TIERRA VERDE - A floating, gravel-covered island hauled into a lagoon at Fort De Soto Park this morning looks like the perfect party spot.
Environmentalists, though, hope to attract a different kind of action – shorebirds that need a protected spot to nest.
"If this experiment works, it will make news all over the conservation world," said Lorraine Margeson, an environmental activist who helped coordinate the effort.
The premise is this: Creating a floating island will give least terns and black skimmers a chance to nest without the worry of storm surge washing away their eggs or drowning their chicks.
It has worked in England and parts of the Great Lakes region and just may work here, said Jim Wilson, the park's superintendent.
Volunteers shoveled gravel onto the former floating docks then set in place wooden decoys carved to resemble least terns – tiny shorebirds that need vast expanses of wide, white beach for nesting.
"It's like a floating rooftop," Margeson said.
For least terns, gravel rooftops have become prime nesting habitat. But the rooftops are disappearing and the birds are again dependent on the beach.
Laughing gulls screeched from nearby pilings as a dozen men hauled the island into the lagoon.
"If it fails, there is no loss," Wilson said. "This is all being done with recycled materials and volunteer labor."
Friends of Fort De Soto paid for the gravel, fencing and decoys.
For years, St. Petersburg Audubon Society members and other volunteers have worked at the park to create a bird sanctuary, one that is gaining national attention.
The payoff has come, Margeson said. Birds are attempting to nest there again and Pinellas County's tourism development council has begun promoting the beach to birders.
Bird enthusiasts from Pasco, Sarasota and Alachua counties stood along the beach this morning with long camera lenses and binoculars, watching the skimmers, terns, plovers and other shorebirds.
"They finally get that wildlife viewing and ecotourism is just as viable a way to attract tourists as beach bars and parasailing," Margeson said.
By creating the island, Wilson said, most of the beach stays open to the public and the birds get their own quiet spot.
Beth Forys, a professor of biology and environmental studies at Eckerd College, has monitored birds in Pinellas for more than a decade. She predicts at least 10 pairs of birds can use the island for nesting at any given time.
The island is named La Bateau D'Amour De Laridae, or Love Boat for the Laridae (a bird family that includes terns and gulls). It was placed near the birds' foraging grounds; several hovered overhead as Forys, Margeson and other volunteers readied the island for its anchorage.
"The birds may check it out and not nest," Margeson said. "We'll take it apart then put it back out next year. Sometimes, it takes a few years for this sort of thing to work."
