migration - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-29T11:38:59Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/migrationAlong the Coast: Endangered right whales migrate near coasthttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-endangered-right-whales-migrate-near-coast2015-04-01T16:50:54.000Z2015-04-01T16:50:54.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960570280,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960570280,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="360" alt="7960570280?profile=original" /></a><em>A right whale surfaces, arching her back and extending her head and fluke out of the water.</em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Photo provided by FWC</strong></p>
<p style="text-align:left;"><strong>By Cheryl Blackerby<br /><br /></strong> Only about 500 North Atlantic right whales are left in the world. Fortunately for Floridians, these extremely rare behemoths not only migrate along the Florida coast, but also calve here. <br /> “This is the only known calving area,” said Barb Zoodsma, a marine mammal biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “It’s not like they’re going to go someplace else. This comes with a lot of responsibility.” <br /> The whales generally calve from December through March, but because of cold weather, they are lingering longer in Florida, she said. A recent air survey found a total of 47 whales including calves off the Florida coastline. <br /> The whales migrate from Miami to Canada, and calve between Florida and North Carolina. A mother and calf were spotted March 15 just offshore south of The Breakers in Palm Beach.<br /> U.S law requires people to stay 500 yards away from right whales. Fines are stiff, in the range of thousands of dollars. NOAA flew a banner over Florida beaches in March reminding people to stay away.<br /> The only real threat to right whales is people, Zoodsma said. And people have almost killed them into extinction.<br /> “They travel close to shore, within 100 yards of the beach or closer. They die from collisions with vessels and entanglement in fishing gear,” she said. “Boats as small as 33 feet are capable of killing calves.”<br /> Right whales got their name from whalers, who said they were the right whales to kill because their blubber contained large amounts of oil. They were easy to kill because they migrated close to shore and had a docile nature. <br /> By the mid-1700s, whalers, largely based in Massachusetts, had decimated the right whale population on the Atlantic coast. The whalers moved on to sperm whales, which had even more oil in their blubber. But the right whale population never recovered, and remain among the most endangered whales in the world.<br /> “We think the population is slowly increasing, but the challenge with a population as small as the North Atlantic right whale is that a even a small mortality rate can have huge implications,” Zoodsma said.<br /> Right whales can grow up to 55 feet long and weigh 55 tons, significantly larger than other coastal species such as humpbacks, grays or Bryde’s, but smaller than blues. A right whale calf weighs roughly 2,000 pounds when it’s born.<br /> Right whales are easy to identify, she said. “They are black, but some of them have white splotches on their ventral surfaces. They don’t have dorsal fins. They have sharply arching jaws and white patches on tops of their heads. The flippers are short and paddle-shaped. When they surface in cold weather, they have a V-shaped blow.”<br /> If you see a right whale, call 877-WHALE-HELP. Boaters are prohibited by U.S. law from operating vessels within 65 feet of right whales. If a whale is sighted, boaters should radio the Coast Guard via channel 16, reduce speed and slowly move away from the whale.</p></div>‘Snowbirds’ of the shore arrive: Sharks, manatees return to area watershttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/snowbirds-of-the-shore-arrive-sharks-manatees-return-to-area-wate2014-01-02T19:10:37.000Z2014-01-02T19:10:37.000ZMary Kate Leminghttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/MaryKateLeming769<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960481691,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960481691,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="180" alt="7960481691?profile=original" /></a></strong><em>Sharks fill the water along the shore of Gulf Stream. <strong>Photo provided by Florida Atlantic University</strong></em></p>
