October

October is a wonderful time of year for birding here in Northeast Florida. Some of our summer birds are still lingering. Some of our winter birds are starting to arrive. Migratory birds are passing through.

painted bunting

So what birds have you been seeing in the last weeks? Palm warblers and eastern phoebes have begun to show up. In the last couple days I've had a painted bunting and an indigo bunting at my feeders.

palm warbler

Warblers are certainly in abundance right now too. If you feel uncomfortable with your warbler skills it's a great time to join a group bird walk. More birds always seem to get spotted where there are many eyes looking.

eastern phoebe

St. Johns Audubon is currently going through a reorganization and we have no bird walks or field trips scheduled at present. But there are always other options.

Duval Audubon has a full slate of trips scheduled.

Volunteer Arliss Ryan leads monthly walks at Fort Mose and Anastasia State Park. Contact her to get on her mailing list of when the walks are scheduled as it varies from month to month depending on the tides. Note that her Fort Mose walk for October is this Sunday, October 20, at 9 AM.

Flager Audubon also has some walks scheduled.

So get out there and brush up on your birding skills. Enjoy this perfect time of the year.

Audubon volunteering activities

Dear Auduboners, the birds you care about need your help! Spend a few hours on the beach and give a better chance of survival to some Least Tern and Wilson’s Plover chicks!

It is this time of the year again: nesting time for Least Terns and other beach-nesting birds. And our County, once again, looks like it will be home to the highest number of beach-nesting Least Terns on all of Florida’s East Coast! We currently have Least Terns nesting at Porpoise Point, Anastasia State Park and Summer Haven. Wilson’s Plovers are nesting at Anastasia State Park, Fort Matanzas National Monument and Summer Haven, and they already have chicks running around.

With these good news of the nesting comes the responsibility of having the birds protected, and with three Least Tern colonies active simultaneously, we are in need of bird steward help. Bird stewards are volunteers posted by a nesting colony; they mostly do outreach – showing the hard to see birds to beach goers and sharing conservation concerns about beach-nesting birds - and they help prevent disturbances that could be fatal to the eggs and chicks like dogs or people walking through the protected area.

Over Memorial weekend, stewards were posted at all sites and their reports show how much people appreciated learning about the birds and how they prevented several problems to occur. Last year, high school students joined the bird steward program as part of a community project, and they felt so rewarded helping the birds, that several of them are back this year, bird stewarding the terns at Anastasia!

The bird steward program is organized in partnership with all the land managers (State Park, National Park Service, GTM NERR and St. Johns County), with FWC (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission), and their law enforcement staff.

Please consider joining us for a shift or more protecting the Least Terns on the beach. To volunteer please email us here at stjohnsaudubonsociety@gmail.com and we will forward your email to the appropriate person. Thank you in advance, even a few hours of your time will help!

Anastasia recap

Anastasia has long been one of my favorite parks since I began exploring them 1 1/2 years ago when I moved to Florida. Miles of pristine ocean beaches, dunes, salt marshes, wooded areas - it has all my favorite things. And of course lots of birds!

And many other species as well, as Audubon members and guests learned at our last meeting, when park ranger Drew Turner came to speak to us about threatened and endangered species like the beach mouse and the gopher tortoise, though his talk, and the following Q&A session, ranged over many other species as well like the raccoons, coyotes, sea turtles, nesting shorebirds.

But the beach is certainly a primary draw of the park. We had nine people show up for our last walk of the season, some who had been at Drew Turner's presentation, some fairly new to birding and just starting to develop an interest. We got there early enough to be ahead of the holiday crowds, and started out with a long walk along the beach.

Not only birds caught our eye, but other creatures like this crab scuttling across the sand as well, but among the bird sightings we saw a snowy egret fishing in the surf! Several least terns flew overhead, and we talked about the terns nesting, and the marked nesting areas in the dunes, and the importance of staying away from the areas so as not to disturb the nesting colonies.

Then we walked back over the long boardwalk across the dunes, and back to the wooded areas near the picnic grounds, and along the road past marsh and fields,

As far as sheer numbers go we all agreed that the brown pelican was the "bird of the day" - as we saw them by the dozens! Ungainly, yet graceful in flight, they few constantly along the water's edge in flocks of varying sizes.

By the time we finished up at noon the parking lot was fast filling up, and there was a bumper-to-bumper line of cars waiting to get into the park at the ranger station. But by that time we had already had a full morning. And here is a list of the species we saw on the walk. I hope to catch some of you again in the fall!

