I was lucky to spot this Sandhill Crane at Spruce Bluff Preserve in Port St. Lucie. It was my first visit to Spruce Bluff and my first nesting sandhill crane.
From the parking area at this 97-acre county-owned park, one trail goes north and the other south. I went south.
Next time I will do the self-guided interpretative trail and pay attention to the numbers. This day the theme was Birds and New Place. Just looking, not reading a trail guide.
I walked a dry, sandy trail through pine flatwoods at first.
Then there was a boardwalk over wetlands.
Looking off to the right, I could just make out the form of the crane. Superzoom camera got me closer.
Sandhill Cranes breed in open wetland habitats surrounded by shrubs or trees. They nest in marshes, bogs, wet meadows, prairies, burned-over aspen stands, and other moist habitats, preferring those with standing water.
Nests are simple, mound-like platforms made of marsh plants, grasses, and weeds piled on the ground in marshes or wet meadows. Larger material forms the foundation of the nest while smaller stems or twigs form and line the egg cup. Both parents may gather material from the immediate area and toss it over their shoulders to form a mound, and in an area with emergent aquatic vegetation will form a characteristic vegetation-free “pluck-zone” surrounding the nest.
The female is generally the one to arrange the materials on the mound to form the nest. Their nests may be four to five feet in diameter. Throughout incubation, the incubating adult may add small amounts of material and continually rearrange the nest.
So pleasant to rest my eyes on this scene, after driving through the urban madness – especially Route 1/ Federal Highway. If you live around here, you know what I mean.
Woodsy part of the trail.
I was here the same day I visited River Park Marina and the weather was just perfect, warm and dry and a little breezy. Florida at its friendliest. Since then we have had some, let’s just say, DRAMATIC weather.
But you can’t have the wetlands if you don’t have the wet. And the tornados aren’t usually very big and the hail melts fast in Florida.
A little sad to think that this lovely mix of woods and water, like the nearby “savannas,” is what Port St. Lucie used to be, before the canals and fill-dirt and roads and houses. But that’s how we humans build our nests.
Exploring a new trail, looking for birds, living the dream.
A New Trail A Day For a Year would be a fun blog project. Maybe someday.
Saw palmetto in bloom, a pointy plant.
The trail circles around a prehistoric Indian mound. You can’t see it very well, and you must not climb up on it, but allow yourself a spooky little feeling of a lost past.
Before the county bought this preserve, 60 homes were planned and platted for this site.
Save more, save more! counties, states and nations.
On the side of the trail where the land rose up to the top of the mound, a Great Blue Heron swept down from the sky and landed on a pine limb.
I spotted these two at a local elementary school as kids were getting out in the afternoon. They don’t care about people being near.
Sandhill cranes are almost four feet tall – taller than many children.
They have a distinctive red patch of bare skin on top of their heads, feathers of a soft gray color, and pretty red-gold eyes.
Two subspecies of sandhill crane occur in Florida. The Florida sandhill crane (G. c. pratensis), numbering 4,000 to 5,000, is a non-migratory year-round breeding resident. They are joined every winter by 25,000 migratory greater sandhill cranes (G. c. tabida), the larger of the two subspecies. The greater sandhill crane winters in Florida but nests in the Great Lakes region.
There is a small wetland adjacent to this school. It may be home for these two. I think they are resident birds. In this area north of the St. Lucie River and near the Savannas, In Stuart, Jensen Beach and Port St. Lucie, I see Sandhill Cranes all year, with chicks following them around in spring.
Sandhill Cranes mate for life.
Sandhill Cranes are omnivorous, eating insects and larvae, snails, amphibians and reptiles, small mammals, seeds, berries and tubers.
A series of Sandhill Crane photos, from a walk at Green River on December 4. They are the same two cranes, somewhat unhappy that we chose the area for a dog walk.
Sandhill cranes are iconic members of the Florida ecosystem. They stand almost 4 feet tall and their bugling or rattling calls are frequently heard in natural areas or overhead. Sandhill cranes occur in pastures, open prairies and freshwater wetlands in peninsular Florida from the Everglades to the Okefenokee Swamp.