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<p><strong>By Cheryl Blackerby</strong><br /> <br /> Marine animals are coming south to Palm Beach County seeking warmer weather and water — ocean snowbirds, if you will.<br /> Blacktip and spinner sharks are just starting to show up offshore in their annual migration south from the Carolinas. And manatees are traveling south from north Florida to warm up in subtropical lagoons.<br />Ninety percent of the migrating sharks, which travel in huge numbers within eyesight from the shore, are blacktips and 10 percent are spinners, said Stephen Kajiura, Florida Atlantic University professor, who researches sharks. <br /> They started arriving in late December and will peak in mid- to late January. Most will be gone by late February, he said.<br /> Last year, the large numbers of sharks thrilled local photographers and tourists, who snapped photos of the sharks that clearly could be seen tumbling in waves rolling onto shore. The previous year was even better.<br />“We saw 15,000 sharks in Palm Beach County alone within 200 meters from shore, and that doesn’t count those sharks going deeper,” Kajiura said. “That was our peak a couple of years ago. Last year was a relatively mild winter and we didn’t see that many. I don’t know what we’ll see this year.”<br /> Since 2011, Kajiura has conducted aerial surveys of the sharks off the coast, many cruising past unaware swimmers. FAU graduate student Shari Tellman painstakingly counted the sharks frame by frame from Kajiura’s video for an accurate assessment of the numbers.<br /> Kajiura has lost funding for the surveys this year, but will still do the shark counts for his research. “I’m just doing the surveys out of my own pocket because this is so important.” <br /> Previous funding came from Florida Atlantic University and Southeast National Marine Renewable Energy Center. Kajiura said he is getting help from Paul Kramer, pilot and owner of Learn to Fly Center at Pompano Airport, who is flying him along the coast to film sharks for surveys, which Kajiura started in late December.<br /> As the southern terminus of the shark migration, southeast Florida is in an excellent position to monitor the habits and health of the sharks, he said. <br /> “Large numbers of sharks are indicative of a healthy ecosystem. If you have a lot of top-level predators able to come down, it’s a healthy ocean and a good food base to support them. Sharks follow the bait fish,” he said.<br /> If the ocean warms up too much, the sharks will stay farther north, he said.<br /> “We have this strong correlation between shark abundance and water temperature. The oceans are getting warmer, and what may be happening is that as the water warms up, 20 or 30 years from now sharks could be wintering farther north, and what will that mean to the ecosystems as a whole?” he said.<br /> Kajiura welcomes the sharks even as most people are leery of so many sharks lurking in the water.<br /> Although blacktips are probably the cause of the greatest number of bites in Florida, this shouldn’t be cause for too much concern, he said.<br /> “There are about 1,000 sharks per square kilometer of ocean, and so when you put that in perspective, the number of incidents are remarkably small, and very few people are bitten and if they are the bites are minor,” he said. “Florida has such clear water that sharks are able to see that you’re a person and not a fish, and they’re not interested.”<br /> The best way to avoid shark bites, he said, is to stay away from large schools of baitfish, and to stay out of the water at dusk and dawn at low light, “when it’s harder for them to see the difference between the sole of your foot and a fish.”<br /><br /><strong>Dismal year for manatees</strong><br /> Manatees began showing up in small numbers in Palm Beach County in December. In mid-December there were only 19 manatees found during an aerial survey, said Paul Davis, division director of the Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resources Management.<br /> “When we get cold weather in Brevard and St. Lucie counties, we will see a big jump. The highest we’ve had is 800 at the peak,” he said. <br /> This has been a dismal year in the state for manatee deaths, although Palm Beach County had six mortalities for the year up to Dec. 6, which is a little below the average of 10, said Davis.<br /> Statewide, 803 manatees died this year as of Dec. 13, compared to 392 deaths last year, said Kevin Baxter, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman. Red tide on the west coast accounted for 276 deaths. The previous high death total from red tide was 151 in 1996.<br /> There were more than 90 deaths in the Indian River lagoon in Brevard County. “We’re still investigating the cause of those deaths. It appears to be the loss of sea grass in that area because of algae blooms,” Baxter said.<br /> Other causes were watercraft and cold stress, he said. <br /> The number of manatees in Florida, according to aerial surveys in 2011, was 4,834, which is a minimum count.</p></div>Return of the Snowbirds: Arriving by the flock on a wing and a prayer, these winter guests bring life to our skieshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/return-of-the-snowbirds-arriving-by-the-flock-on-a-wing-and-a-pra2012-11-28T18:00:00.000Z2012-11-28T18:00:00.000ZDeborah Hartz-Seeleyhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/DeborahHartzSeeley<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960413659,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960413659,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="538" alt="7960413659?profile=original" /></a><em>Some birds, such as this flock of sandwich and royal terns, are</em> <br /> <em>a common sight along the coast during the winter migration season. <em><b>Photos by Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</b></em></em></p>
