BY JOE BALOG

I never signed up to be a birder. To be honest, I never knew what it meant to be a birder, other than you wore a dorky hat and always carried binoculars.

West Volusia forces you to be a birder. Backyard feeders will draw you to endless supplies of cardinals, mockingbirds, and our little parrot wannabe, the painted bunting. Expanding your horizons will bring to light species on a different level.

The first time I saw a roseate spoonbill, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was a bird the color of a fairy tale. It could only exist in a zoo or a botanical garden, yet it was there, standing on a sandbar in Port Orange. Spooked by my dog, the bird flew away, leaving behind a pink feather that rests today on the dashboard of my boat.

Eagles are easy. The bald eagle population around Lake George is the second-highest in the continental United States. It’s always fun to watch ospreys, the bird bullies of the river, shutter in fear when competing with an eagle.

Kites belong to the same family as eagles, but fill a much different niche. Snail kites get most of the attention in West Volusia, as habitat loss dwindled their numbers, resulting in placement on the endangered species list.

But swallow-tailed kites are my favorite. Contrasting colors of black and pure white, they’re equally sinister and stunning. Their unimaginable forked tail brings instant recognition in the sky.

Swallow-tails migrate to Florida this time of year to nest. A solid population exists in our area, thanks, in large part, to our unaltered forests near the St. Johns River. There, swallow-tails can nest successfully in giant cypress and pine trees.

A threatened bird, swallow-tailed kites migrate to South America, making West Volusia internationally important in the survival of the species. They roost together overnight, then fly in groups once the sun warms the morning air. They’ll glide over the water, cleaning their feet and grabbing a drink. If you’re in the right place at the right time, you’ll view an aerial show unlike any other in Florida.

On that same river, barred owls will put you to bed. “Who cooks for you” will be their starting question. If you’re lucky enough to experience one of their tangents, you’ll hear the owls caterwaul, a term used to describe the monkeylike sounds they create. Thought to be a mating ritual, the caterwaul can involve several individual birds, and was once rumored to be the laughs of witches in the dark forest.

Limpkins will keep you up at night. Experience an evening with a limpkin, and this unassuming resident will surprise you with its vocal capacity. The maniacal call can only be described as a wailing plea.

Limpkins are unique to our area, with no major populations in the U.S. outside of Florida. They get their name from the deliberate way they walk through marshy areas searching for food.

The limpkin’s diet consists almost exclusively of snails and mollusks. Our large apple snail, available in both native and exotic versions, feeds a population of limpkins along the St. Johns and Ocklawaha rivers. After sifting through shallow waters with their bills and grabbing a snail, limpkins carry their prey to land, where they extract the chewy morsel through several blows with their sharp beak. What results is a clean shell with a bore hole, making for a nice souvenir.

Wood storks round out my top-five winged friends and, again, are endangered but visible here in Florida. Reduced greatly in numbers due to habitat loss in South Florida through the early 1900s, wood storks were almost extinct by 1984.

Recovery plans were put in place that coincided with the beginning of habitat-restoration efforts, leading to an upward tick in bird numbers. Some credit wood storks as an important component in drawing awareness to trouble in the Everglades.

Wood storks are the only stork in the United States. So, if you’re expecting a baby, you might want to wait it out at the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge. Small area populations use the refuge as a core foraging ground.

Shocking in appearance, these baldheaded birds are tactile feeders. Wading around in the water, wood storks place their open beaks below the surface until they feel something swim in, then quickly slam it shut, swallowing their prey whole.

You’ll know a wood stork when you see one; same with a number of other wading friends, like egrets and ibis. They all have unmistakable features, including long bills and colicky plumage.

Our area will make a birder out of you. The St. Johns corridor will make you a specialist.

It’s important to observe and understand birds, even if your primary interests are fish and game. Everything is tied together, and nowhere is that more important than here in Florida, where our climate promotes activity all year long.

The birds feed on many of the same things the fish do, or eat the small fish themselves. Oftentimes when speck-fishing, egrets and herons give away the best spots.

An appreciation for nature can come in many forms. Often, we get heavily involved with certain species that we hope to catch, or to simply observe and learn more about. I was always that way with fish, which later expanded to the other inhabitants of Florida waterways, including gators, turtles and otters.

The love for birds kind of trickled in. This is normal, from what I’ve heard. A fondness for our winged friends seems to evolve with more time in the outdoors, and, eventually, every self-taught naturalist becomes a birder.

Perhaps it’s the mystique of flight. The superpower that has always eluded humans. What it would be like to fly above the St. Johns any chance I wanted, observing just how small we are in this great big world.

For now, I’ll learn from the birds, and see you out there.