Florida: Unusual Birds

 

In February 2013 I found myself back in Florida – this time with my stepson Bryan, as Eileen had to take Ryan back to Malaysia in time for school and I did not want to leave my recently bereaved mother on her own quite yet.   Besides looking after Mom, Bryan and I had a chance to drop into our usual haunts at Green Cay and Wakodahatchee to check out the local birdlife.   Most of the birds were the usual species, even though something as beautiful as this Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) scarcely deserves the adjective "usual".  We did come across a few birds that were not so usual - at least, not for me.

American Bitterns (Botaurus lentiginosus)  are not rare birds, but they are not always easy to come by in South Florida.  Getting a good look at one in the open is always an event to celebrate.

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) have established themselves so thoroughly at Wakodahatchee that they really belong, by now, in the "usual" category. Nonetheless, they are always special birds for me, partly because they are such handsome creatures and partly because I can remember the days when this species was practically unheard of in South Florida. Instead, you were much more likely to see its cousin the Fulvous Whistling-Duck (Dendrocygna bicolor), a bird that I have not seen in Florida for some years (though they are certainly around). Are the newer arrivals driving them out?

Wakodahatchee  has become the scene of an even newer bird arrival onto the South Florida landscape. There is nothing unusual about this bird – it is clearly a nesting Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus).

 However, over the last couple of years the Double-crested Cormorants have been joined by a few Neotropic Cormorants (Phalacrocorax olivaceus),  presumably wanderers from the Bahamas. Telling the two apart isn't always easy, especially considering that the two species occasionally hybridize. This bird, I suspect, may be one of the hybrids.

We were lucky enough to come across an even more unusual wanderer from the Bahamas, this time in the parking lot at Green Cay. This is a  La Sagra's Flycatcher (Myiarchus sagrae), one of the dullest of its genus.   The arrival of a few La Sagra's is by now an annual event in South Florida, but the bird must still be considered a vagrant by any definition.   This was only my second encounter.

The song of La Sagra's  is a high pitched, wheezy affair, but the bird seems to go to great lengths to produce it.

Not every unusual bird is a wanderer or a rarity. This Boat-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus major) at Wakodahatchee doesn't look much like the illustrations in the field guides.

This individual has certainly confused some local birders (there  are a number of photographs on the web of what appears to be the same bird). Nonetheless, it is quite clearly a Boat-tail, and a female (not a young male, because it has apparently looked like this over at least three seasons).  It is, in fact, leucistic, a genetic variant unable to produce pigment in some of its feathers.

A few more usual birds to finish: an immature Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax)...

A Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea)...

...and a Green Heron (Butorides virescens),  making short work out of what appears to be a Pig Frog (Rana grylio).

Florida: A Loxahatchee Butterfly Garden

On December 17, 2012, Ryan and I paid a visit to the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. Usually the star attractions here are alligators and other reptiles of a certain size, but we found ourselves fascinated (or, rather, I did, while Ryan was at least good-natured about it) with smaller creatures: lizards, small birds, dragonflies and, especially, butterflies.

In the small bird category, it would take a hummingbird to beat the Blue-grey Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea), at 5-7g. one of the tiniest birds in North America.

Gnatcatchers are common in Florida, but they are very active little birds.  Getting a decent photograph of one can be difficult, so I was happy to find this reasonably cooperative individual.  I'm inclined to think it is a male; you can just make out a hint of the black eyebrow-line the male develops in the breeding season.

The lizard was a common one, and not even a native: a Brown Anole (Anolis sagrei).  I was puzzled, though, by the bright orange crown.  Apparently this is a color variant that can show up more or less frequently in Brown Anole populations, particularly in juvenile males.

On to dragonflies: I believe this is a Needham's Skimmer (Libellula needhami) rather than the extremely similar Golden-winged Skimmer (L. auripennis) based on the thorax pattern and the change in wing colour (or to be more specific, the colour of the costa or leading edge of the wing) at the node, the "break-point" about halfway along its length.

I took this at first for a female Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis), a species I have seen many times, but the long, narrow abdomen suggests that it is, instead, a Great Pondhawk (E. vesiculosa), a species with a huge range (from Kansas to Argentina) but a new one for me.

