St. Lucie Audubon will be donating two trees to be planted at Oxbow. One of the trees will honor Tom Stillman, former member and Board member, who passed away over the summer. Oxbow has identified the area where they would like the trees to be planted. Diane Goldberg has visited the site to take soil samples which will help her determine the best variety of trees to plant at that location.
UPDATE: CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT
Yellow-breasted Chat
Ed Bowes has shared some news from the December 18th Christmas Bird Count. He reports that two rare birds were sighted in Area 10. The birds are a Broad-Winged Hawk and a Yellow-Breasted Chat. Special paperwork is being done to back up the sightings for these two birds. He also reports a reduction in sightings of passerines, the smaller birds like warblers.
AUDUBON MOMENT EXPLORES THE POPULARITY OF BIRDING
Audubon Moment has released “The Popularity of Birding.” This YouTube video by John Nelson, a St. Lucie Audubon Society director, is based on a recent Associated Press article and features many photos and videos of local birds and birders as well as his informative narration.
ANNUAL RAFFLE WINNER NAMED
The winner of the hand-sculpted wood cornucopia offered in our annual raffle is Jean Pessolano of Palm City. She attended one of our Adams Ranch tours and bought her ticket there. Congratulations are sent to her and we hope she enjoys showing it off to here friends and family!
NOT JUST FOR BIRDS
St Lucie Audubon received a $2,500 ‘Plants for Birds’ grant from Audubon Florida funded by Florida Power & Light. We partnered with the St Lucie County Environmental Resource Department to find a good location.
Amanda Thompson from the ERD found a great place that needed planting after the invasive trees and other invasive plants were removed and that was Richard E Becker Preserve on Selvitz Road in Ft. Pierce. She determined which native plants would best suit the hydrology and geology of the site.
Diane Goldberg, St Lucie Audubon’s conservation chair, then searched nurseries for the best prices and plants, ordered the plants, arranged for delivery and picked up some plants that could not be delivered that were from Melbourne. She even donated some of her own plants. She contacted many environmental groups to get as many volunteers as possible.
Besides getting many from St Lucie Audubon, volunteers also came from Master Gardeners, Savannas Preserves, DEP, FPL, City of Ft. Pierce, Treasure Coast Surfriders and the Treasure Coast Solar Co-op. We had 33 volunteers on Sunday, January 12, and they planted over 150 native trees, shrubs and groundcover. The plants were all native to St Lucie County and all helpful to our birds and our own welfare. We want to thank all our volunteers. This couldn’t have been accomplished without them.
How are groundcovers helpful to birds? We planted Sunshine Mimosa. It is a host plant for 17 different caterpillars and birds love to eat caterpillars and feed them to their young. The trees and shrubs will also help to give us cleaner air and water. They will sequester carbon into the ground to help slow climate change too. A win-win for the environment, wildlife and us.
We hope you will all consider joining us for just a couple of hours in March to complete the work needed for the grant. This time at Citrus Hammock Preserve. Date to be determined later.
OSPREY & GREAT BLUE HERON PLATFORMS PROGRESS
Ellen Lynch reports some good news about our project to erect an Osprey platform and two Great Blue Heron nest sites on Wesley Island, between North and South bridges in Fort Pierce. After some slow progress through June and July, the County contractor got through the red tape necessary to have a barge float equipment and materials out to Wesley Island and erect our poles and nesting materials.
The Lynches did the shopping for the wood, poles and fittings needed to make the nests and we delivered them to Andrew Cunningham, our St. Lucie County contact with the Environmental Resources Dept., who built the nests and arranged for the barge.
On Monday, July 29, the poles will be delivered and loaded onto the barge and on Tuesday, the barge will be taken to the island and our poles will be erected. They will also be planting some native plants and sprucing things up out there.
If you would like to watch from the mainland, you can get a good view from the boat ramp in front of the Smithsonian Aquarium on Seaway Dr.
Thanks for the help of our past President, Eva Ries, whose knowledge of grants and her ability to network with the right people made all this possible. I am also pleased to share that we have not used all our grant money on these three poles. There will be a lot left over if we want to consider doing more of these later on.