Peregrine Hawk Migration Capital of the World

Jo, left, stands in the shade while two of the bird counters track the flight of the Peregrine Falcon.

We’re standing on the steps to the bathhouse at Curry Hammock State Park, just north of Marathon in the middle of The Keys. It’s a glorious day – sunny skies with bubbling cumulus clouds, azure blue water in the Atlantic to die for.  All is right with the world.

We’re here because this very spot on the steps to the bathhouse is the Peregrine Falcon migration capital of the world.  Thousands of  birds of prey, or raptors, use the Florida Keys every fall as a migratory route to wintering grounds in the Caribbean and South America.

We’re visiting the official counters: dedicated people who drive from as far off as California (on their own migration, I would guess) to actually count each bird as it passes by their steps.

These folks – there were five of them when we stopped by – are VERY busy. They count thousands of hawks and other birds as they head down the Keys. They’re quite serious about keeping track of each and every species individually. They have clickers for the most popular species and the voices rise and fall as more and more birds fly into view.

We watched as hawks, falcons, eagles, ospreys, American kestrels, swallow-tailed kites, turkey vultures, black vultures, northern harriers deliberately flew by. Ripples of excitement followed each sighting by the counters as they clicked their counters and wrote the tally for each species.

The leader of the group told me one peregrine falcon was fitted with a GPS transmitter when it was released in New Jersey. In 24 hours it was tracked as it flew due south into the Atlantic until it came due east of Miami. It then took a hard right turn and came into the northern Keys where it turned left and headed southwest along the 100-mile chain of keys. This all occurred in the first 24 hours. Then it hopped across to South America and ended up on the southern coast of Chile.

How does it get the energy, I asked. “The falcon will catch birds like swallows on the wing,” the ornithologist told me. “He’ll tear it apart while flying and pack the bird into his craw.” With that, looking through his binoculars he said, “There’s one, right now, with a full craw.” The falcon swooped by at about 500 feet. He regurgitates the food in his craw when he needs the energy and swallows, never missing a beat. Extraordinary.

These migratory birds do this 24 hours a day. So the count by the team is quite conservative.

Here are the counts for some of the birds from 2012:

Osprey: 1,454

Bald Eagle: 22

Northern Harrier: 959

Sharp-shinned Hawk: 1,942

Cooper’s Hawk: 766

Red-shouldered Hawk: 23

Broad-winged Hawk: 7,236

American Kestrel: 3,242

Peregrine Falcon: 3,836

Mississippi Kite: 99

Swallow-tailed Kite: 40

What a wonderful experience to watch these birds slogging southward hour after hour.

We headed farther south ourselves with our friends Mike and Lucy who share campground duties with us. We passed through Marathon where Jo and I have spent many weeks at anchor, awaiting our own weather windows to be able to sail across the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas or back up to civilization in Miami and points north.

We eventually came to Bahia Honda State Park (there are 10 state parks in the Florida Keys) where we showed our passes and were honored guests. After 500 volunteer hours of work in the parks, we qualify for this pass which allows free entry to any of the hundreds of state parks.

We’re come to Bahia Honda to snorkel in the gin-clear water. Mmmmm. Delicious. Now this is what retirement is all about!

Fishing the Deep



Sun has set as we motor away from the land toward the fishing reef.

It seemed like such a good idea: Let’s all of us, the volunteers at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, take a trip on Sailor’s Choice, a 65-foot power boat. We’d fish for the next night’s dinner.
 

We loaded up our cars and headed south in Key Largo at 7 p.m. Jamie, our first mate, explained the rules of the ship: 1. He lives by tips alone. So if you don’t tip him, he goes home hungry. 2. No booze aboard. 3. If you lose a fishing rod overboard, that’s a $100 fine. “So, if you fall overboard,” Jamie warned us, “be sure to throw the road back onboard to avoid that $100 fine!”
 

It was a buttery, warm night. A slight breeze came out of the east. A half-moon lay bright in the sky, while Venus, Mars and Jupiter added to the beauty. We scooted eastward toward French Reef. You motor through shallow water out to the reef. The captain dropped the anchor in 85 feet of water. Jamie provided us with containers of bait (mostly octopus) and the fishing commenced.
 

I pulled in a chunky triggerfish. Good eating, I was told, and Jamie put it in bucket with my number on it. Yellowtail came aboard, grunts, more triggerfish, a red fish with disproportionately large eyes, and then nothing for a long time.
 

The times hung heavy on us as we waited for the next strike. My watch said 10:30 p.m. before the captain weighed anchor and moved the boat three miles south to outside Molasses Reef. Jamie set the anchor again and we dipped our bait into the ocean for another try. Ron, our friend from Minnesota, hauled in a small shark which we released. Mike brought aboard a bunch of grunts which he threw back because they were too small to bother fileting.
 

By 11:30 p.m., we were sagging. It was long past our bedtimes and the lack of big catches hung heavy on the group.
 

The captain weighed anchor and headed home. We dutifully tipped Jamie and he unloaded our catch. Before much filleting was done, a Florida wildlife scientist joined us on the dock at 1 a.m. He measured our various fish, even opening up their brains so he could remove a small bone that would be analyzed to provide information about the age of each of the fish. “This bone acts like the rings on a tree. It provides u with information about the fish,” he told me. He would mail off each bone from each species, long with data about the length and weight of each fish. The bone will be sliced and then analyzed under microscopes to study individual fish.
 

James, meanwhile, was slicing and dicing our catch. Our group took home a back of about 10 pounds of fileted fish which we’ll cook for a group supper tonight.

If one looks at this adventure in purely practical terms, 10 people catching 10 pounds of fish makes for pretty expensive fish. But, when you factor in the camaraderie and the pure joy of having the ocean under your feet that, as they say, is priceless.