Florida sandhill cranes are present in many urban areas including golf courses, airports and suburban subdivisions. This is due in part to the rapid development of their native habitat by humans. Cranes are attracted by open settings (mowed grass) and the availability of foods such as acorns, earthworms, mole crickets and turf grubs.
We see Sandhill Cranes fairly often in this place on the west side of Green River Parkway, across from the southern part of Savannas Preserve, in northern Martin County, Florida. Very impressive birds!
A pair of Sandhill Cranes walked up onto the dike in front of us yesterday morning as we were looping back from a nice bird walk (see egret pics too).
My husband John and I were walking where the retention ponds are located just off Green River Parkway in Jensen Beach. We’ve been going there a lot lately.
Whether stepping singly across a wet meadow or filling the sky by the hundreds and thousands, Sandhill Cranes have an elegance that draws attention. These tall, gray-bodied, crimson-capped birds breed in open wetlands, fields, and prairies across North America.
We see cranes often in this area of Jensen Beach, with a section of the Savannas Preserve just across the parkway. They also like to visit bird feeders in people’s yards around here, or walk along roadsides.
They are so big, which such magnificent wings.
They mate for life.
When we arrived at Green River I told John, “I’ll be happy if I get a good photo or two of a Sandhill Crane today.”
A couple of big birds walking at Park of Commerce Boulevard just off Beeline Highway in northern Palm Beach County.
The wetlands in that area are remnants of northern Everglades, with some big employers too like Pratt Whitney and destinations like Palm Beach International Raceway.
Also, wildlife abounds.
We were at the gas station there yesterday, after giving up on a walk in a too-wet wetland. When I saw these Sandhills Cranes, I walked over and sat at a picnic table (with my camera) to see what they would do.
In Florida, it is illegal to feed manatees, sandhill cranes, bears, raccoons, foxes, and alligators.
Feeding wildlife often has a detrimental rather than a helpful effect. Feeding animals may cause some species to concentrate so much on this supplemental feeding that they become a nuisance or a threat to people (e.g., bears, sandhill cranes). When fed, alligators can overcome their natural wariness and learn to associate people with food. When this happens, some of these alligators have to be removed and killed.
A bold, 12-foot alligator killed a woman in South Florida a few days ago. It had taken up residence in a park in an urban area where people fed the animals and sabotaged traps set out to capture nuisance critters. Some people can be so dumb.
But I can certainly understand the temptation to attract and interact with this cool animal. Growing up in the Philadelphia suburbs, I read National Geographic, watched animal documentaries and TV shows, and dreamed of safari jobs and adventures getting close to large animals in wild habitat.
But of course you don’t have to go to Africa to observe wild animals.
The cranes gave up on me and headed toward the Fried Chicken and Hot Subs.
My husband and dog were at the table over there. The top of our German shepherd’s head is just visible. Radar has his ears in the irritated-with-us position. He was ready for a big walk, but the trails in J.W. Corbett WMA were mostly under water. Rainy season has been too rainy.
Much of South Florida is dense-pack developed, but there are huge swaths of preserved land for exploring too. Many are Wildlife Management Areas, with dirt roads and some trails, where hunting is legal. I’m realizing why I see a lot of jacked-up mud trucks with monster tires around here. An airboat would have come in handy yesterday too.
Sandhill cranes are cherished members of the Florida ecosystem. They stand almost 4 feet tall and their bugling or rattling calls are haunting and beautiful. Sandhill cranes occur in pastures, open prairies and freshwater wetlands in peninsular Florida from the Everglades to the Okefenokee Swamp.
Florida sandhill cranes are present in many urban areas and some unlikely places such as golf courses, airports and suburban subdivisions. This is probably due in part to the rapid development of their native habitat by humans. Cranes are probably attracted by the open setting (mowed grass) and availability of some foods (acorns, earthworms, mole crickets, turf grubs).
A few minutes after I took these photos, I watched a guy gassing up at a pump toss some leftover unidentifiable mystery food from a styrofoam container onto the ground in front of the cranes and they pecked at a few bites.
The omnivorous Sandhill Crane feeds on land or in shallow marshes where plants grow out of the water, gleaning from the surface and probing with its bill. Its diet is heavy in seeds and cultivated grains, but may also include berries, tubers, small vertebrates, and invertebrates. Nonmigratory populations eat adult and larval insects, snails, reptiles, amphibians, nestling birds, small mammals, seeds, and berries.
