Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge
Text message I sent to Alice at 5:16pm on January 3rd:
"I'm in love with Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. What an amazing, serene, beautiful bird paradise."
I had a leisurely day leaving south Florida going to St. Augustine for the evening, so I decided to stop on the way at this place I knew almost nothing about except where it was and that it was probably a good place to see birds. Got there only an hour and a half before sunset, picked a path, and soon saw this:
In the foreground are glossy ibis, and behind them are mostly northern pintail ducks, with a few gadwalls and blue winged teals and maybe other species. Sorry about the wind noise - it was breezy but not enough that I thought of how much it would affect my camera's microphone; in real life I was hearing lots of bird calls, and in the video they're mostly drowned out :(
Everything I saw there was in just that one hour and a half, driving one loop road and hiking just the first 1/4 mile or so of two trails. Never more than a few minutes until the next exciting bird sighting. This was my favorite thing I saw:
And this video is a collage of various other moments from my brief time there.
Next time I'll go for a whole day, or several. Hike all the trails, and just sit down some places for a long time watching. I could've spent the whole hour and a half just sitting by that lake of ibis and pintails if I'd had more time.
"I'm in love with Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. What an amazing, serene, beautiful bird paradise."
I had a leisurely day leaving south Florida going to St. Augustine for the evening, so I decided to stop on the way at this place I knew almost nothing about except where it was and that it was probably a good place to see birds. Got there only an hour and a half before sunset, picked a path, and soon saw this:
Click to viewIn the foreground are glossy ibis, and behind them are mostly northern pintail ducks, with a few gadwalls and blue winged teals and maybe other species. Sorry about the wind noise - it was breezy but not enough that I thought of how much it would affect my camera's microphone; in real life I was hearing lots of bird calls, and in the video they're mostly drowned out :(
Everything I saw there was in just that one hour and a half, driving one loop road and hiking just the first 1/4 mile or so of two trails. Never more than a few minutes until the next exciting bird sighting. This was my favorite thing I saw:
And this video is a collage of various other moments from my brief time there.
Next time I'll go for a whole day, or several. Hike all the trails, and just sit down some places for a long time watching. I could've spent the whole hour and a half just sitting by that lake of ibis and pintails if I'd had more time.