by Stephen Ingraham
Birding & Wildlife Observation Specialist with Carl Ziess Sport Optical
It wasn't until the Peregrine crested the mangrove hedge that separates the refuge from the river, half way around the Crookshank trail at Merritt Island, that I knew why we had come.
After the first mile that tower by the parking just hands out there on the horizon, never getting any closer, and we were without water, carrying too much (scope, tripod, three cameras between us, and, of course, binoculars). Our feet and the bottom six inches of our attire were dew-soaked, my ankles shot from the load and the uneven footing, and, to be honest, there were way too few birds to make it all worthwhile. I began to wonder if it wasn't a mistake to bring Sarah, my seventeen year old, and just getting excited about birds and birding, out on the Crookshank trail.
Until the Peregrine.
Sarah's first, giving us a good clear side view. She held it in her binoculars until it dwindled to a dot. Not long after there was a Spoonbill in close on a tussock, posed against the light, and then, in flight, displaying the delicate pre-dawn tint that gives it it's name.
Then the alligator, and eight footer on the far (thankfully) bank of the marsh channel, sunning, and giving Sarah (and the Crookshank trail, come to that) a real taste of the Florida wild.
Not much further (though that tower had not come an inch closer) we walked right up on a Short-eared Owl a silent explosion from the mangrove not six feet in front of me flying down the dike thirty yards and then up and over the hedge. "Short-eared Owl" I yelled, when my mouth and my synapses finally closed, "Sarah come quick. Short-eared Owl."
I was amazed that Sarah, who, to tell the truth, had been lagging a bit, had that much run left in her. She passed me and took off down the dike at something not much less than owl speed, and, wouldn't you know it, the owl came back over the mangrove thirty feet in front of her. "There it is!" I yelled again, and she pulled up short in time to get her binoculars on it and follow it up the dike a hundred yards before it disappeared over the hedge for good.
"Now that was special." I told her. "Short-ears are good birds anywhere, anytime. Always around maybe, but hard to see."
I spotted the Redish-egret by its "drunken sailor" walk long before we came abreast, but saved the bird until Sarah could have a good look, and then it was she who pointed out the one in the mangrove clump thirty feet from the trail in such good light I had to get the digiscope set up. To not photograph a gift bird like that when you have the equipment with you would be the height of ingratitude.
By now the tower was finally approaching, though it almost broke our hearts when we realized that we had a-whole-nother impoundment to get around before we could turn toward it. Still, the Kingfishers, who had been faithful to show themselves every quarter mile or so all around, rowed us home the final stretch, calling and hovering, crossing back and forth over the dike, always ahead of us, calling us on.
Neither of us had the strength to climb the observation tower when we got to the thing. We stumbled back to the car and fell into the air conditioning, polished off a liter of Ginger Ale between us, and headed on out the rest of the Black Point Drive. Somehow the traffic had multiplied since we started the drive at 7, before sunrise.
So, next time we take a whole day (a day without a plane to catch) for the Crookshank trail, carry lunch and water, and take it slow.
We know how far it is now.
Still as I sucked down my second large iced-tea at McDonalds, I couldn't help but think of the wonder of the day: the butterflies that enlivened the journey—buckeye, peacock, Gulf Fritillaries, sulfurs, and Great Southern Whites by the bushfull—the Peregrine, the alligator, the Spoonbill, the owl, the egrets, and the Kingfishers rowing us home.
I, and Sarah, I trust, will remember those rare gifts long after we forget our tiredness, long after ankles heal and shoulders loose their tripod dents.
And that's the way it is with birds and birding.
We'll be telling this years from now: what a great time we had, how blessed we were, that day we first hiked the Crookshank trail.
