HUGUENOT MEMORIAL PARK
AN AUDUBON FLORIDA SPECIAL PLACE
By
Morgan Borboen-Abrams
Huguenot Memorial Park is a park of contrasts. While driving to it from downtown
Jacksonville, it is industry on one side - the busy harbor on the St. Johns River with huge cargo
ships and military vessels. On the other side lie vast salt marshes; green in the spring, a warm
brown in the fall, dotted with the dark trees of coastal hammocks, they offer broad and ever
changing vistas. Thanks to a few people’s vision, this land was put into preservation in the
1980s, offering needed respite from the busy city life of Jacksonville.
The contrast continues within the park itself: one part of the beach can be choke-full with
parked cars and barbecue grills, the other so full with birds that finding a passageway often
means walking in the water!
“It’s like being in a National Geographic magazine” was a visitor’s exclamation after
entering the bird protection area and I cannot agree more. The park is so important to bird life it
is designated an Important Bird Area of Global significance. Its beach and high dunes are
located on a peninsula, attracting birds dependent on island ecosystems while allowing easy
access to nature lovers eager to see them. Thousands of Royal Terns and Laughing Gulls nest
in the interior dunes - the only nesting colony of Royal Terns on Florida’s east coast and one of
only five in the state. Starting in late June the beach is covered with chicks. Visitors ponder
which are the most endearing: the whitish Royal Tern chicks, grouped in a crèche and moving
all together as one, or the dark Laughing Gull chicks, often in brood of three, following their
parents to cool down by the water… In the sky above, it is high drama: terns bring live fish to
their chick, finding their one among the thousands, while gulls chase them, steal the fish that
they swallow and regurgitate later to their own offspring!
On the beach at the tip of the peninsula known as the Point, new protection measures
are returning rare species to nest - American Oystercatchers and Black Skimmers. As a
biologist it is hopeful to see the one but so precious oystercatcher chick; they are now less than
200 pairs breeding in Florida. Both species are black and white so take your binoculars to
differentiate the long-legged and orange-billed oystercatchers from the low-lying, red-and-blackbilled skimmers. Solitary nesters, the oystercatchers fight off other birds attempting to nest close
to them while the skimmers form a dense colony up the beach.
The lagoon on the backside of the peninsula acts as a buffet for birds, fish and other
wildlife. Low tide reveals mud flats with as many holes as a colander: these are the burrows of
fiddler crabs, just one of the hundreds of invertebrate species that call the intertidal area home,
critters that mean tasty morsel for many birds. Strong-billed Wilson’s Plovers snatch crabs
peeking out of their burrows, Whimbrels take advantage of their long legs and curved bills to
forage for prey deeper in the mud, and shorter billed sandpipers grab mollusks just below the
surface.
The variety of feeding tactics is echoed in the variety of places the birds migrate to and from.
Many spend their winter in South America and go all the way to the Arctic tundra to nest. One of
Huguenot’s longest migrant is the Red Knot, with many birds spending their winter at the tip of
South America and nesting in the Northern arctic – the 9000 miles migration allows the birds to
always be in the summer season!
While late June through July is best for chicks, late April – early May good for Red Knots
watching, the park offers a great variety of birds year round. When visiting, please respect all
areas posted to protect the wildlife, and consider walking instead of driving through the bird
sensitive areas of the park – the Point and the lagoon side.
Royal Tern Chicks & Beach Goers. Photo by David Marci
Stormy sky, birds & Ocean. Photo by Monique Borboen
Laughing Gull Chick being fed. Photo by Iris Jublin