Island #3 (click to view larger)Port Orange is just south of Daytona Beach and one of the fastest growing cities in Volusia County, Florida. The main east-west route is Dunlawton Avenue and at the eastern end if you continue driving you'll wind up in the Atlantic Ocean. Before you get wet, however, you will have to cross the Port Orange Bridge. And just a few hundred feet south of the bridge, clearly visible as you travel eastbound, lies a mangrove island known on the charts of the Intracoastal Waterway as Island #3. Beneath the bridge is Causeway Park where you will find fishermen, boaters and, five or six times each Fall, Winter, and Spring, a fairly large collection of birders attending an outing with Halifax River Audubon.

It is a pretty good place to bird, really. On any given day one can easily bank on upwards of 20 species and not even have to move from from the spot where you are standing. The best days are when the tide is low and the sandbar west of Island #3 is exposed. Great, Snowy, Reddish, and Cattle Egrets. Great Blue, Little Blue, Tricolored, and Green Heron. Both Night-herons are possible, on rare occasions a Spoonbill will fly over. White Ibis, Brown Pelican, Double-crested Cormorants, sometimes an Anhinga. Willets, Turnstones, Black-bellied Plovers, American Oystercatchers. Laughing, Ring-billed, Herring, and occasional Bonaparte's Gulls. Royal, Caspian, Forster's, and Least Terns. Common Loon and Red-breasted Merganser. Toss in a few passerines: Red-winged Blackbirds, Boat-tailed Grackles; Cardinals, Mockingbirds, and, in Winter, Palm & Yellow-rumped Warblers. On a really lucky day you might see a Bald Eagle snatch something off the island (once one flew off with a Snowy Egret!). Or maybe see a Peregrine dining on a hapless gull.

Brown Pelicans on Island #3 (click to view large)
The island itself has been a rookery for as long as anyone around here can remember. I'm told it began life as a spoil island which was, luckily for the birds and birders alike, overcome by Red Mangrove. Brown Pelicans and Great Egrets seemed to rule the roost, nesting side-by-side on the upper branches of the mangroves. Beneath them were Snowy Egrets, Tricolored Herons, Little Blues, Cattle Egrets, and White Ibis. A shell bar extending out from the north side would always find a few nesting Oystercatchers each spring.

In late summer of last year something very interesting was discovered about Island #3 when a little known fact about it came to light: In 1961 this little island (along with some other islands in the Halifax River to the south) were officially declared the Port Orange Wildlife Sanctuary. Many current members of Halifax River Audubon were ecstatic over this bit of news - especially in light of the fact that a huge condo was being planned just to the west of the island. The existence of the sanctuary may not ultimately affect construction of the condos, but may at least slow things up (like we need another multi-story eyesore around the area). Led by conservation chair David Hartgrove, the chapter was working with the City of Port Orange, Volusia County, and the state's Division of Inland Waterways to get signs erected about the Sanctuary. All the parties involved seem to be supportive of these efforts.

Then along came the Christmas Bird Count and David discovered something very disturbing: Island #3 had been totally abandoned. Not a bird in sight - at least as far as the island itself was concerned. There were still birds around but they were avoiding the island like the plague. A little research turned up a few raccoon tracks though that hardly seemed like it would be enough to drive hundreds (if not thousands) of birds away. Various experts were contacted but no real answers were forthcoming. This was late December.

On the Nest - Island #3 (click to view large)Around the end of January a few Great Egrets suddenly began to return and establish nesting territories. Over the next couple of weeks their numbers increased. Slowly. In mid-February a few Brown Pelicans began to appear, but then they seemed to go away for a couple of days before returning again. Yesterday I decided to check again (as I have every few days for nearly 2 months) and what I found was an island practically covered from one end to the other with Great Egrets, Cormorants, and Brown Pelicans. I cannot say if the return of the birds is (or ever will be) complete since I haven’t been there at the right time of day to see White Ibis or Cattle Egrets flying to or from the island in flocks of 100 as they often do.I keep telling myself that it is a little early for them to nest so they may stay away a little longer. Time will tell.

It is nice to know that in this area - where habitat is disappearing as fast as you can say "stop the sprawl" - something has been set aside for the birds. At least for the time being, anyway.