Windy Day at Station 5

Over view of Station 5

It has not been a top down season here in Florida.  I’ve hardly been able to put the top down on the car the whole season.  I know.  I shouldn’t complain because if I was home this winter, I would have barely left the house!  In the 12 years that I’ve been spending winters in South Florida, its never been this cool and rainy.  It rained hard the evening before going out to Station 5 and the dirt road into the facility was scary indeed.  It was like driving on ice and snow and I thought I was either going to get mired in mud or slide right into the canal.  Neither were happy prospects.  The Florida dirt is the sticky, slick, stuff which it doesn’t come off easily, hardening like concrete.  The mud was solidly stuck to the underside, wheel wells and on sides of my car.  I could probably be fined by my condo association for washing the car, leaving all the muck on the roof top parking garage car washing spot.  It was 47 degrees when we arrived at Station 5 and the wind was blowing 20-25 mph but it wasn’t raining.  Still, it was good to be out of the house and be at one of my favorite places to go birding.  I was accompanied by my steady snow bird companions, Pat, and Lori, from Michigan, Larry from Queens and Pat’s friend, Greg, visiting from Michigan.

Black-necked stilts

The trips to Station 5, twenty miles south of Clewiston, are offered by the Hendry/Glades County Audubon by reservation only.  The trips fill up quickly as many are learning that its one of the best spots to see a variety of species at once, including several Florida specialties, purple gallinule, limpkin and snail kite.  Even with the cool temperatures and, high winds, we saw 70 species.  We were treated right off the bat to the elegant black necked stilt, as well as greater and lesser yellowlegs.  The water levels were quite high, so we did not see as many mud loving shore birds as we usually see.  If you have ever wondered where American coot spend the winter, wonder no more.  If there were 300 thousand, that might have been an under count!  One could get dizzy counting them, as this tour was part of the Back Yard Bird Count event.  Of great interest to most visitors are the invasive purple swamphens.  They are like the smaller endemic purple gallinules which the swamphens seem to be replacing.

Purple Swamphen

We were treated to several species of waders, including black-crowned night heron, wood stork and limpkin.  Well, limpkin are not waders in the true sense, they are related to rails, in my mind, with their long legs and usually found where waders would be, I am inclined to think of them that way.  Call me whimsical instead of a purist!  Limpkin have a very distinctive loud call that reminds me of a baby animal wailing, really wailing!  I have always found it handy to make associations in my mind to remember all the sounds.  There were also many species of ducks, mottled, shoveler, blue-wing teal, American wigeon, ruddy, and ring-necked ducks as well as the large and lovely fulvous whistling duck. Their sweet whistling calls can carry quite a distance and the sound always turns my head.  There were many white pelican gathered in small groups or circles. That day we had 13 species of birds of prey, including bald eagle and snail kite.  American kestrel are in serious trouble in most places. Greg was saying that finding kestrel in Michigan was difficult and I know that kestrel are becoming rare birds on Long Island but here in Florida their numbers are still good and its a treat to be able to say, as I do at times in jest, “Ho Hum. Another........

Fulvous Whistling-ducks & one Coot

The road in and out of Station 5 can hold amusements, too.  There are often scissor-tailed flycatcher on the wires and we had one that day.  One must always keep an eye on the tops of the power poles for red-tailed hawk, crested caracara and eagle.  All were checked off that day. We had the Krider’s morph of red tail, which I had never seen before.  It is very pale, with a barely visible belly band, and the bird shows a great deal of white on the tail.  Surprisingly, with all the rain, there were no puddles in the surrounding agricultural fields that welcome shore birds.  Usually, I allow time to check out the fields driving in and out of Station 5.  It doesn’t hurt.

I know at the Wal Mart Superstore in Clewiston, sometimes one can catch sight of common myna.  Without Larry’s sharp eyes, we would have missed them!  We also checked out the sump basins next to the parking lot for shore birds.  We had some more yellowlegs and a solitary sandpiper.  We were leaving, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that my mind said was a black skimmer.  “Impossible,” I thought!  Sure enough, a black skimmer working a sump pond.  Who would have thought that! 

On the way home, we made a brief stop at a section of Station 1 West open to the public, where there is a small boardwalk.  One black skimmer was flying back and forth feeding in the calmer water near the boardwalk.  It was such a treat to see one so close and to be able to hear its mandible close.  I was snapping away and was lucky to get one good shot.  Oh, there were more coots, too.  A lot more!

Black Skimmer

The temperature never got over 57 and the top didn’t come down.  I washed the car the next morning and I was not able to get all the mud off the wheel wells.  I think next time I’ll go to the self-service car wash and use the power nozzle instead.  I won’t get fined there!

For more articles on Station 5 please see February 2007, February 2008, A Pink Day at Station 5, and February 2009, Station 5 Report.

You may e-mail Jody at jlev545@gmail.com