As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Sunday, 2 December 2018

Curious Coast: Birds vanish from Port Orange’s “Bird Island”



By Dinah Voyles Pulver 

Posted Nov 25, 2018 at 12:01 AM Updated Nov 27, 2018 at 6:01 PM
In a mystery that has residents and scientists stumped, the birds that give Seabird Island in Port Orange its name have left their island home.
Local residents say huge flocks of brown pelicans, herons and egrets that normally cluster on an island known as “Bird Island” just south of the Dunlawton Avenue Bridge over the Halifax River suddenly stopped doing so in October.
Bill and Irene Beck noticed the birds were no longer on the island more than a month ago, said Irene Beck. “My husband basically grew up here and in his lifetime there have been three bridges built and that never seemed to scare the birds away,” she said.
But while boating past the island at least four times in recent weeks, they were shocked to find no birds. So, she reached out to Curious Coast, The News-Journal’s ongoing series where readers reach out with their questions about the community.
“Is it global warming? Is it construction? Who knows?” Beck said. “It’s a mystery to us, and to those who have been here for a while. What happened to our birds?

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