Rainy day birding
Normally, you probably would not find me out birding on a day like today. Forecast - High winds and 100% chance of rain throughout the day. BUT…today is the day my team of 4 intrepid birders from Southeast Volusia Audubon have scheduled for our “big day” of birding in the club’s “Bird-a-thon” and we have no other day when we can all make it. So, off we go. We did in fact spend over 12 hours in the field and we did in fact tally 61 species of Florida birds during that time. Not crying over spilt milk (well, actually I am) but we figure we could have easily gotten another 10 species had we not been shut out of certain areas by the weather. Hey, it is what it is.
Rather than recount the entire day, I’ll just point out a few of our favorites that I was able to capture with the camera. The first and perhaps foremost was a Sedge wren first located by Jane and then confirmed by all four members of the team. It’s been a while since I have seen this wren and in spite of the constant rain and distant view, I was able to capture a couple of “documentation” grade images.
Sedge wren - Shiloh Marsh Road - 4/7/26
Good time for a Tech Tip for you photographers out there. This was an ideal day for a lens hood. The rain was pretty much constant all day, but the hood prevented the rain from reaching the lens of my camera and helped with what was a difficult photographic situation. The hood is always a good idea whether it is to protect the lens, keep glare to a minimum or in this case keep it dry. Glad I had it on today!
Sedge wren - Shiloh Marsh Road - 4/7/26 Nikon Z8 with 100-400 zoom at 400mm 1/1250. f/7.1, ISO 9000
One more tech tip - It is always a good idea to have access to Noise Reduction software of some kind. My favorite is Topaz DeNoise. Given the poor light and rainy conditions today, I found it necessary to use a high ISO of 9000 and that led to some pretty nasty noise (aka grain) in these two shots. Topaz did a nice job of smoothing out the noise, however.
Our second pick of the day was a bird we had at several locations. We had earlier found a flock of Western sandpipers along the beach at Shiloh Marsh Road. We examined the legs carefully looking for any sign of yellow, but none had that tell-tale feature and we agreed that the birds we were on were Western sandpipers. Sadly, these were too distant and too obscured by the rain to get any definitive shots, but we did fid a second group where the yellow legs were obvious. The Least sandpipers were much more amenable to begin recorded and are seen below.
Least sandpipers - Shiloh Marsh Road - 4/7/26
Next bird of note is the Great Horned Owl. We knew of three active nests where we had seen or heard of the presence of young owlets in the past week. Our first location was Bairs Cove Road. I’ve posted a number of images of the adults and chicks at this nest recently and felt confident that the birds would still be on-site. But, to our dismay, the nest was empty today and there was no sign of either adults of chicks. The nest was vacant and apparently the owls had moved on.
Off to the a second site which ended up with the same results. “You should have been here yesterday” are words that no birder wants to hear. And so we continued to our final location in Port Orange. After a half hours search and some help from a fellow club member who showed up at the site, we finally got on the bird. Thanks Maggie! The young owl had flown across the street and was sequestered in a protected spot out of the main force of the rain.
Great horned owlet - Lafayette Street, Port Orange - 4/7/26
The final image of today’s post was taken on the grounds of the Marine Discovery Center in New Smyrna Beach. This young osprey was patiently awaiting the return of its parents with nourishment. This image is pretty much indicative of the kind of day we had (and all the wildlife had!) Talk about a bad hair day. This little guy would have been a lot better off hunkered down inside the nest, but he was too hungry and kept looking around for mom and dad. The strong winds ruffled the feathers on his nape giving a crested look. Winds were gusting in the 30 mph range throughout the day, so our final count of 61 species was more than we could have hoped for. Great time in not so great weather, but as my birding buddy back home always says….”no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes”. And thank goodness we were all prepared for the elements today.
Wind blown osprey chick - Marine Discovery Center - 4/7/26
