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The Limpkin Times
Apalachee Audubon Society Mission Statement:
Protecting the rich biodiversity of the Florida Panhandle through education, appreciation, and conservation.
September 2022
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Remembering Elizabeth Platt and Ben Fusaro, both Past Presidents of Apalachee Audubon
President's Message
Over an eight day period this summer, we lost three remarkable environmentalists. Last month I announced the July 25 passing of AAS member and Past President, Ben Fusaro. Two days later, we lost Mike Miller, an avid outdoorsman, birder and friend of Birdsong Nature Center. On August 2, we lost Elizabeth Platt, another AAS member and Past President. Susan Cerulean memorializes Mike in this newsletter (also available on our website). Here are the links to their respective obituaries:
Ben Fusaro
No memorial service planned at this time.
Mike Miller
A celebration of Michael’s extraordinary life will be held November 19 at 3 PM at Birdsong Nature Center.
Elizabeth Platt
Memorial was held August 27.
Hooray! I’m so pleased to announce that we are resuming in person programs at the King Building Auditorium starting this month. However, we will also be live-streaming our programs for those who are unable to attend in person, something we plan to do for the foreseeable future. See our program announcement below for the link to our September 15 program about fall migrants. No registration required. Just before the program, pull up this email and click the link, or visit our website, www.apalachee.org and look for the program announcement page.
Our program theme this year is Protecting Bird Habitats: The Hows and Whys of Bird Conservation. Birds occupy a huge variety of habitats around the world but, as these habitats continue to slip away, so do the birds themselves. This year's program series focuses on what is being done to conserve habitats in our chapter area and around the world, and why the birds themselves are so worth protecting. We hope you'll join us to learn more about our amazing avian world and what each of us can do to keep it intact.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Carr
President, Apalachee Audubon
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Yellow Warbler at St. Marks NWR on Sept. 17, 2021, photo by Karen Willes
In this issue:
Chapter Programs
Chapter Outings
Sept. 10, Birding Social at Lake Elberta Park
Sept. 17, International Coastal Cleanup, Franklin County
Sept. 18, Guided Field Trip, Fall Migrants at Bald Point State Park, with Rob Williams
Volunteers Needed at Joe Budd WMA
Mike Miller (1945-2022): A Wild Remembrance, by Susan Cerulean
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Chapter Programs
All our programs this year will be live-streamed on Zoom as well as in person, although February may end up being a Zoom only program.
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Prairie Warbler, photo by Juli deGrummond
September: Fall Migrants and Where to Find Them
Thursday, September 15, 2022
Social: 6:30 PM
Program: 7:00 - 8:30 PM
King Life Science Building
319 Stadium Drive, Tallahassee 32304 (see map below)
This program will also be live-streamed on Thursday, Sept. 15 at 7:00 pm via the following link. No registration required.
Join AAS Zoom Program
Meeting ID: 811 2019 5557
Passcode: 2022
Migrating birds have been streaming across the Florida Panhandle since early July, but we’ll be seeing many more over the upcoming weeks. Find out where and when you can find these short-term visitors to our area. Karen Willes will share her experiences and photos of migrants at St. Marks NWR and Juli deGrummond will do likewise for sites around the Tallahassee area. This will be a collaborative meeting where we can share information. Join in the discussion and let’s go find those birds at Bald Point SP on September 18 field trip!
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Map to King Building at FSU
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Upcoming Programs
2022
October 20: Dean and Sally Jue, Winged Wonders of Ghana
November 17: Peter Kleinhenz & Heather Levy, Parrots, Politics, and Promise: Conserving the Endangered Parrots of the Lesser Antilles
2023
January 19: Emily Duval: Manakins--Rethinking Sexual Selection. Dancing birds, choosy mates, and how combining tropical fieldwork with mathematical modeling might change the world.
