Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!iuvax!inuxc!inuxd!jla
From: jla@inuxd.UUCP (Joyce Andrews)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Any migration going on? (plus other things)
Message-ID: <1244@inuxd.UUCP>
Date: 28 Aug 88 11:29:15 GMT
References: <658@picuxa.UUCP> <27909@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Organization: AT&T Consumer Products, Indianapolis
Lines: 39

(This message comes to you from the Florida Keys via the miracle
                 of modern communications)

Not yet down here, but the Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center is
gearing up.  We expect hawks first, and then the turkey
vultures, to start filling up the cages.  Migrant pelicans, from
up the Florida coast, will bring their hooks-and-leaders-hanging-
out-of-their bills problems to us. 

I saw my first scarlet ibis last week.  What a
fascinating-looking creature!!  It was feeding in a yard with its
white cousins.

I was doing some paper work for the center this week, putting
together some statistics about the birds, and realized that,
although the last year has brought us many great white herons,
and several great blues, some little blues, and a bunch of little
greens, as well as some of the other small heron species, and
cattle and snowy egrets, we have not had ONE common egret.  But
the common egret is very common (:-)) down here...they are all
over the center grounds looking for handouts.  They are all over
the Keys, especially in the winter.  Why don't they get into
trouble with fish hooks and lines and broken wings and broken
legs like the rest of the long-legged water birds.  There are
more of them than herons and snowy egrets here.  Do we just not
know about them when they get hurt, or do you think their habits
are such that they don't get hurt as often?   We've had seven
osprey, a bald eagle, several varieties of hawks, a million (it
seems) pelicans, a billion (it seems) gulls, many individuals of
the heron/egret type, nighthawks, doves, cormorants, song birds,
owls, and a turkey vulture in a mangrove tree (Morticia won't be
leaving us...but we can't put her down...even a turkey vulture
has redeeming qualities).  But no common egrets.  Maybe there is
a story here.
 
-- 
	Joyce Andrews King                      
	ihnp4!inuxd!jla
	AT&T, Indianapolis