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<p><span><b> By Cheryl Blackerby</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em> “Hopes are shy birds flying at a great distance ... ” </em></p>
<p>So said the great naturalist and artist John James Audubon about our fantastic winter visitors — the magnificent white pelicans with 8-foot wingspans, the pretty little red knot shorebirds, and the mighty peregrine falcons — that leave the far north flying 4,000 miles and more on a wing and a prayer on often perilous journeys from Alaska and Canada to South Florida. </p>
<p>Audubon came to Florida in 1831 to research and paint birds for the third volume of his illustrated masterpiece <i>Birds of America</i>. He traveled through South Florida by foot, canoe, skiff and cutter tracking Florida’s spectacular resident birds and glorious winter visitors.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960413298,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960413298,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="538" alt="7960413298?profile=original" /></a><em>Bald eagles do not always live up to their patriotic image; this one</em> <br /> <em>stole a fish from the osprey. </em></p>
<p><em><b> </b></em>“We observed great flocks of wading birds flying overhead toward their evening roosts .... They appeared in such numbers to actually block out the light from the sun for some time,” he wrote.</p>
<p>Audubon would surely be heartbroken to learn that many of these birds fly in far fewer numbers today because of the draining of wetlands, habitat loss, human disturbance, pollution and pesticides. But there are success stories such as the elegant trumpeter swan and our national bird, the bald eagle.</p>
<p>We asked Jim Rodgers, avian biologist at Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Wildlife Research Lab, to tell us his favorite winter visitors. Some of his picks are extremely rare in Florida — such as the tundra and trumpeter swans — but he does see them them during his research trips in our area. Others are the common Northern cardinal and American robin, so familiar we may overlook them but shouldn’t.</p>
<p>His top pick? “By far, my favorite is the hooded merganser. It is spectacular.” See pages 2-3 for the lineup. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, don’t miss Audubon’s 113th annual Christmas Bird Count, which will take place Dec. 14 through Jan. 5. Volunteers gather for one day during this time period, depending on the area, to record bird sightings. Data collected in this longest-running wildlife census helps assess the health of bird populations. Go to <a href="http://www.birds.audubon.org/christmas-bird-count">www.birds.audubon.org/christmas-bird-count</a> to find a Christmas Bird Count near you.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960413489,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960413489,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="216" alt="7960413489?profile=original" /></a><span><b>Photos of individual birds/U.S. Fish & Wildlife</b></span></p>
<p><span><b> </b></span><b>Painted Bunting</b> </p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b>5.5 inches. Perhaps North America’s most colorful bird. The male has bright red underparts, green back, blue head and red eye ring. The female is bright green all over, paler below.</p>
<p><b>Diet:</b>Seeds, insects, spiders and snails.</p>
<p><b>Range:</b>Breeds from Missouri to North Carolina and flies to Gulf Coast states in winter. </p>
<p><b>Status:</b>In South America it’s captured as a caged bird. It is sold in the markets of Mexico. Numbers have severely decreased in past 10 years. </p>
<p><b>Notes:</b>This bird is also known as a ‘nonpareil,’ meaning without equal. The female is one of the few bright green birds in North America.</p>
<p> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414263,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414263,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="538" alt="7960414263?profile=original" /></a><b>Red Knot </b></p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b>10.5 inches. One of the prettiest shore bird species. Breeding adults have rich reddish brown face and breast with marbled dark brown backs and pale feather edgings. Dark, straight bill, legs greenish. Fall birds are gray above and whitish below.</p>
<p><b>Diet:</b>Hard-shell mollusks; arthropods and larvae at breeding grounds.</p>
<p><b>Range:</b>Migrates from the high Arctic of Canada to Florida and south. </p>