Mallard (Domestic type)
Mottled Duck
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Red-shouldered Hawk
Clapper Rail (multiples heard, but not seen)
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Laughing Gull
Least Tern
Royal Tern
Black Skimmer
Mourning Dove
Merlin (a rarity, but the group best guess based on field marks seen)
crow sp.
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Northern Mockingbird
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird

Anastasia - Chapter Meeting and Field Trip

What: St. Johns Audubon Chapter Meeting

When:  Monday, May 20

Where: St. Augustine Public Library

Time: 6:15 PM for presentation, 6:00 PM for social time

What: Field Trip

When: Saturday, May 25

Where: Anastasia State Park, meet at the concession stand

Time:  9 AM to 12 noon

We hope you'll turn out this Monday night for our last Audubon Chapter Meeting before the summer. As you know, last year, Anastasia State Park hosted a colony of Least Terns and they are back this year. But the park is also home to other imperiled species. Cristy Leonard, park specialist and a ranger will be presenting about the Wildlife Treasures of Anastasia State Park at the St. Johns Audubon program meeting this Monday May 20^th at the Main Library 1960 N. Ponce De Leon Blvd, St. Augustine.

They will talk about the Anastasia Island beach mouse, an endemic species found nowhere else in the world and listed as endangered at the federal level., as well as about Gopher Tortoises, a Florida threatened species, so important to our coastal ecosystems that we have to forgive them for eating a Least Tern egg here and then…

The program is free and open to all, please help pass the word around.

In conjunction with this talk we will be having a field trip to Anastasia on Saturday the 25th. Meet at 9 AM at the concession stand. We may catch site of a gopher tortoise or two, and hope to see some of the many birds that make Anastasia their home or breeding ground. It's Memorial Day weekend but we should be there ahead of the crowds! We hope to see you then.

Alpine Groves Nature Walk recap

One never knows what Mother Nature will have in store for us in May, so how nice that she smiled this morning for our nature walk at Alpine Groves. It was a glorious 60 degrees and there was a tang in the air that invigorated. The sun was shining, and dappling along the pathways through the trees.

Alas, however, not one single person showed up for the nature walk! What a shame. They really missed a perfect morning for being out of doors in the crisp fresh air. No other birders showed up, but there were mothers with babies in strollers, and dog walkers, and other folks taking advantage of the excellent day.

As a birding day the count was light, but would undoubtedly have been higher if I was better at birding by ear, or getting better glimpses of little feathered creatures flitting high up in the canopy. Birding is often about "the one that got away" and by sight or by ear I'm sure I missed at least 4-6 additional species. If only someone else had been with me to help...

But I did have good sights like the spotted sandpiper, a first for me at Alpine Groves.  And I could not have asked for a better day to be there. However it was also a quiet day, with no raptors soaring overhead, no wading birds dotting the shores of the river.

Audubon Magazine recently featured an article on people now chasing dragonflies and damselflies as many of us chase birds. To be honest - bugs are not my thing! Give me the feathered friends every day. But if you are one of the dragonfly hunters here's one you can try to ID for us.

In the meantime, this is the list of birds I saw or heard this morning:

Spotted Sandpiper
Royal Tern
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Pileated Woodpecker
Blue Jay
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Wren
Northern Parula
Pine Warbler
Yellow-throated Warbler
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird

Alpine Groves Nature Walk

Where: Alpine Groves Park

Date: Tuesday, May 14

Time: 9:00 - 11:00 AM

Meeting: At the parking lot at the end of the road, closest to the river

Tomorrow is our last neighborhood nature walk of the season, so we hope you can come just us at Alpine Groves Park.  Alpine Groves is located along the historic St. Johns River in the western part of the county. If you don't know this park you owe yourself a chance to come discover it. If you do know the park then you know what a true gem it is!

Along the river you can see wading birds, nesting wood ducks, gulls and terns. The woodlands are home to seasonal, migrant and resident warblers, woodpeckers. Bald eagles and ospreys can be seen soaring overhead.

Nature walks are shorter and less strenuous than some of the field trips and are appropriate for most. We will start at the end of the park near the river and go out onto the fishing pier looking for water birds of all sorts, and then will walk through the woods looking for and listening for woodland birds. The woodland path is paved, so wheelchair or stroller accessible.

This will be our last nature walk for the season, but keep in mind we do have an upcoming chapter meeting on  Monday, May 20, at the main library in St. Augustine, 6 PM where Kristi Leonard from Anastasia State Park will talk about the beach mouse and the gopher tortoise, following by our last field trip of the season - also at Anastasia State Park on Saturday, May 25 - 9:00 AM to 12:00 noon. We hope you can join us for those events also!

A great meeting

St. Johns Audubon President Dan Hayes kicked off a great meeting last night, with many members reporting interesting bird sightings they have had in the last month. He then introduced us to our speaker for the evening, biologist and educator Mike Adams.

