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.