<p><b>Status:</b>Population declining quite severely.</p>
<p><b>Notes:</b>Those that winter in South America, passing through Florida, may make a round trip of nearly 20,000 miles each year. During migration, they breed on tidal flats, rocky shores and beaches.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414063,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414063,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="183" alt="7960414063?profile=original" /></a><b>White Pelican</b> </p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b> 55 to 70 inches, 8-foot wingspan. Florida’s largest flying winter visitor. White with black wing tips, long, flat orange/yellow bill. In breeding season, has short yellowish crest on back of head. </p>
<p><b>Diet:</b> Fish.</p>
<p><b>Range:</b> Seasonal migrant from British Columbia and Manitoba south to South Florida.</p>
<p><b>Status:</b>Because of pesticides, human disturbance and draining of wetlands, they are in decline, their numbers dropping sharply.</p>
<p><b>Notes:</b>You’re lucky indeed if you see them in flight — majestic birds in a long line flapping their 8-foot stretches of wings. The birds ride rising air currents to great heights, where they soar slowly and gracefully in circles.</p>
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<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960413899,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960413899,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="529" alt="7960413899?profile=original" /></a><b>Cedar Waxwing</b></p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b>6-8 inches. A beautiful, sleek brown bird, bright yellow below, with black mask, yellow tips on tail feathers and hard red waxlike tips on secondary wing feathers. </p>
<p><b>Diet:</b>Berries, insects.</p>
<p><b>Range:</b>Migrates from the conifer forests of Canada to Florida and southern U.S.</p>
<p><b>Status:</b>Healthy populations.</p>
<p><b>Notes:</b>The social birds have the amusing habit of passing berries or even apple blossoms from one bird to the next down a long row sitting on a branch until one bird eats the food. </p>
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<p> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414656,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414656,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="179" alt="7960414656?profile=original" /></a><b>Long-Billed Curlew</b></p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b>12-16 inches. Our largest shorebird, the curlew’s most distinctive feature is the long, sickle-shaped bill. The bird, which is in the sandpiper family, has cinnamon wing linings, no head pattern. </p>
<p><b>Diet:</b>Small crustaceans and mollusks or berries and seeds, grasshoppers and crickets.</p>
<p><b>Range:</b>Migrates from southern Canada and the U.S. Northwest south to coastal Florida and Mexico.</p>
<p><b>Status:</b>With only 20,000 birds left, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan both designate this species “highly imperiled.”</p>
<p><b>Notes:</b> Sometimes called the ‘Sicklebill,’ the curlew was once a plentiful game bird of the Great Plains and the formerly extensive prairies to the east. Curlews are sociable birds when feeding, roosting and migrating.</p>
<p> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414089,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414089,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="450" alt="7960414089?profile=original" /></a><b>Sandhill Crane</b><span> </span></p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b>38-48 inches, 6-foot 8-inch wingspan. Very tall with long neck and legs. Largely gray with a distinctive bright red forehead and white cheeks. Immature birds are browner with no red on head. </p>
<p><b>Diet:</b> They most often eat corn, plants and grains but also eat invertebrates, small mammals, amphibians and reptiles.</p>
<p><b>Range:</b>These cranes migrate in great flocks from Alaska, Canada and northern states to southern states from Arizona to South Florida and Mexico.</p>
<p><b>Status:</b>The resident Florida sandhill crane is a less common crane with only 5,000 birds remaining because of habitat destruction. The bird is state-listed as threatened and protected in Florida. The migrating greater sandhill crane has no current conservation concerns.</p>
<p><b>Notes:</b> The mating dance is spectacular — birds face each other, members of a pair leap into the air with wings extended and feet thrown forward.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414483,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414483,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="496" alt="7960414483?profile=original" /></a><b>Baltimore Oriole</b></p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b> 7 to 8.5 inches. Male has black head, back, wings and tail; orange breast, rump and shoulder patch. The female is olive-brown with dull yellow-orange underparts and two dull white wing bars. </p>
