CREW Bird Rookery Swamp – 2/18/2022

CREW Bird Rookery Swamp – 2/18/2022

    by Bill Gadbow

 

 

CREW stands for Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed. The CREW Bird Rookery Swamp has a three-mile trail through a working cattle ranch, and it is about eight miles from the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. On the half-mile car ride from the rookery entrance sign to the parking lot, we saw almost every kind of Florida wading bird. They were fishing in a large drainage ditch that followed along the road. There were Anhinga, Little Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Tri-colored Herons, Cormorants, and other birds eating for free.

 

After we parked and paid our on-the-honor-system three dollars, we walked around the edges of the parking area and saw a dozen Wood Storks. Score one for the visiting team!

By now it was late morning, and it was starting to get warm (like mid-eighties). There was just one path that led into the swamp, so we took water bottles, binoculars, and camera and started down the trail. Almost immediately, we saw Red-shouldered hawks.

 

 

Alligators on the path

The Corkscrew Swamp ranger who told us about CREW, also warned us that there is an alligator who usually suns herself just off the path at the beginning of a large swampy lake. The ranger told us not to worry. “She’s really old and blind in one eye. You can just walk past her. As long as you don’t stand right next to her, she won’t bother you.” We saw the old lady gator and Chris wasn’t completely buying into the “no need to worry” line.

 

 

I had already used the “I don’t have to run faster than the gator. I just have to run faster than you” joke at least a dozen times on previous trips. So instead, I tried, “You aren’t in any danger, but I am, because I taste so much better than you.” She didn’t laugh, and I went first.
On the way back, we saw this:

 

This was a much younger gator, who clearly was not blind in the eye that was focused on us. And it was between us and the car! We decided to wait. Eventually some braver people on bikes got close enough to scare it away. When it ran off the trail, it moved really fast.

 

 

Birds behaving badly

Birds communicate with a surprising number of different sounds. They have alarm calls and mating calls and happy singing songs. Sometimes they puff up their feathers to intimidate a rival. On this particular day, an Anhinga was teasing a Great Egret. I was shocked. But let’s just let the pictures tell the story.

 

 

 

 

Then a Snowy Egret put in his two cents:

 

 

At least one of the birds seemed to be behaving nicely. It was a kindly Wood Stork:

 

The Witches’ Broom

Up ahead of us on the trail, we saw what appeared to be an extremely large eagles’ nest. I have read that sometimes the same nesting site gets used for decades and eventually gets really huge. But this structure seemed even larger than what I thought possible.

Below the apparent nest was a helpful sign that told what it really was. It’s a tree mutation caused by a bacterium called phytoplasma. Sap-sucking insects spread the bacteria to the tree where it disrupts that tree’s growth hormones and causes out of control growth. The result is a mass of twigs that looks like a witch’s broom.

 

A good day in a Florida swamp

A local birder that we talked to at CREW told us that he hasn’t gone to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary for years, but that he comes to CREW Bird Rookery Swamp a lot. It’s too bad that the wading birds have moved out of Corkscrew Swamp, but at least some of them didn’t go very far. It is a real challenge doing water management and clearly the engineers are trying to get it right. So, for the time being, to see these beautiful birds, go to CREW.