Mike had brought with him an eclectic series of displays relating to his topic of discussion, the conservation management of his property - the 94-acre Saturiwa Conservation Area.

Mike gave a fascinating lecture about the history of his property, located on the historic St. Johns River, both  since his own purchase of the property in 1989, and the years before that. He also spent quite a bit of time on the natural history of the property also, and the many species of birds and animals that frequent the place at different times of the year.

Later he answered questions from the audience, and offered his ecological field guide (ISBN 13: 978-0-615-69807-6). Note to Audubon members and fans, Mike offers guided tours of his property, and we plan to put him our our Field Trip agenda for the 2013-14 season!

In the meantime, more to come later, but note on your calendars:
May 14 - nature walk at Alpine Groves Park
May 20 - next Audubon chapter meeting at the St. Augustine Public Library
May 25 - field trip to Anastasia State Park

And then hopes that everyone will have a great summer. We may have more to follow here as well about the Shorebird Bird Stewarding program.

April Chapter meeting

Where: St. Augustine Public Library 

When:  Monday, April 29

Time:  6:00 - 8:00 PM

Our next chapter meeting is coming up tomorrow night. Alas, our scheduled speaker had to back out at the last minute due to an unexpected surgery. But we'll still have a program to present to you! And other birders there to share experiences with. The meetings are always fun, so we hope you'll join us tomorrow night.

A sunny day for the birds

It was a warm and sunny day for our Neighborhood Nature Walk at the St. Johns Agricultural Center on Tuesday. What a change from last week's weather. There were five of us who showed up to see what birds might be seen on a warm spring morning.

There were mockingbirds a-plenty, singing so lustily that they nearly drowned out any other birds we might have had a hope of hearing. There were a few birds heard faintly in the distance - a northern parula, a Carolina chickadee, but it was hard to hear others.

Sadly we didn't see as many as we had hoped either. There were no herons, egrets, ibises or water birds in any of the ponds we passed. And we had hoped to see some warblers but our hunt was sadly lacking in that regard also.

We saw a single Savannah sparrow hopping in the distance.

And one of the overheard wires gave us several good views of a loggerhead shrike.

One serious hunt finally yielded a few good views of a brown thrasher, who had mostly kept himself just hidden enough to be hard to spot, ID, or photograph.

Among some of the good birds we didn't get photos of were the multiple killdeer, a great crested flycatcher, and a brown-headed nuthatch! Probably our best bird was the yellow-bellied sapsucker we all saw right in the parking lot as we were getting ready to start out on the walk.

However in my previous blog post, when I had said we might see other wildlife as well, it was not alligators I had in mind!

Despite the lack of birds it was still a nice morning to be out and about with other like-mined people, all sharing a common interest and enjoying the birds. Our total tally came to 18 species (unless someone reminds me of one or two I forgot) - those species being:


Turkey Vulture
Red-shouldered Hawk
Killdeer
Mourning Dove
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Great Crested Flycatcher
Loggerhead Shrike
Carolina Chickadee
Brown-headed Nuthatch
Eastern Bluebird
Northern Mockingbird
Brown Thrasher
European Starling
Northern Parula
Yellow-rumped warbler
Savannah Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird

Nature Walk - Agricultural Center

Where: St. Johns County Agricultural Center

When: Tuesday, April 9, 9:00-11:00 AM

Meet: at front of the Ag Center

We hope you can join us tomorrow for our next scheduled Neighborhood Nature Walk. The Ag Center is always a favorite spot for nature walks because of its diversity which includes a native plant arboretum, vegetable gardens, fields for sparrows, ponds for long-legged waders, and power lines and fences which often sport bluebirds, doves, kestrels and more. You never know what you’ll find there. Everyone is
welcome on this easy walk.

Certainly we had a wonderful variety of birds seen here on our previous Nature Walk at the Ag Center, back in November. Now let's see what sort of birds the spring season may bring us!

And not only birds! We may see other wildlife there as well. The weather reports are predicting a nice morning, so it should be a great day for the birds.

Washington Oaks Field Trip

Where: Washington Oaks Gardens State Park

When: Saturday, March 30

Time: 8 AM to noon

Location: Meet at the picnic grounds at the end of the road

We had a great chapter meeting this past Monday at the library in St. Augustine. About 20 people turned out to hear Washington Oaks park ranger Joe Woodbury give a talk on the Timucuan Indians, who lived in this area for about 2000 years. Joe truly made history come to life with great slides and hands-on artifacts.

We will actually see the area where many of these Indians lived when we go on our next field trip, to Washington Oaks itself. Washington Oaks is in Palm Coast, covering the land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Matanzas River.

