Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center

I stumbled across the Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center simply by good fortune. Mother Ephemera, who has lived in Florida over forty years, asked to go to the Keys for her __th birthday (let's say it's a number rhyming with "eventyeth".)

After lunch in Key Largo our plan was to go for a glass bottom boat ride at John Pennekamp State Park, but cloudy weather forced a change in plans. So we decided to drive to Islamorada but were detoured by bumper-to-bumper traffic and turned around without ever reaching our destination. Instead we saw a sign for the Bird Center and stopped to visit. I was initially surprised to see what looked like a house with pelicans and egrets lining the roof. The first couple of cages looked empty and then we saw some hawks and owls munching on their lunches (gross). A boardwalk led to a mangrove swamp that was packed with birds: wood storks, great egrets, snowy egrets, great blue herons and ibis; it was wading bird paradise. Further along however, pelicans blocked the boardwalk and seemed mean and ornery as they waddled back and forth looking for fish handouts. At first I was a little intimidated by these turkey-sized birds with enormous bills, but eventually I got used to pushing my way through the hordes. The boardwalk eventually ended at a swamp where a solitary Roseatte Spoonbill sat in the distance.

Father Ephemera zooms in on an egret

In between the Spoonbill and the boardwalk, was a spot where literally hundreds of pelicans waited to be fed. I was never quite sure why they were feeding these wild birds, but I do know it was quite a spectacle. Mother Ephemera, who spent much of her youth on a farm in Michigan, had no inhibitions about the voracious birds and she took her place on the feeding platform to throw fish parts to the hungry horde. When a bird got too aggressive, she simply kicked it away. It was enthralling for me to see my mom so in her element, laughing when a foot long bill disappeared inside the feeding bucket and ducking as pelicans glided inches from her hair.

If you should get a chance to visit, make sure it's around feeding time, for the fantastic feeding frenzy!

Mother Ephemera scolds a misbehaving Pelican

The serene side of the Wild Bird Center

Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge

It could be argued that the best attractions in Florida are the free ones. If so, there are few better than Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on a beautiful winter day. Winter is best because the refuge harbors so many species of migratory birds. The 140,000 acre refuge, close enough to the Kennedy Space Center to see the Vehicle Assembly building in the distance, contains 15 threatened or endangered species and more than 500 species of wildlife. The land was purchased in 1962 to be part of KSC, but in 1963 it was turned over to the Fish and Wildlife Service to establish as a wildlife refuge.

My self-created mission on this February visit to the refuge was to see Spoonbills. On an earlier visit, I saw a couple fly overhead, but nothing close-up. Our first bird ID was a Spotted Sandpiper and it wasn't long before we added to our list:
• Killdeer • Snowy Egret • Great Egret • Great Blue Heron • Little Blue Heron • Reddish Egret • Tri-color Heron • White Ibis • Glossy Ibis • Coots • American Avocet • Hooded Merganser • Blue-Winged Teal • Green-Winged Teal • Northern Shoveler • Northern Pintail • Mottled Duck • Double Breasted Cormorant • Brown Pelican • American White Pelican • Pied Billed Grebe • Northern Harrier • Bald Eagle • Kingfisher

We were almost to the end of the refuge, enjoying a good view of a beautiful Reddish Egret and hunger was calling. As we approached the exit road we saw a large flock of Spoonbills circling in the air, their bright pink and red wings unmistakable against the bright blue sky. We watched as they landed in a body of water close to where we were headed and we raced to meet them. And they are everything Joy Postle marveled about. Their odd beaks shovel the muddy bottom as they forage for food while the intensity of their plumage rivals anything else in the animal kingdom. While they are beautiful on the ground, their color is most vivid as they take to the air and the sun illuminates their feathers. Truly amazing, glamorous birds!

In search of Spoonbills

I'm headed to Merritt Island for some bird-watching and I hope to see one of Joy Postle's favorite birds, the Roseate Spoonbill. Like me she seemed to be most interested in Florida's wading birds and the Spoonbill is one of the most exotic of that set. The Spoonbill found its way into Postle's paintings and poetry, and I imagine that it represented a good portion of her set in the performance piece she created with her husband called "Glamour Birds" of the Americas. In the act, Postle's husband would play recorded bird songs while she played the piano, sang, recited poetry and created colorful, lifesize birds out of colored chalk before a live audience. The newspaper clipping above is from 1945.

While the Spoonbill has magnificently colored, glamorous feathers, the rest of it is just plain odd. Combine the prehistoric-like head of a wood stork with the coloring and grace of a flamingo, then add a giant spoon for a beak and you get a Spoonbill. They prefer mangrove swamps, which is why you don't see them much in Orlando. On one rare occasion I spotted one in a lake nearby that was shrinking due to a drought, pushing it's huge spoon-shaped bill in to the muddy shallows. I have yet to photograph one in the wild, but maybe today is the day!