Ding Darling NWR 12/12: Last Chance

Reddish Egret with fish
Photo: Shari Zirlin

Ding Darling is closed is on Fridays to give the birds a rest, so Thursday was our last chance to look at its very cool birds. Our first stop, though, was the Bailey Tract, a separate part of the reserve on the southern part of the island where the ponds are freshwater. I was hoping to see a Blue-winged Teal, supposedly the most common duck of the area but a species that had eluded me. No luck on the duck, but we did find 20 species. I was able to see Green Heron. With the Black-crowned Night-Herons we saw the day before at Six Mile Cypress Slough, I "ran the table" on waders (if you ignore bitterns).

We met a couple of kind birders who knew the area well and they took us to a dead tree that they said had both Red-bellied Woodpecker and Pileated Woodpecker nests in it. Of course, the Pileateds weren't showing, but the Red-bellied juvenile did stick its head out of the hole, looking to be fed.

Bailey Tract
Mottled Duck  1
Pied-billed Grebe  20
Double-crested Cormorant  2
Anhinga  1
Brown Pelican  4
Little Blue Heron  1
Green Heron  1
White Ibis  4
Turkey Vulture  1
Osprey  1
Common Gallinule  1
American Coot  10
Mourning Dove  2
Red-bellied Woodpecker  5
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1
Gray Catbird  2    Heard
Northern Mockingbird  1
Palm Warbler  1
Yellow-rumped Warbler  7
Common Grackle  3

Our two trips along the wildlife drive of the refuge proper, plus a stop off at Tarpon Bay, yielded a very productive 42 species:
Ding Darling NWR
Mottled Duck  12
Hooded Merganser  2
Red-breasted Merganser  1
Pied-billed Grebe  20
Double-crested Cormorant  5
Anhinga  1
American White Pelican  50
Brown Pelican  8
Great Blue Heron  5
Great Egret  10
Snowy Egret  5
Little Blue Heron  10
Tricolored Heron  2
Reddish Egret  2
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  1
White Ibis  35
Roseate Spoonbill  8
Turkey Vulture  5
Osprey  12
Black-bellied Plover  2
Semipalmated Plover  4
Killdeer  6
Spotted Sandpiper  1
Greater Yellowlegs  1
Willet  100
Ruddy Turnstone  2
Red Knot  1
Dunlin  50
Least Sandpiper  40
Western Sandpiper  5
Short-billed Dowitcher  5
Laughing Gull  5
Ring-billed Gull  2
Forster's Tern  1
Eurasian Collared-Dove  3
Mourning Dove  5
Common Ground-Dove  2
Belted Kingfisher  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  4
Eastern Phoebe  2
Yellow-rumped Warbler  3
Northern Cardinal  1