Spruce Creek Park
Sunrise from our deck - NSB - 2/23/26
Woke up this morning to a beautiful sunrise. Stepped out onto the deck and forgot I was in Florida…..37 degrees and a strong north wind! Well, we have a field trip out to Spruce Creek Park scheduled and I can’t let a little chill in the air stop us.
Clapper rail - Spruce Creek Park - 2/25/25
Our first target bird of the day was the Clapper rail. This site has a very high concentration of this elusive bird and they are more often heard than seen. Their “kek” is a pretty easy one to identify sounding like only a few other rails which are not found in this site. So when we heard it this morning, we knew the rail was here. However, if you look at the date of the image above, you’ll see that it was captured almost a year ago to the day in 2025. The statement that I made about being heard more often than seen sadly held true today and the bird did not want to venture out into the cold to greet us with anything other than a vocalization.
The chill in the air apparently kept the insects quiet which in turn meant that the birds were also pretty inactive. We did hear and see Yellow-rumped warblers, northern cardinals, and a few other songbirds, but most of our sightings were on the water. Several Hooded merganser females joined a mixed pair of a Tricolored heron and Snowy egret.
Little blue and Snowy - Spruce Creek Park - 2/24/25
The most prolific birds of the morning were the Red-bellied woodpeckers. They don’t need to wait for the insects to warm up and get active. They simply excavate the bark of the pines and pick out the insects and their larva. At least one was attentive to one of this species’ favorite foods…acorns. Red-bellies will cache acorns for later consumption by wedging them into existing cracks or under loose bark. Whether this fellow was retrieving an earlier cache or creating a new one was not evident.
Red-bellied woodpecker with acorn - Spruce Creek Park - 2/24/26
Our our most exciting find of the day was a beautiful Great Horned owl. One of our group, Susan, spotted the bird flying silently though the forest, land, and then move again to a distant tree. She was quick to locate the owl for the rest of our group and all got great views and decent photo-ops. You just never know what will show up when you walk through the woodlands.
Great horned owl - Spruce Creek Park - 2/24/26
And so in spite of the chilly (by Florida standards for sure!) start, we did end up with some wonderful sightings and as always enjoyed just being out in nature with friends.
