I tend to forget to keep a personal field journal as another
team member keeps the count on our bi-weekly bird census at Brooker Creek
Preserve. As part of my effort to become more effective in my observations I
plan to use the blog as my field journal entry.
We started Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. following the Education
Center route. The temperature was 74 degrees, with 75% humidity, and the sky
overcast. Winds were calm.
We encountered three mother Wild turkeys with five chicks in
the middle of the road, and waited a few minutes until they cleared. One chick
was clearly larger than the others, and spent a lot of time testing its wings. I
found a Pine Warbler at the next stop, flying around the pine trees. The heavy
afternoon thunderstorms in the Preserve area meant that parts of the trails
still had water, so we did see several water birds in those areas. A pig frog
called loudly and continuously, but we did not catch sight of it.
One American Alligator swam in the main channel, visible
from the bridge. Once again we did not see the Black-crowned Night Herons often
seen in that area, but did observe one later on the hike on the boardwalk near
the Education Center.
The button bush is in bloom all along the boardwalks, and
depending on the light make interesting photographs. A pair of Pileated Woodpeckers
worked on a tree, one opposite the other, just off the boardwalk. Their bright
red head tufts were visible through the curtains of large ferns.
We spotted two Pygmy rattlesnakes, one on the side of a
trail and the other curled in a dead sawgrass palmetto leaf. We always give
them a wide berth, particularly as it is still their mating season.
We counted 26 different species, a little low but typical
for this route and this time of year. We did not see any species we could not identify. Hopefully my journal entries will become
more informative as I continue to practice writing my field observations, not
just observing them and relying on memory.
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