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Straggler Hummingbird Welcomed

Posted by Gary on September 24, 2015 in Birds of the Field and Forest

Just after my last blog on how the absence of Hummingbirds signals the start of autumn, I spied a ruby-throated hummingbird by our firecracker bush. A light rain was falling, but it did not stop the hummingbird from engorging itself on the sweet nectar. This world’s smallest bird needs to eat half its weight in sugar each day to survive so I am glad that I have a plant that helps provide the nutrition it needs to complete its journey across the Gulf of Mexico to its winter home in Central America.

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Goodbye Hummingbirds, Hello Autumn!

Posted by Gary on September 22, 2015 in Birds of the Field and Forest

On September 23rd,  at 4:21 a.m., the autumnal equinox marks the onset of fall, a transition time of summer to winter.

As a child growing up in New York, it was easy to recognize the arrival of autumn. By mid-September, green leaves slowly faded to shades of yellow, orange, red and crimson. By mid-October the colorful landscape peaked and with the arrival of fall frosts, the colorful leaves dropped to the ground.

Now, retired in central Florida, with the temperature on this mid-September day at 93 degrees, the seasons meld. There are no colorful landscapes to signal autumn and seldom are there chilly frosts to signal fall. But after living here a few years, I discovered a way to recognize that autumn is about to arrive. And I owe it to a tiny, spunky bird – the hummingbird.

I spent my summer evenings sitting on my porch to watch ruby-throated hummingbirds feast on the nectar from the crayon red blossoms on a fire cracker bush in my front yard. May, June, July, August and early September these precision flyers arrived just before sunset, attracted to the plant’s cascading red blossoms, to get their fill before darkness sets in.

Then one early September evening they were gone, bound for Central America for the winter.  Many of them will journey across the Gulf of Mexico to their winter home in Central America. As I sit out front, the fire cracker bush is devoid of hummingbirds. Yes, autumn is upon us!

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Reminiscence and the Rabbit

Posted by Gary on September 5, 2015 in Wildlife

As Anne and I step out the door of our Florida villa, I spot a wild rabbit half hidden under a hibiscus bush next to our driveway. The sight conjures up a déjà vu moment for me that I can trace back to my childhood years in New York. I grew up on Long Island in an area that was once a potato farm cultivated into a suburban landscape with hundreds of houses on quarter acre plots. It was the 1950’s and it was where World War II veterans, like my dad, began raising their families.

Wild rabbits survived the conversion of what was a prairie into farmlands and remained resilient during the suburban sprawl. I frequently saw rabbits under the bushes planted around the foundation of the cape cod home we lived in. Hiding around the corner of the house with a 10 foot string attached to a stick that held up one side of a wooden milk carton, I waited for what seemed hours for a rabbit to come to the carrot I left to lure it under the crate. My plan was to pull the stick and capture the rabbit. As a five year old, I really didn’t think it through. Not really sure what I would have done with it. I never did catch one.

So here, a thousand miles from Long Island, in a 55+ community where the kids of World War II veterans are retiring, built on agricultural land sold for development and for what seems like a lifetime ago, I relive that moment I saw my first rabbit as a 5 year old kid. And it is just as exciting now as it was then.

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The Fish That Breathes Air

Posted by Gary on September 2, 2015 in Aquatic Life, Wildlife

A fisherman filets groupers and red fish at a cleaning station along Kings Bay in Crystal River Florida. He tosses the heads, tails and fish bones into the water where several cormorants gather feast on the scraps as gulls attempt to pluck the scraps from the water. Nothing goes to waste. A large shadowy fish appears in the shallow water, comes to the surface to eat what the cormorants miss. It is a 5 foot long, 70 pound tarpon.

Tarpon are fish of shallow bays and mangrove swamps. The tarpon’s success is partly due to its ability to thrive in brackish water, waters of varying ph and water with low oxygen levels. Its ability to breath air when the oxygen level in the water decreases makes it a highly adaptable fish of oxygen poor waters. The tarpon is able to absorb atmospheric oxygen by gulping air that comes into contact with a specialized swim bladder in the back of its throat. Oxygen is absorbed by the bladder’s spongy alveolar tissue. It can be seen rolling at the surface to swallow air.

Although a saltwater game fish due to its fight and large size, it is not a desirable fish to eat and is released after caught. The commercial sale of tarpon is prohibited in Florida. Despite this protection, there are some tarpon losses when they are caught and released.

The fisherman packs the fish filets in the cooler and leaves. The cormorants fly out into the bay and the tarpon lazily swims away from the shore. This gave me a glimpse of how Kings Bay is full of life and how it supports people, birds and all the life that calls this place home.

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I Miss Chipmunks!

Posted by Gary on July 7, 2015 in Wildlife

Here in central Florida the woodlands are absent of the twittering sounds that fooled me into thinking birds were chirping from the forest floor in New York. I miss seeing the reddish-brown squirrel with white and black stripes stuffing its cheek pouches with the with red maple winged seeds that whirled to the woodland floor.

The eastern chipmunk is common in the east from southern Canada to southeastern U.S. and small populations exist in the northwestern Florida where it is a species of special concern. In the deciduous forests in New York, chipmunks are ubiquitous. These beautiful creatures emerge from underground boroughs in the spring and are active until early fall. In the winter, chipmunks remain in underground tunnels with the cache of an assortment of seeds gathered in the fall.

During a recent trip to Maryland, I was pleased to see chipmunks climb up the stairs of my daughter’s balcony to eat mulberries that fell to the wooden deck. I shared breakfast time each morning with one in particular that came at the same time each day to eat its breakfast. Now I am back in Florida wishing chipmunks were indigenous to the forests here.

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