Wandering Among the Birds

A courting pair of  Royal Terns dance in the sand at North Anclote Key.

We joined a handful of rangers and a couple of volunteers from the Audubon Society on a boat trip to Anclote Key and then North Anclote Key to count birds. Anclote Key has a single ranger living there in isolated splendor. His name is Chris and when we pulled up to his dock, he was pretty grumpy. His reverse osmosis water system had broken down and he had no fresh water on the island.

He climbed aboard and piloted the barge to the northern part of the island (it's five miles long), where we dropped off two rangers and a volunteer by running the barge into the beach and letting them off the front end. Then Chris pulled back and we headed to North Anclote Key - a mile-long spit of land and barely rises above the sea. It had a wealth of birds living there, however.

Syd, an Audubon volunteer with a braid in his long white hair that looked like it had been done 15 years ago, Jo and I stepped off the barge onto the island.

Syd knew his birds, however, and we were soon photographing and identifying nests that were mere indentation in the sand. These were the homes of Least Terns, well-named because they are tiny. But these little guys also are feisty. While Jo and I stayed well away, Syd moved ever closer to the nests so he could photograph them and take a GPS reading on their actual locations. The birds continuously dive-bombed him when he was too close.

We moved along the beach to a cluster of much larger Royal Terns who were courting and preening. They are gorgeous birds, with bright orange beaks and a crew-cut hairstyle.

Jo spotted a pair of Snowy Plovers, lying low in the sand. They tolerated our approach and I was able to get a nice picture of these dainty and downy-soft birds which are threatened in the state.

The low-lying nature of North Anclote Key (it didn't even exist 50 years ago) makes one wonder how they can possibly survive in this hostile place. A higher-than-usual tide in these parts would pass over the island and the eggs would be washed away. I estimate no part of the island was higher than 2.5 feet above sea level.

When we made it to the southern tip of the island, Chris brought the barge back into the beach and we climbed aboard. We made our way back to his ranger's house (standing on 10-foot-high pilings on Anclote Key) and we got to work trying to get his reverse osmosis water maker to run. I did the plumbing, cutting and cementing PVC pipes and fixtures while Syd, a retired electrical engineer, worked on the electrical side of the system. We both got the system up and running in two and a half hours and it pretty much made Chris one happy ranger.

He has a huge array of solar cells behind his octagonal-shaped house which feed electricity into a large bank of batteries, the island's sole source of power. When we left him he kept shaking our hands and inviting us back anytime.

The barge, pushed by two powerful outboard engines, takes us to Anclote Key.