<p><b>Diet:</b> Insects, fruit and nectar.</p>
<p><b>Range:</b> Migrates from Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia south through the Dakotas and winters in Florida and southern coast.</p>
<p><b>Status:</b> Healthy populations.</p>
<p><b>Notes:</b> The birds have a flute-like whistle, single or double notes in short, distinct phrases with much individual variation.</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414694,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960414694,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="538" alt="7960414694?profile=original" /></a><b>Wood Stork </b></p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b> 40-44 inches, 5- to 6-foot wingspan. It is easily distinguished by its large size, upright posture, dark head and neck that looks naked but is actually covered in scaly modified feathers. Its nickname is ‘iron head.’ It has a heavy bill with a downward curve at the tip. White with black flight feathers and tail. Head and neck dark gray. </p>
<p><b>Diet:</b> They eat fish by probing the water with their bills.</p>
<p><b>Range:</b> Lives in colonies in Florida’s cypress and mangrove swamps.</p>
<p><b>Status:</b> The wood stork is on the U.S. Endangered Species List. </p>
<p><b>Notes:</b> They are expert at soaring, sometimes seen circling high in the air on rising air currents. Unlike herons, storks fly with neck extended.</p>
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<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960415059,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960415059,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="192" alt="7960415059?profile=original" /></a><b>Peregrine Falcon</b></p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b> 15-21 inches. A large, robust falcon with a black hood and wide black ‘mustaches.’ Adults are slate-gray on their head, back and wings, and pale gray below with fine black bars and spots.</p>
<p><b>Diet:</b> On the coast, they prey on ducks and shorebirds. Urban falcons subsist mainly on pigeons.</p>
<p><b>Range:</b> Breeds from Alaska and the Canadian Arctic down through the mountainous west and south to the Gulf Coast and Florida.</p>
<p><b>Status:</b> Following an alarming decline during the 1950s and ’60s, this spectacular falcon is on the increase now due primarily to the banning of pesticides that caused thinning of eggshells and to an intensive program of rearing birds in captivity and releasing them in the wild.</p>
<p><b>Notes:</b> Favorite nesting sites nowadays are tall buildings and bridges in</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960415075,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960415075,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="480" alt="7960415075?profile=original" /></a><b>Hooded Merganser</b></p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b> 16-19 inches. The smallest of the mergansers, the male has a white, fan-shaped black-bordered crest, blackish body with dull rusty flanks and white breast with two black stripes down the sides. The female is dull gray-brown with warmer brown head and crest.</p>
<p><b>Diet:</b> Feeds chiefly on small fish, which they pursue in long, rapid underwater dives, but also eats small frogs, newts, tadpoles and aquatic insects. </p>
<p><b>Range:</b> Migrates from Canada to Florida and the Southern states.</p>
<p><b>Status:</b> Healthy population.</p>
<p><b>Notes:</b> When startled, they are among the fastest-flying of our ducks. Males perform a beautiful courtship display and, once mated, swim energetically around the female in further ritual displays.</p>
<p><b><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960415270,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960415270,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="466" alt="7960415270?profile=original" /></a>Bald Eagle</b></p>
<p><b>Size / Color:</b> 30-31 inches; wingspan, 6-7 feet. Large and blackish with a white head and tail and heavy yellow bill. </p>
<p><b>Diet:</b> It is primarily a fish eater, although it sometimes eats ducks and other birds.</p>
<p><b>Range:</b> Migrates from Alaska and Canada south to the U.S. including Florida. But there are year-round residents in Florida, too.</p>
<p><b>Status:</b> The bald eagle was listed as threatened on the U.S. Endangered Species List in every state except Alaska until June 28, 2007. Its recovering populations allowed it to be removed from the list, and it is one of the major success stories of the Endangered Species Act and the conservation movement.</p>
<p><b>Notes:</b> The bald eagle’s beachcombing habit was its downfall, for it accumulated pesticides from contaminated fish and wildlife. Hunting, poaching and the encroachment of civilization reduced its population drastically. Now that the pesticides have been banned, our national bird is staging a comeback.</p></div>