February 16: Jim McGinity, Florida Young Birders Club
March 16: Land Conservation Panel (tentative)
April 20: Georgia Ackerman, Protecting Florida’s Mighty Apalachicola River
Sunday, May 21: Chapter Dinner and Final Program
Fire in the Hills: How Butterflies Evolved with Fire in the Red Hills Region
Rob Myer, Woodpecker Conservation Biologist and Dave McElveen, Research Associate. Tall Timbers Research Station
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Lake Elberta Park
Family friendly birding social at Lake Elberta
Saturday, September 10, 2022 - 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM
594 N Lake Bradford Rd, Tallahassee, FL 32304
Or park along FAMU Way near Stearns St.
Join us Saturday for a casual walk at Lake Elberta and bring along your young ones! We will check out the Chimney Swift tower and bat house, and look for fall migrating birds. Meet at 8:45 AM at the gazebo by the parking lot on Lake Bradford Rd. There is limited parking at the park, but there is parking available along FAMU Way and you can enter the park from Stearns St.
For more information, email apalacheeaudubon@gmail.com.
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International Coastal Cleanup in Franklin County
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2021 Coastal Cleanup team | |
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Saturday, September 17, 9:00 AM
Meet at the Ochlockonee Bay Boat Ramp
Google Maps link
Apalachee Audubon volunteers will once again be participating in Coastal Cleanup this year along the shores of Ochlockonee Bay. Leaders Donna Legare and Jody Walthall will pick up supplies at the Leonard’s Landing ICC Sign-in at 8:30 and then meet our volunteers at the boat ramp just beyond the Ochlockonee Bay Bridge on the right as you are heading south on Hwy. 98 at 9:00 AM. There is a portable potty on site.
We will work the shore and into the woods to collect trash which we will haul back to the boat ramp in a canoe. The Bluffs of Saint Teresa is a tract of Bald Point State Park and is a truly beautiful area in which to work.
Call Donna at (850) 386-1148 if you plan to volunteer so we can collect the proper number of supplies. Wear or bring sunscreen, bug spray, protective clothing (hats, long pants, long-sleeved shirts), work or close-toed water shoes, water bottle. I like to bring my own work gloves, but plastic gloves will be provided. If you want, bring a picnic lunch, and relax along the shore after the cleanup. .
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Bald Point State Park
Guided Field Trip, Fall Migrants at Bald Point State Park
Sunday, September 18: 8:00 AM — 11:30 AM
Trail Difficulty: Easy (about 2.5 mile walk)
Directions: Meet at the parking lot near the overlook boardwalk at the North End; Park admission fee required ($4) or park pass
Bring your binoculars and explore the park during fall migration; we will be looking for shorebirds along the beach, warblers in the maritime oak hammocks, wading birds, and birds of prey in and around the marsh areas. Please also bring water, snacks, sunscreen, and a camera if you’d like. For those interested, we will stop on the way home to walk the beach at Mashes Sand and take a drive down Bottoms Road.
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Cierra Nelson and a volunteer installing a bluebird house at Joe Budd WMA
Volunteer Request for Bluebird Nest Box Monitoring
This year, AAS intern Cierra Nelson and a group of volunteers from FAMU's outdoor club installed eight bluebird nest boxes at the Joe Budd Wildlife Management Area, adding to the two they already had on site. The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission is asking for volunteers to help monitor the 10 boxes. This project is most active during bluebird breeding season each year, but volunteers will also check the boxes throughout the rest of the year to monitor use by other bird species in the off season. Joe Budd is on the banks of Lake Talquin, 30 minutes from Tallahassee, so this project would be ideal for someone who lives in Leon County. If you are interested, please contact NW Region Volunteer Program Biologist Richard (Rhett) Barker at Richard.Barker@myfwc.com
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Mike Miller at his spotting scope. Photo by Susan Cerulean
Mike Miller (1945-2022): A Wild Remembrance
by Susan Cerulean
During the annual Winter Shorebird Survey, birders and biologists all over Florida put their binoculars together to see how the original snowbirds are doing on their wintering grounds.
Some years back, my assigned territory required a kayak trip about a mile offshore to Lanark Reef, a set of linear, tidally submerged sandbars in Franklin County. There's really nothing out there for people, but that sand means everything to the birds.
