20 On the trail of vanishing birds 



like setting of dead mangroves and the broken stubs of hurricane- 

 killed cabbage palms. Schools of small silver mullet and slender 

 needlefish darted before me, moving much faster than I could 

 against the current in my squat, flat-bottomed little craft. 



A half hour later I ran up against a crude bridge of palm logs, 

 so I had to unload and pull the empty skiff over it. The Cattail 

 Lakes were now visible just ahead. Spoonbills had been reported 

 from here a number of times and were said to have nested some- 

 where in the area. I pushed on for nearly two more hours, stop- 

 ping now and then to drag my net in the water and catch a few 

 specimens, most of which were killifishes. The channel narrowed 

 to about four feet in width and was now very shallow and ob- 

 structed by brush and fallen trees. There were great numbers of 

 alligator gar, a fish of prehistoric appearance with heavy scales that 

 cover its body like armor, but I was more interested in the tiny 

 killifishes, which are an important spoonbill and heron food. They 

 were quite numerous and included several varieties top minnows, 

 banded killifish, sail-fins, and the ever-present Cyprinodon. But 

 still I had found no spoonbills, and once again I was impressed 

 by the fact, so often to be repeated, that here was what appeared 

 to be an extensive habitat, suitable in every way except that it was 

 empty of spoonbills. There were other birds, all of them the usual 

 associates of the spoonbills in this region. I counted four shovelers, 

 some fifty or more Florida ducks, many yellowlegs, Louisiana 

 herons and snowy egrets. A brown pelican and several white ibises 

 flew by. 



In those days, some fifteen years ago when we were just begin- 

 ning to learn something about the spoonbill and its problems, the 

 only breeding colony in Florida was located on Bottlepoint Key 

 near Ta vernier.* It was a winter colony, and now that April had 

 arrived the birds had completed their nesting cycle and scattered 

 to parts unknown. The most that we could hope for at that time 

 was fifteen breeding pairs, with an average of surviving young 

 that ran about 2.7 or less per nest. We weren't getting ahead 

 very rapidly at this rate, especially considering the fact that the 



* Of the joys and vicissitudes of my first season on Bottlepoint Key I have told 

 in The Flame Birds (Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc., New York, 1947). 



