I am in San Diego this morning, so I am all out of sync with my posts…besides which it is leap day…a day that only exists once every 4 years. You would think they would make it an automatic holiday. I mean, I did not have to work on February 29th last year, so why should I have to work on February 29th this year? Let’s start a movement 🙂

But seriously, I have at least one more bird to add from my trip to Florida last month. On my final morning, before my drive back to Orlando and the airport and the flights home, I stopped for a few hours at Blue Heron Wetlands, which was actually about 400 yards from my hotel the whole time. Blue Heron is another settlement pond complex that has been converted to marsh and opened for birding. Unlike the more famous and popular Viera Wetlands, the ponds at Blue Heron are full of vegetation. Reeds are tall, and brush lines most of the dyke roads, so it is much more challenging to observe the wildlife. And, there is not, apparently, as much of it. Birds, other than the Common Gallinule (Moorehen) were pretty scarce. Rumor had it though that a Purple Gallinule was being seen there most days, so I drove the dykes twice. On my first trip around I found a group of birders looking for the Purple where it had been seen, scoping the far reaches of the reed line, but the bird was not visible. On my second pass there was only a single car at the spot, but I got out anyway. I set up the scope and started scanning before the two nice birder ladies walked up and said, “There is a bird right here in the reeds we have been watching and we think it is a female Purple Gallinule.”

So, where? The bird was literally right there in the reeds, only maybe 30 feet from the road, going about its (her) business, walking and climbing on the downed reeds. And indeed it was a female Purple Gallinule. It was too close for the digiscoping rig, so I took a lot of shots with the Canon SX40HS in digital tel-extender mode.

The shot above shows the wonderful green feet, with toes made for walking on water vegetation, as well as the tricolor beak. It was a dull bird, with very little purple showing, but unmistakably as Purple Gallinule.

Here is a full-on view of the tricolored beak.

And an even better view of the feet.

So, a fitting last bird for my trip to Florida for the Space Coast Birding Festival…and see less then 400 yards from my hotel.

No if we could only do something about getting leap day made a holiday.