Nesting Osprey in Sanford, Florida

Sometimes I hate living in Florida. Like when it’s May and 92 degrees outside, with 100% humidity. Other times, it doesn’t seem so bad.

This time of year, it seems like every light pole, pillar, or 30′ tree has an Osprey nest in it. Not that I’m complaining. I love their gangly little chicks.

I used to wonder how their nestlings ever survived to adulthood – nesting in the direct sun on a utility pole in an asphalt parking lot in Florida seems like a good way to grill chicken, not raise young.

What seems to keep them alive is that chicks spend most of their time in the shade of one of the parents – under their wings, their body, their tail. In most places parent birds have to use their bodies to keep their nestlings warm. In Florida, they use their bodies to keep them from baking.

And it’s not like they’re still not hot. See how the chicks mouth is hanging open in every picture? It’s panting like crazy because it’s bloody hot out here! But the shade from its parent must to keep it alive to adulthood, because there are Ospreys everywhere. (Drive the 417 bridge over Lake Jesup sometime – you’ll find an Osprey perched on a giant fish on every other light pole.)

And when just standing there isn’t enough, the parent will start dancing around, flapping their huge wings, cooling both themselves and the nestling with the breeze.

Other times, when it’s just too hot, they ditch their chick and take to the air to feel the cool rushing breeze on their skin.

But despite the heat, they always come back.

Birding Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge – Black Point Wildlife Drive

It was storming when I turned onto the packed dirt road of Merritt Island’s Black Point Wildlife Drive. The weather almost sent me home, but I was in the area already, and hoped that the rain wouldn’t bother the wading birds who spend most of their time in water anyway.

As I pushed my $5 into the honor box (I learned later that I could have gotten in with my  Duck Stamp!), the rain suddenly stopped, in the way that it sometimes does in Florida, and although thick bands of grey clouds continued to move overhead, I had the whole place to myself. Almost.

The birds certainly had no problems with the weather, and I had plenty of time to watch as Sandpipers, Herons, Egrets, and Stilts foraged, fought, and flew over the shallow pools. One look at eBirds Hotspot data page for Black Point should tell you just how many birds make this refuge their home.

There were plenty of peeps and plovers, poking about the muck, undisturbed by a slow moving car.

In a single morning, one could easily see almost every wading bird in Florida – from Snowy Egrets with their dainty yellow socks, to Glossy Ibis, Tricolored Herons, both Little and Great Blues, Roseate Spoonbills, Reddish Egrets, and Great Egrets in breeding plumage, all as White Ibis fly in flocks across the sky.

The earlier rain did seem to drive the songbirds into hiding, but a few Red-winged Blackbirds came out to sing their rattly trill in the lull between storms.

My favorite find of the day were a pair of perfectly balanced American Avocets, long curled beaks nestled in their back feathers, snoozing. As a flock of Ibis flew overhead, they briefly opened their eyes, looked right at me, then went back to sleep.