Florida Bird Notes 7 



a Red -bellied Woodpecker and a few Prairie Warblers were the other birds 

 found. In July, 1905, the writer found Pelicans and Cormorants breeding 

 here in immense numbers, and fully five thousand Man-o'-War birds were 

 using the island as a roosting place. 



Passage Key, near the mouth of Tampa Bay, showed on April 18, but 

 an earnest of the throng of bird -life which gathers here later in the sea- 

 son. This island is a low bank of sand covered sparingly with grass and 

 cacti. Near the north sides a pond with a thickly grown margin of trees 

 furnished ideal nesting sites for perhaps fifteen hundred Louisiana Herons. 

 The nests contained usually from three to five eggs. A few Ward's Great 

 Blue Herons were also here, with their well-grown young. A flock of Teal 

 and a Greater Scaup Duck were swimming contentedly about the pond. 

 Ground Doves, were abundant and many Laughing Gulls filled the sea wind 

 with their shoutings. 



Mrs. Asa Pillsbury, wife of the warden in charge, has a long list of birds 

 she has seen here. One of her records is the Florida Burrowing Owl, in 

 fact, the warden pointed out one of the burrows of this interesting bird. 



Eight miles south of Passage Key a little crescent -shaped mangrove 

 island, less than two hundred feet in length, was the home of a colony of 

 Cormorants and Brown Pelicans on April 15. At this time egg-laying had 

 begun, although many nests were not yet completed. 



A SCENE ON PELICAN ISLAND, INDIAN RIVER 



Photographed by F. M. Chapman. The trees having disappeared, the Pelicans here nest upon the ground. 



Compare with Mr. Pearson's pictures where all the birds are nesting in trees 