Whether stepping singly across a wet meadow or filling the sky by the hundreds and thousands, Sandhill Cranes have an elegance that draws attention. These tall, gray-bodied, crimson-capped birds breed in open wetlands, fields, and prairies across North America.
Early naturalists spotted plenty flamingos, but never made a definitive decision. A century later, after plume hunters ravaged the state, they’d mostly disappeared. Now, a comprehensive study recently published in the American Ornithological Society’s journal The Condor finally provides an answer: Flamingos are likely natives, though their footprint in Florida is as light as their hot pink feathers.
I’d love to hop across the water someday and see the flamingos in the Bahamas, on Great Inagua Island. Over 80,000 of them!
A week ago, on March 21st, I went on a field trip organized by the local Audubon to Platt’s Creek Preserve, a restored wetland area in St. Lucie County.
Incoming ducks.
These were Mottled Ducks. We had two expert birders leading the trip, Eva Ries and David Simpson, and their identifications and commentary were so helpful and educational.
A couple of males were fighting for a few minutes.
A male and a female watched.
Boat-tailed Grackles were everywhere, and the males were noisy, bold and impossible to ignore.
When you smell saltwater on the East Coast, it’s time to look out for Boat-tailed Grackles. The glossy blue-black males are hard to miss as they haul their ridiculously long tails around or display from marsh grasses or telephone wires.
In our party of 10, I am the one who spotted the Bald Eagle first and I’m pretty proud of that. What a bird, look at those wings!
Northern Harrier that appears to be pursued by a Tree Swallow? This could have just been the angle of the photo, or maybe that little bird was pissed off.
We saw a couple of harriers working the boundaries of the woods and marsh area. Very cool raptors.
The Northern Harrier is distinctive from a long distance away: a slim, long-tailed hawk gliding low over a marsh or grassland, holding its wings in a V-shape and sporting a white patch at the base of its tail. Up close it has an owlish face that helps it hear mice and voles beneath the vegetation.
Also soaring around up in the sky, a couple of Swallow-tailed Kites. This one was eating a lizard while flying, nice trick.
The lilting Swallow-tailed Kite has been called “the coolest bird on the planet.” With its deeply forked tail and bold black-and-white plumage, it is unmistakable in the summer skies above swamps of the Southeast. Flying with barely a wingbeat and maneuvering with twists of its incredible tail, it chases dragonflies or plucks frogs, lizards, snakes, and nestling birds from tree branches. After rearing its young in a treetop nest, the kite migrates to wintering grounds in South America.
Common Gallinule keeping an eye on us.
Sandhill Crane in someone’s backyard. Some birds are easier to spot than others.
Limpkin stalking the pond side vegetation.
An unusual bird of southern swamps and marshes, the Limpkin reaches the northern limits of its breeding range in Florida. There, it feeds almost exclusively on apple snails, which it extracts from their shells with its long bill. Its screaming cry is unmistakable and evocative.
In all, we tallied 51 species in our 3-hour, 1.5 mile walk. David Simpson posted the checklist to eBird HERE. Very helpful photos and descriptions for us birding newbies!
Sandhill Crane photographed through the windshield as we drove to Atlantic Ridge Preserve State Park in Stuart, FL. There are a lot of these big birds in this riverside neighborhood off Paulson Road. They have a certain nonchalance.
It’s a big park, 5800 acres in southern Martin County. It’s barebones too. If the phone line is busy to the Jonathan Dickinson State Park ranger station, as it was when we called, then you can’t get the code to the gate at the park entrance and you have to climb over the fence (and throw your dog over too).
There is a map available in a box at the entrance.
Our first bird sighting inside the park was this sweet little Eastern Phoebe at a marshy spot in the wet prairie.
Phoebe fun fact: “In 1804, the Eastern Phoebe became the first banded bird in North America. John James Audubon attached silvered thread to an Eastern Phoebe’s leg to track its return in successive years.”
Eastern Phoebes sit alertly on low perches, often twitching their tails as they look out for flying insects. When they spot one, they abruptly leave their perch on quick wingbeats, and chase down their prey in a quick sally—often returning to the same or a nearby perch.
