Here is a sight … what Penny and Dave Jones woke up to Saturday morning.

A big, robust bald eagle, lording over the lake behind their home. At that hour, as it is most days, the pond was also patrolled by a contingent of early morning ducks.

This appearance of this fine eagle specimen again lays bare a barely-kept secret:

Marsh Creek is it’s own rookery.

Not professionally managed as the better-known nesting area at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. But the two share many of the same visitors and residents. Why? Because birds are migratory. Not just season-to-season, but hour-to-hour. Spoonbills and Ibises especially seem to share their day between the two sites.

Checking with Google, we learn “Florida has one of the densest concentrations of nesting bald eagles in the lower 48 states, with an estimated 1,500 nesting pairs. Concentrations of nesting territories are clustered around several significant lake, river, and coastal systems throughout the state.”

There may be other locations neighbors can report on, but our large rookery sits around the lake bordering Turnberry Lane. Families of avian, from ducks to Spoonbills to Ibises – and of course the occasional eagle – are cruising the waters, parading across lawns, strutting the club fairway, or comfortably perched up in the trees behind lakefront homes.

To see this may cost you a bottle of wine for a ringside seat once you’ve befriended one of the neighbors. Still, better than an expensive ticket to elbow others out of the way for a photo, right?

And with the Marsh Creek Country Club efforting Audubon certification, things may only get better.

Photos thanks to hospitality from friends Dave and Penny Jones.