Can't get enough of Merritt Island...

Ron and I needed to get away, and I in particular needed a break in a more natural setting. Sometimes I feel somewhat like I'm not in the right place. I'm so used to being surrounded by nature, that if I don't get a healthy dose of the great outdoors every so often, I start to get jittery. :) I can't imagine how bad it would be if I didn't work outside with animals!

Anyway, we decided to go bird watching at Merritt Island NWR again. It's just so relaxing and peaceful. Out there you can actually get to a place where you can't hear the roar of ANY highway! Imagine that! We also planned to spend time at the beach section of the refuge, enjoying natural dunes and gorgeous waves. We saw a few new animals at the refuge and a lot of really cool natural behaviors.

We saw our first hooded merganser pair together! I'd seen them at work only once, and Ron never had, so I was very excited. Plus I got a decent photo. (Heather, it's another type of duck for you!)

We only saw a few roseate spoonbills wading this time, but they were closer. Plus we got to see them in flight. I'm so glad Ron saw that because it's a gorgeous sight. The ducks you see in the photo are mostly northern pintails. Very cool ducks.


Other ducks we saw included blue-winged teals and northern shovelers. I don't know if you can see their big beaks here or not, but they're pretty distinctive and interesting. You can see why they're called shovelers.

And lastly, in Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, we got out to do one of the walks and saw this little guy. He was amazingly bold and allowed Ron to get very close to take his photo and never flew off. He was still there when we left. He's a green heron. They're one of the smaller herons...

As for the behaviors we saw - they were mostly hunting related. We had stopped to look at a large group of gulls when I noticed a little bird with long legs flailing about in the water. I had heard the description of how the reddish egret hunts, so when I saw that bird, it clicked. I yelled at Ron to give me the binoculars, and he whipped out the camera to take video (which I will post eventually). It was the cutest thing! He ran in seemingly drunken circles, sometimes raising his wings and then lowering them. His head was turned so that one eye was peering directly into the water. I presume it was in order to see his prey. We must have watched him for 10 minutes. Ron was laughing heartily at the spectacle. What a treat! These are the only egrets (I know of) that hunt this way. Most are silent stalkers. We also saw a northern male harrier hunting. He didn't seem to mind us there either. I have to say that the birds this year have been crazy... very bold and very hungry. We've had some experiences at work. I wonder if it has to do with the weird weather patterns...
Anyway, the last very cool behavior we saw came from a belted
kingfisher. I noticed him hovering for perhaps 15 seconds in mid-air before diving straight down to catch his prey. I hadn't even known they did that until then.

After Blackpoint, and before heading to the coast, we decided to try our hand at seeing some manatees. Ron had never seen them in the wild, and while we would like to snorkel with them, we thought we'd try Merritt Island's manatee overlook since the winter has been so warm. We got more than we bargained for in that there were four of them there! We watched them for a long time. It was wonderful. And since no one tried to guess what we saw, I guess I'll just say this is it. These are the animals we saw that are related to elphants. Crazy huh? If you'd like me to tell you more about why and how they know that, leave me a comment and I'll elaborate. Otherwise, I don't want to bore anyone. :)

Ron was so excited they came up near the surface for these photos. They were in the river, not a spring, so it was more murky. I have beautiful underwater spring photos of them that maybe I'll post sometime.