Bird #2 was a Bald Eagle! Slow flapping flight over wetlands.
Speaking of wetlands, there were ditches on one or both sides of the flat sandy track and our dog stayed well-hydrated.
Radar soaks his feet.
Jungly, in that wet-dry Florida way.
The view.
Tracking. We saw signs of deer and wild (or feral) pigs but no encounters.
A couple of miles in, John gets a phone call. Can’t we ever get away from it all??
Wild thing.
Sign in the middle of nowhere.
Vegetation. Kind of monotonous in a beautiful way.
Saw palmetto everywhere. Which is ironic because we want to plant some on our property and can’t find it available in local nurseries. Someone told us that the state buys a lot of it from the wholesalers because they have to plant a large percentage of native stuff when they landscape roadways etc.
Pine Warbler in a pine tree.
This is my first Florida sighting of a Pine Warbler.
I first encountered one in April of 2015 in my New Hampshire backyard, visiting a suet cake I put out: A warbler. And then again in March of 2016 nibbling my homemade suet dough on a porch railing: An Easter visitor.
Tracks on the trail.
We heard this hawk calling and calling and when it finally flew off its distant perch I couldn’t believe I got the photo with enough detail to ID it: it’s a Red-shouldered Hawk.
Whether wheeling over a swamp forest or whistling plaintively from a riverine park, a Red-shouldered Hawk is typically a sign of tall woods and water. It’s one of our most distinctively marked common hawks, with barred reddish-peachy underparts and a strongly banded tail. In flight, translucent crescents near the wingtips help to identify the species at a distance. These forest hawks hunt prey ranging from mice to frogs and snakes.
Also spotted, a solo Blue Jay keeping an eye on us.
This common, large songbird is familiar to many people, with its perky crest; blue, white, and black plumage; and noisy calls. Blue Jays are known for their intelligence and complex social systems with tight family bonds. Their fondness for acorns is credited with helping spread oak trees after the last glacial period.
We walked along a large canal at one point, the “Seawind Canal” according to our black and white paper map. (We also used Google maps on my phone to not get lost.)
A nearby committee of vultures took wing and became a kettle of vultures as we walked by. Lots and lots of them, seeming to really check us out.
Black Vultures have the white wingtips.
During the day, Black Vultures soar in flocks, often with Turkey Vultures and hawks. Their flight style is distinctive: strong wingbeats followed by short glides, giving them a batlike appearance.
It was a 4.5 mile walk in total, with some pleasant vistas and a nice collection of birds. We will go back to Atlantic Ridge.
Good morning, Lakeside Ranch STA (Stormwater Treatment Area).
I signed in at the gate with the president of Audubon of Martin County bright and early yesterday morning and joined a few other cars driving around here and there on the narrow roads on top of the dikes in the 2600 acres under the care of the South Florida Water Management District.
Lakeside Ranch STA is located on the northeast side of Lake Okeechobee, about 50 minutes from my home in Sewall’s Point.
Great Blue Heron in the misty morn.
Peaceful and pretty. Temps around 57 when I arrived at 7 a.m., climbing to 75 or so by the time I left at 10:30.
Sandhill Crane flyby.
Another birdwatcher.
Great Egret and Great Blue Heron.
Anhinga keeping an eye on me.
Tri-colored Heron hunting for breakfast.
Snowy Egret and juvenile night heron.
Little Blue Heron and Tricolored Heron.
Rotten photo but I’ve been seeing these birds in Florida and didn’t know what they were. Audubon president helped me ID it as a Palm Warbler. “Yellow butt? Brown capped head? Wagging tail?”
The rusty-capped Palm Warbler can be most easily recognized by the tail-wagging habit that shows off its yellow undertail. It breeds in bogs and winters primarily in the southern United States and Caribbean.
Voguing grackles. Or maybe males having a sing off? I am pretty sure these are Boat-tailed Grackles.
Boat-tailed Grackles are large, lanky songbirds with rounded crowns, long legs, and fairly long, pointed bills. Males have very long tails that make up almost half their body length and that they typically hold folded in a V-shape, like the keel of a boat.
