrafts,



and a sandwich tern (SATE) kept flying away from me. We can't officially count a bird in our survey until we pass it or it flies in the opposite direction. I followed this little guy for nearly two miles as I tried to complete my survey. I keep telling myself it's good for them to fly on cold days - it warms up their chilly muscles!



By the time I headed back east on the south shore of the island, I was running with the wind behind me and the sun was high in the sky. It was a beautiful day indeed!

Foggy Morning

The day started gray and dreary, shrouded in mist. Once the sun rose though, the scene changed completely - it was a stunning warm fall day.



I was happy to have some company on the beach this morning from the park. Our program assistant, Rhonda, joined me at Perdido Key for a bird survey. I'm not sure if I bored her to tears or not, but it was nice to have someone to talk to other than the birds. Though they are pretty to look at, they aren't very good conversationalists!

The light early today wasn't very good, so I didn't take many photos, but I still took a few tests shots, just looking for a good image in poor light, or shooting a species we don't have good images of in our files.



This snowy egret almost fades into the sea behind it in the gray morning.



Just a few minutes later, the sun peeked out from behind it's shroud so we could capture some images of dunlin (DUNL) feeding south of Spanish Cove.



An obstinate brown pelican (BRPE) kept trying to balance on the edge of a metal sign. How crazy is that? He wasn't getting a nice nap like his friends on the wood pilings.



Once we reached the east end, the fog and clouds had completely burned away in the midday sun, leaving a perfect view of the Pensacola lighthouse... Just another day in paradise :)

Pelican, Plovers and Hurricane Response

First thing thing this morning, Monica and I got a phone call from our SCA, Sally, about a brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) that was tangled in fishing line. We found this little beauty still along the edge of the breaking waves.



After removing two hooks and yards of line, we hoped the bird would fly, but he just didn't take off. Monica and I tried chasing it, but it would only run and flap and run and flap. Maybe that's how it got tangled in the first place.

Since the pelican can't eat if it can't fly, we boxed it up and took it to our good friends at the Wildlife Sanctuary -- they take lots of birds for us and do a great job getting them healthy enough to return to the wild.



It was a great start to a fantastic day. After dropping the pelican off, I spent the day at Perdido Key, putting up closures around tern nesting areas and checking on snowy plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) nests. This little guy had recently hatched, maybe even this morning -- the photo is from my cell phone, so it's not the best.



The plover family was kind enough to hang around while I got a real camera.



The parents were hyper-vigilant with their three young chicks.



You can see how tiny these guys are next the broken shells that litter the beach. They really are hard to find when they crouch down like that -- they just look like rocks!




Even the marked nests can be hard to find. On our three seven mile stretches of barrier island, we mark nests with simple foot-long sticks, painted yellow and numbered on top. A PK number is from Perdido Key, the others are SR (Santa Rosa) and FP (Fort Pickens); each series keeps a running count of the number of nests we have on that particular beach.



The nests themselves are small hollows in the sand we call 'scrapes'. The plovers line them meticulously with broken shells and get ready to lay and incubate the eggs for about three weeks. Sometimes the only way we know the plovers are still taking care of their eggs is if we see lots of plover tracks around the nest, like we do in this one. This nest hatched (it's the chicks and parents in these photos) so the reason for all the plover footprints is very apparent!



I didn't want to trouble them for too long, as stress for the small birds and young chicks can't be very good. If you look carefully, you can see the two parents and one chick among the ATV tracks on the beach here -- there really are too many ATV tracks here!



Around the point, this great blue heron, Ardea herodias, was on the lookout for a fisherman with a free meal. If you look really closely, you can see that his big feet hang off the edge of the piling. They really are enormous to help support the height and weight of the largest of our local heron species.



As I was finishing up with my surveys, a flotilla seemed to be leaving Pensacola Pass as the Blue Angels flew overhead. The seas were a little rough, and the skies getting gray, but it was a beautiful day in the National Park.



I almost forgot the hurricane part... At 5am, I opened my email to find that some crazy person decided to put me on the hurricane operational response team. I'm second team lead to my boss (if he's there) for resource management in the event of a tropical storm of some type this season. I guess I've done more before in the Caribbean, but it still gets me every time that we have to think about these devastating storms -- it's nice to live in denial sometimes!