The butterflies were taking advantage of a heavily-flowering clump of Climbing Hempvine (Mikania scandens) behind the visitor centre - a sort of single-species butterfly garden.  This is one of south Florida's most ubiquitous butterflies, the White Peacock (Anartia jatrophae).

The predominant butterfly at the clump, though, I at first identified as the Queen (Danaus gilippus), the darker southern representative of the familiar Monarch (D. plexippus) (and that is how the file names for these photos read).  I now believe, though, that this is another, very similar species, the Soldier (D. eresimus).   These photos show a row of pale yellowish patches on the hindwing, typical of Soldiers, not Queens.

From above, the dark wing veins are much more prominent than on the Queen.  The two are very similar, though, so I would be glad to hear other opinions!

One of the interesting things about the Monarch-Queen-Soldier complex is that their principal mimic, the Viceroy (Limenitis archippus) is much darker in areas dominated by the two southern species than it is in the breeding range of the considerably brighter Monarch.  I kept my eye out for Viceroys, but didn't see any; this is another Soldier.

The Ruddy Daggerwing (Marpesia petreus)  is a tropical butterfly that normally ranges only as far north as South Florida, although wanderers have turned up as far away as Colorado.

 This individual has lost one of its "tails", presumably to a hungry, but unsuccessful, bird.

 Just to show that we did not totally ignore larger animals, here are a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius)  exploring a cypress trunk...

... and a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) catching a bit of sun.

Florida: Glass-Bottom Boat

 

Our grandson Ryan, besides being a precocious naturalist, is also a budding photographer.  Here is his portrait of Grandpa, Grandma, Uncle Davin and Auntie Adrienne on t.e beach at the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park on Key Largo, uppermost of the Florida Keys, on December 9, 2012.  We are there to take Ryan on an adventure.

I don't know why it is, but small children seem endlessly fascinated with fish.  Ryan is no exception, except that he wants to know the name of every one he sees.  I could think of nothing he would enjoy more than one of the glass-bottom boat trips out to the reef at Pennekamp (I'll try him on snorkeling when he's older, I hope - perhaps on one of the reefs of his home in Malaysia).

Laughing Gulls (Larus ridibundus) accompanied us on our trip out to the reef.

Once we got there, we headed down into the hold to see what was about.

Photographing fishes through the well of a glass-bottom boat is a frustrating experience, and my results are nothing to brag about, but here are a few examples of what Ryan saw.  These are Creole Wrasse (Clepticus parrae), a common schooling fish on the reef, identifiable by the blackish smudge on their snouts.

Another Creole Wrasse swims over a gently waving sea fan, probably a Common Sea Fan (Gorgonia ventalina) - for those who don't know, sea fans are soft corals and therefore colonial animals, not plants (or fans).

Yellowtail Snappers (Ocyurus chrysurus) are abundant (and outside protected areas, heavily fished).

A party of grunts swims over Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata), one of the main Caribbean reef-building corals.  I'm not positive, but I think these are White grunt (Haemulon plumieri).

One of the most ubiquitous of all reef fishes is the Sergeant-Major (Abudefduf saxatilis).

Finally, this, I think, is a Black Grouper (Mycteroperca bonaci).

Back on the beach after all the underwater excitement, we spent some time looking at birds...

...In particular, at some quite tame Ruddy Turnstones (Arenaria interpres) doing their own examination of the beach.

For the best look at birds in the Upper Keys, though, it pays to drive down US#1 to the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center, a rescue and rehabilitation centre that draws in a fair number of wild birds hoping to share in the bounty.  It was our next stop.

The hangers-on around the rehab cages were less numerous than I have seen on past visits, but included Great Egrets (Ardea alba)...

...and rows of hopeful Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura).

We finished our day with a scroll down to the mangroves at the edge of the key, where White Ibises (Eudocimus albus) stood quietly among the mudflats...

...and Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) tended to their plumage, perched on exposed coral boulders just offshore.

 It made a lovely end to a memorable day for Ryan - and for the rest of us, too.