Males are glossy black all over. Females are dark brown above and russet below, with a subtle face pattern made up of a pale eyebrow, dark cheek, and pale “mustache” stripe.
These scrappy blackbirds are supreme omnivores, feeding on everything from seeds and human food scraps to crustaceans scavenged from the shoreline.
Boat-tailed Grackles are a strictly coastal species through most of their range; however, they live across much of the Florida peninsula, often well away from the immediate coast.
Is it a duck?
Or a wading bird? Neither… it’s a Common Gallinule!
The Common Gallinule inhabits marshes and ponds from Canada to Chile. Vocal and boldly marked with a brilliant red shield over the bill, the species can be quite conspicuous. It sometimes uses its long toes to walk atop floating vegetation. This species was formerly called the Common Moorhen and is closely related to moorhen species in the Old World.
Red-winged Blackbird.
Killdeer.
A shorebird you can see without going to the beach, Killdeer are graceful plovers common to lawns, golf courses, athletic fields, and parking lots. These tawny birds run across the ground in spurts, stopping with a jolt every so often to check their progress, or to see if they’ve startled up any insect prey. Their voice, a far-carrying, excited kill-deer, is a common sound even after dark, often given in flight as the bird circles overhead on slender wings.
Let these dead trees be decorated with Anhingas!
Aw, sweet. Two Great Blue Herons starting a nest in a cabbage palm.
My first Eastern Meadowlark!
The sweet, lazy whistles of Eastern Meadowlarks waft over summer grasslands and farms in eastern North America. The birds themselves sing from fenceposts and telephone lines or stalk through the grasses, probing the ground for insects with their long, sharp bills. On the ground, their brown-and-black dappled upperparts camouflage the birds among dirt clods and dry grasses. But up on perches, they reveal bright-yellow underparts and a striking black chevron across the chest.
Juvenile White Ibis strikes a pose.
Cattle Egret, that chunky little white egret found near or away from water. Often seen (by me) on top of shrubs planted in medians.
Anhinga draws attention to an important road sign.
Great Blue Heron pose.
Alligator smile.
There were five gators in this one spot.
View across a small canal to another birdwatcher’s car.
Blackbird (grackle?) draws attention to this important sign.
Cattle and cattle egrets, just past the edge of the STA.
Sandhill Crane, maybe on top of the beginnings of a nest.
Glossy Ibis.
A dark wading bird with a long, down-curved bill. Although the Glossy Ibis in North America lives primarily along the Atlantic Coast, it also can be found in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
Blurry pic because it was far away, but with important identifying features. I described this bird to the Audubon president when I got back to the gate and he said it was a Loggerhead Shrike. Another new bird!
The Loggerhead Shrike is a songbird with a raptor’s habits. A denizen of grasslands and other open habitats throughout much of North America, this masked black, white, and gray predator hunts from utility poles, fence posts and other conspicuous perches, preying on insects, birds, lizards, and small mammals. Lacking a raptor’s talons, Loggerhead Shrikes skewer their kills on thorns or barbed wire or wedge them into tight places for easy eating. Their numbers have dropped sharply in the last half-century.
At the end of January, I attended a couple of days of a local Audubon Field Academy. I am signed up next to do a day with raptors at a local wildlife rehab center, then a unit on migration at the end of March. More field trips are on the calendar too.
Meanwhile, back to fixing up this little old Florida concrete-block-and-stucco house. I am painting the last of the three bedrooms today before the wood floor installation guys arrive tomorrow.
In a Port St. Lucie front yard, among the lawn statuary, three Sandhill Cranes.
We went down a wrong side road while trying to take a shortcut after buying three ceiling fans. We drove by and I said, “Hey, did you see the sandhill cranes in that yard?” John said, “No, those are statues, like the pink flamingo.” We turned around to drive by again.
Sure enough, they were real. Partaking of bird seed. As hugely out of place at those bird feeders as the wild turkeys used to be under at my feeders in NH.
The omnivorous Sandhill Crane feeds on land or in shallow marshes where plants grow out of the water, gleaning from the surface and probing with its bill. Its diet is heavy in seeds and cultivated grains, but may also include berries, tubers, small vertebrates, and invertebrates.
Amy's Bird Blog 