Date of Survey: 040116
Official Low Tide:
9:33 am Survey start time:
8:18 am Survey end time: 10:30 am
Tide heights: 0.4ft/12cm
Mudflats exposed?
y
Temperature: 75°F/ 24°C Cloud cover: 20%
Sunny light breeze. NICE!
Common Name
|
Counts of birds foraging on mud flats
|
Behavior
Forage-F
Rest/roost-R
Fly
over -FO
|
Disturbance
(Flushing-F,
displaced-D, agitated-A)
|
Feeding location
*Primary
flat (P)
Mangrove flat (M)
|
Snowy egret
|
5
|
F
|
D-H
|
M
|
Great blue heron
|
2
|
F
|
M
|
|
Tri Colored Heron
|
3
|
F
|
D-H-2
|
M, P-1
|
Little blue heron
|
2
|
M
|
||
white ibis
|
4
|
F
|
M
|
|
Total
|
16
|
|||
Notes: Most of
the bird action is along the mangrove lines, but still not sure it is enough to
warrant a full scale survey of the entire park. The birds seem to have found better
foraging grounds—where there are not so many people.
Human counts: paddle boarders- 4; kayaks-8; 4 fisherman; one
drone. Humans won today [if you count the drone] 17-16 count.
DRONE!! We debated on getting a drone to do a full scale
survey of the entire park, but it was loud and we don’t have a budget. The drone was taking pictures of us taking pictures of it. I believe it was filming the paddleboard girl who has a business and brings lots of humans--that paddle directly along the mangrove lines and displace any birds trying to forage.
There are lots of laws for recreational viewing of wildlife. Personal experience out on the water shows that most people are not aware of any laws, or etiquette when approaching animals in the wild. Here are some rules and further reading for viewing wildlife.
Florida Manatee: http://myfwc.com/education/wildlife/manatee/viewing-guidelines/
Genreal marine mammal guidelines: http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/library/national/oeguidelines.pdf
We are seeing a very small amount of birds; the same few
species. So instead of posting another bird photo; we had two very special
guest assistants today…. I hope they come every week. Dogs are nice. His name
is Gunner [with his dad Leslie].
No comments:
Post a Comment