The task I shared with my new birding buddy, Mike Miller, was to tally the numbers of 25 potentially occurring shorebirds, taking special care with the rarest and most imperiled: the American oystercatcher, the red knot, and three kinds of plover.
I first met Mike on the Apalachicola/St. Vincent NWR Christmas Bird Count, back when Barbara Stedman ruled Territory 2. Five of us were assigned to Barbara and her truck. It was crowded inside, so Mike and I stood in the bed of the vehicle. If we’d see a good raptor or find ourselves driving through a feeding guild of songbirds, we’d pound on the roof so everyone could pile out and tally. In later years, after Barbara’s passing, I took over Territory 2, and Mike stayed on the team along with Grayal Farr and others.
Mike Miller could sure tell a story. He was a talker. His 70 plus years had been so rich and full and lucky. Driving to the coast, driving to a count, wherever we found ourselves among wild birds, he’d entertain me with stories about working in the Red Hills, his grandchildren, his writing for Florida Wildlife magazine and his time as a small business owner selling outdoor gear.
What we had most in common was a love of this place, our North Florida bioregion from the Red Hills to the Gulf of Mexico.
Mike had an eye for the winter ducks. Our team counted on him to fill out our waterfowl list. He’d never disappoint. When we’d survey Tahiti Beach on the east facing shore of St. Vincent, he’d melt into the palm and pine landscape and return with a sighting of a Sambar elk, and the gadwall that the rest of us had missed.
That day out on Lanark Reef, we saw so many birds probing and plucking in the shallow water that we had to take turns with the spotting scope to spell our eyes. We set up a grid: Mike would count everything between the boat ramp and the water tower, calling out what he saw. When he counted dunlin, the most numerous little shore bird on the reef, I’d have a long time to wait and look around.
"Ten.” Pause. “Twenty,” he reported. “Another 30.” Pause. Silence.
“Take your time,” I said, shifting from foot to foot on the sand, relishing the sun on my back and the silence. Enjoying my great good luck to be out there at all. I thought about how a few years ago, a Tallahassee developer proposed plans to develop this very set of sandbars into condos. With septic tanks. Our Audubon Society put up the bucks to buy the reef and saved it for these shorebirds, who cannot live without it.
Then it would be my turn to count.
It took us four hours to tot up the several thousand birds taking refuge on Lanark at low tide. Our conservative estimate of dunlins was 1300 individuals. We saw 307 marbled godwits (those glorious cinnamon feathered beauties!). More than I've ever seen in one place. Ever
When the wind is shaking your spotting scope and the tide is aslosh at your feet, you want a buddy with Mike’s experience and enthusiasm to back up your Wilson’s plover count. That’s the kind of friend you want in your life, too. When COVID came to town, my circle of in person get togethers contracted. I didn’t see Mike for two and a half years, and now he is gone.
With his passing, we have lost one of the too few naturalists who love this bioregion and keep it foremost in their commitments and activism. Weren’t we lucky to have him among for all this time?
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Mike Miller (middle) and others counting shorebirds.
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS: 2022-2023
Officers:
President: Kathleen Carr
Vice President: VACANT
Treasurer: Harvey Goldman
Secretary: James Carr
Directors:
Cindy Baisden
Charlie Baisden
Caleb Crow
Howard Kessler
Peter Kleinhenz
Rob Williams
STANDING COMMITTEE CHAIRS
Conservation Peter Kleinhenz
Education VACANT
Field Trips Heather Levy
Membership Ash Eggers
Program VACANT
Publications and Publicity Kathleen Carr
+ Newsletter Chris Grossman
+ Web Team Elizabeth Georges, Kathleen Carr
+ Annual Report (President)
OTHER COMMITTEES & CHAPTER ACTIVITIES
Bookkeeper Adrienne Ruhl
Birdathon Harvey Goldman
History Caleb Crow, Karen Wensing
September Coastal Cleanup Donna Legare
Wildlife-Friendly Yards Tour Tammy Brown
Lake Elberta Park Alexis Smith
Volunteer Coordinator VACANT
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