At Washington Oaks you can walk along the beach, or explore their extensive trail system. You can walk the loop that explores the ecotone between the coastal maritime hammock and the estuarine tidal march along the Matanzas River, or explore a mature coastal maritime hammock, and venture into the edge of a dense canopied coastal scrub. Washington Oaks is a well-known spot for warblers and is part of the Great Florida Birding Trail.

Check out their birding checklist, and feel free to print out a copy to bring along with you. It should be a wonderful day!

Our March Chapter Meeting

Where: St. Johns Main Library, St. Augustine

When: Monday, March 25

Time: 6-8 PM

Join us this Monday for our chapter meeting at the library. We'd love to have you hear our presentation, and to socialize with other birders in the area.

Our presenter this month is Joseph Woodbury from Washington Oaks Gardens State Park. Joe is a Park Services Specialist at Washington Oaks and is a recipient of the statewide Interpreter of the Year award for his interpretations of the park.

Joe's talk for us will be about the Timucuan Indians. The Timucuans lives in northeast Florida and southeast Georgia and were the largest indigenous group in the area, and flourished along the rivers.

Our presentation will be followed up on Saturday, March 30, by a walk at Washington Oaks. Washington Oaks offers riverfront, oceanfront, maritime hammocks, woodlands, and should offer a wonderful birding experience.

A Wonderful boat ride

Mother Nature certainly smiled on St. Johns Audubon last Saturday. She had threatened us with chilly weather all week, and we were prepared to bundle up for the boat ride. But on Saturday she relented, and gave us a lovely sunny day - a bit on the cool side, but just refreshingly so.

And the day was delightful for birds as well - though lots of small shorebirds seen off on the sands made many of us wish for a good spotting scope to be sure of our IDs.

People did dress for the weather, but it got quite warm as the sun rose higher. And we had a great turnout of people as well, all out for a lovely boat ride and continental breakfast in support of St. Johns Audubon and HAWKE.

We saw ospreys all along the route as we traveled the waterfront along Porpoise Point and Anastasia Island along Salt Run.

We had lots of great spotters, who were treated to more than just the array of birds that were seen that morning.

We were also treated to a school of dolphins, joyfully leaping in and out of the water as they followed alongside the boat.

But there were also birds. The following is just a partial list of the birds seen on the trip, but if I get in reports of other species from others I'll post them here to try to have a complete list of species seen:


Red-breasted Merganser
Common Loon
Double-crested Cormorant
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Reddish Egret
White Ibis
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Northern Gannet
Black-bellied Plover
Killdeer
American Oystercatcher
Willet
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Forster's Tern
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Boat-tailed Grackle

And stay tuned here for details about our upcoming meeting on March 25th, and a field trip afterwards.

Neighborhood Nature Walk Fun (and a boat trip tomorrow!)

What a shame so few people joined us on Tuesday for our latest Neighborhood Nature Walk. It was a glorious early spring day, and sunlight was sparkling on the waters at the Bayview Samantha Wilson Center. There were gulls galore as usual, and the laughing gulls were nearly all fully into their breeding plumage, and filling the air with their laughter.

There were just three of us along for the walk, but a small group is also a good one for spotting birds and being able to share everything seen and heard with the group. The tide was out and there were lots of small shorebirds out on the mudflats, and we found ourselves wishing for a scope.

Several times we witnessed this osprey coming in for a meal, but coming up empty-taloned in its quest for fish.

This handsome immature red-tailed hawk with the bold dark belly-band was equally unsuccessful as we watched it. We hope both birds had better luck after we left the area!

After watching the shore birds a while we strolled through the neighborhood, serenaded by blue jays, yellow-rumped warblers, and red-bellied woodpeckers, and wound up at Lake Maria Sanchez.

There in the lake we saw a couple of hooded mergansers. They are such pretty birds and I was happy they hadn't left us for the season yet.

This anhinga almost seemed to pose for us as it rested and sunned itself at the edge of the lake.

We spotted a few great blue herons as well, but this one gave us the closest view.  All it all it was wonderful day, and we saw or heard 40 different species of birds in this small neighborhood area. We had a great time and hope more of you will join us next time. Next time could be as early as tomorrow!

After all,  it's not too late to sign up for tomorrow's Wildlife Boat Tour out of St. Augustine.

And by the way, here is the complete list of species from our morning:

Hooded Merganser
Wood Stork
Double-crested Cormorant
Anhinga
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
White Ibis
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Red-tailed Hawk
Black-bellied Plover
Willet
Ruddy Turnstone
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
Laughing Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Black Skimmer
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Blue Jay
Tree Swallow
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Wren
Eastern Bluebird
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Palm Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Boat-tailed Grackle