A Day at Fort De Soto

Fort De Soto is Da Bomb! Or a bomb, depending on when you go.

It is a truth widely acknowledged among Florida birders that the single best thing a person can do during spring migration is head to Fort De Soto County Park , where warblers and tropical vagrants drip from the trees like blooming flowers, their little beaks dripping with the sweet purple juice of the plentiful mulberries that grow all over the park. Fort De Soto during migration is Da Bomb. No, not just Da Bomb. More like Hiroshima and Nagasaki and every bomb past, present, and future combined.

"OH..MY..GOD!" an acquaintance gasped orgasmically when recalling last spring's Alachua Audubon trip there. Her eyelids fluttered and her hand trembled as it passed over her rapidly beating heart. "It... was...AMAZING! ! We had TWENTY-FIVE species of warblers! And there were thrushes EVERYWHERE!"

"One year I saw THREE cuckoo species in the same tree! At the same time!" another friend recalled dreamily."

"I can't believe you didn't go last year! YOU HAVE TO GO!" exhorted another friend.

So we went. And since the trip started at 8 a.m. and Fort De Soto is about 150 miles south of us, we got up at 4 a.m., pumped ourselves up with caffeine, and set off for our super-fantabulous day of warbler-watching.

And at about 7:30, we found ourselves in a stunningly beautiful park buffeted by what felt like 30 mph wind gusts. Not good. And a St. Pete birder helping organize his Audubon chapter's field trip told us that things had been unusually quiet for the past few days.

For this we got at at 4 a.m. and drove nearly three hours??

No matter. Our hardy band of Gainesville birders assembled just before 8 and pressed on. (As did several other Audubon groups, who had all planned to be here at the height of migration.) We started at the still-quiet beach, where we got a nice inventory of shorebirds, including Piping Plovers and American Oystercatchers. The latter were strangely unafraid of people.

Just as I had feared, we ended up seeing more birders than actual birds at all the famous hotspots in the park. The vaunted mulberry trees were waving violently in the wind, with only a few unusually persistent Cedar Waxwings clinging to their branches. Near North Beach, Glenn got his life sightings of a Rose-breasted Grosbeak and a Veery. An Indigo Bunting made a brief appearance, as did a female Black-throated Green Warbler. A male American Redstart lingered in the area for most of the day:

But the best bird we saw was this one:

We all agreed this guy was clearly a Black-and-white Warbler; he was feeding and moving exactly like every other Black-and-white I've ever seen. Was that strange head pattern a form of melanism? Or was he a crossbreed? Did he any idea he was a crazy-looking freak of a bird?

Our merry band of birders slogged through the wind and nearly birdless silence of the woods until around 5:00, stopping only for a brief lunch break. We chatted about birds, food, plants, and past trips to Fort De Soto that were SO, SO much better. In the company of fun people in a pretty place, the absence of interesting birds didn't really matter all that much. It was still a good time.

We'll definitely be back—after all, it can only get better!

It Could Have Been Worse

Every slasher flick needs one of these!

This weekend, a dream nearly came true, and it was not a good thing.

Last week, I kept having this awful spring migration anxiety dream: I could just tell the trees were dripping with birds, but my parents/family/friends all needed me to be somewhere else. In my dream, I kept telling everyone (including my darling birder husband) that there were tons of warblers and tanagers and buntings outside, but they wanted to stay inside and nap or go shopping or something else equally boring, and for some reason, I was obliged to join them.

But of course, dreams and reality are (usually) two different things. And this weekend was looking pretty darned good: On Saturday, we were headed to Palm Coast to see one of my old Sea and Sage Audubon buddies, who was out here to visit another old friend. She said she wanted to go birding with us, and that the friend she was staying with would hook us up with a local birder. Cool.

The first sign that things were going south was the fact that our Palm Coast birder connection had just gotten out of bed when my friend's host called her, around 10:00 on Saturday morning. Could this person possibly be a real birder? It turned out, predictably, that the answer was no: she was a darling person with a personality I wish I could bottle and sell, but the only birds she had any interest in were raptors. All those "little things" held no interest for her. Sigh.

But in her company, we did manage to see several Bald Eagle and Great Horned Owl nests, as well as several adorable not-quite-fledged owlets, who looked like giant Muppets.

It was a great seasonal treat. But I still wanted my warblers.

Well, there was always Sunday back in Gainesville—when there would be an Alachua Audubon trip to River Rise State Park, where I had my life sightings of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, as well as numerous sightings of Summer Tanagers, Black-throated Blue Warblers, and dozens of other goodies last year. If we left Palm Coast before sunset, we'd be back in Gainesville in time for a nice home-cooked dinner and a reasonably early night in preparation for a morning of warbler-chasing.

But about halfway back to Gainesville, my car started shaking and riding weirdly—a seriously flat tire. Luckily, there was a long right-turn lane just ahead; we pulled into it, turned on the emergency blinkers, and called AAA. And waited.

Then I noticed the odd rectangular blocks of stone sticking out of the brush just off the side of the road. Tombstones. Gnarly. Don't about half of all teen slasher flicks in the world start with a couple getting a flat tire right by a cemetery? And the sun was about to set, too.

So our romantic Saturday night consisted of driving around the dreary town of Palatka on our tiny little spare tire, looking for an open tire shop where we could get our flat tire patched or replaced. No luck. And our options were (1) spending the night in a town whose distinguishing features are a huge bail-bond shop and huger adult superstore or (2) driving the remaining 60 miles back to Gainesville on that tiny little spare at 40 mph with our emergency blinkers on, gaining us the emnity of every driver in north-central Florida. We chose the latter option. It sucked less than the former, but not by much.

And Sunday's trip to River Rise also seemed to be a wash: We dragged our sleep-deprived carcasses all the way out there only to find that nobody but us and one other birder buddy had any interest in stopping and looking for treasured migrants—or for that matter, any birds at all. Summer Tanagers and Yellow-throated Vireos were singing everywhere, but nobody wanted to stop and look for them. Instead, we sprinted grimly down the trail and only stopped to discuss...trees. Okay, trees are cool. But they're here year-round, don't move and are freaking easy to find. Migrant birds are not. Seriously. Can't that discussion about the difference in bark patterns between loblolly and short-leaf pines wait until summer??

But at the very end of the trip, the outing was redeemed: Just as we were about to leave, we found a feeding flock containing a Hooded Warbler, a Worm-eating Warbler, a Black-and-white Warbler, and a handsome male Common Yellowthroat. The absence of chlorophyl in any of these organisms caused most our our group to roll their eyes in boredom (this was an Audubon trip; why were they even there??) , but I didn't care. I'd gotten my warbler fix for the week. It wasn't the best I'd ever had, but still, my first worm-eaters and hoodies of the year.

And best of all, I made it out of a creepy cemetery in a sleazy prison town alive, just before sunset. Thank goodness for small favors.