Observing Songbirds And Gopher Tortoises

Location, location, location; the importance of habitat.

Today was a slow day for migrating raptors. I did see 28 Osprey, 4 Merlin, and an American Kestrel. It was what else that I observed that excited me more.

Today was a lesson in why habitat is so important to wildlife survival. Wildlife needs three things in order to survive. They need a home. They need a food source. They need safety from humans and other prey.

This morning I discovered immature Red-headed Woodpeckers in an area where I haven’t seen them before. As I pondered why, I realized that the area had everything they needed to make a home. It has lots of dead snags to nest in and store food. It has all of the food a Red-headed Woodpecker would like, insects which they can catch on the fly, dead trees to drill for insects bored within, acorns and fruits. What it doesn’t have is human interference and no prey, except for the danger of larger migrating raptors. My hope is that these Red-headed Woodpeckers make this their home and produce young, helping to turn back the numbers that show a yearly decline of these birds at 4.3%.

Another lesson in habitat happened when I looked down at my feet after a few hours of sitting almost motionless observing the migrating raptors and arriving songbirds and found a Gopher Tortoise within inches of my feet, obliviously munching Dollar Weed leaves. This area has it all for Gopher Tortoise. It has plenty of protein rich, herbaceous foods and Palmetto Palm seeds. It has acres of sandy, well-drained dunes to make burrows in. There are almost no humans that might cause interference. Gopher Tortoises make many burrows that they use and visit through out the year. A male may travel to many burrows requiring 4 or more acres in territory. Gopher Tortoises are sexually mature at 10-15 years and will live as long as 65 years. They are a threatened species in Florida. They are a species in decline, and because almost 350 different animals, birds, snakes and insects use their burrows for homes it is quite possible that if the tortoise becomes endangered we will see many other species who share the Gopher Tortoises’ home-sites become endangered as well.

Habitat for both the Red-headed Woodpecker and the Gopher Tortoise is shrinking at a steady decline. I’m thankful that this area can be home to both species. With careful stewardship we can provide the location, location, location for many generations of these wonderful creatures.

Observing Ospreys

Today was a slow raptor migration day but I saw so many other wonderful sights. As I walked along the edge of Nassau Sound out to my beach observation area I watched a tarpon that looked to be about 75-80 pounds clear the water with its entire body busting through a large pod of balled up fingerling mullet. I stopped and watched several other tarpon crashing on mullet pods making huge splashes, almost as if someone was throwing cinderblocks into the water.

I spent several hours observing 11 Osprey roosting in the pines near the beach. 3 did fly down the coast and joined the rest already in the trees. At about dead low tide they began one by one to fly out over the sound to hunt. They each came back with fingerling mullet and landed in the same roosts to eat.

Migration of all species ties into food source availability. The fall mullet run is in full swing and the osprey are stopping and feeding on them. I have observed that osprey don’t steal food from each other. They display no mantling (covering of their food with their wings). In many cases they placidly eat with a neighboring osprey only feet away. I have seen both bald and golden eagles chase osprey that are carrying fish. Ospreys don’t seem to harass each other the way other raptors will do. Falcons will swoop down on a roosting falcon in a mock stoop, disturbing the perching bird. Ospreys will land on the same branch as a roosting bird and there is no sign of alarm or aggression.

Swallows filled the sky by the hundreds confusing my long-range vision at times. Once I was seeing a dozen or so swallows careening in front of me when I noticed that one seemed larger and was flying in a much straighter line. When it came into range it turned out to be a Merlin migrating down the beach, the only one I saw today. I have seen far away butterflies look like migrating birds of prey until they came into range.

The first few Yellow-rumped Warblers arrived and I noticed that the wax myrtles have nearly ripe berries that the warblers will feed on most of the winter. This is another correlation between migration and food sources.

Birding Amelia Island, A Naturalist’s Blog

I love September on Amelia Island. It is the start of migration for thousands of shorebirds, raptors, songbirds, hummingbirds and butterflies.

Most songbirds migrate south by night. Some stopover and feed during the day. This September I have seen hundreds of Swallows, a few dozen Eastern Kingbirds, several Brown Thrashers, Wilson’s and Yellow Throated Warblers. Today an immature Painted Bunting fed on beach grass seeds a few feet away. Most mornings I see a Ruby-throated Humming bird buzzing down the beach

Great Blue Herons migrate mostly by day and I see them singly or in groups of up to 20 towards their wintering grounds in Cuba, Central America, and the northern coasts of South America

Hundreds of Ibis, both this years young and adults head south in ragged V’s.

Butterflies race past me on the beach almost faster than I can count them. Gulf Fritillary’s Monarch’s, Red Admiral’s, the occasional Cloudless Sulphur and even a Zebra Longwing. This day I counted 385, south on route to Mexico and the Americas.

The raptor migration begins in September with Osprey leaving the coasts of the Northeast and Mid Atlantic to winter in Central and South America. Most dawns I can count half a dozen Osprey roosted overnight in dead pines near the beach, soon to join migrating ones following the shoreline as the sun rises. A few Merlin are seen in September. Mid September marks the beginning of the Bald Eagle migration.

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