Simple Gifts

There's something so wonderful about an afternoon to yourself at the end of a very busy week. And it's even nicer when that afternoon is warm and sunny (while the weather reports are full of the winter storm up north!), and you have a few new plants needing homes, like the kalanchoe and sedum you found that are just perfect for the rock planters, and the marigolds you rescued from the clearance rack for half price.

Nothing fancy, nothing crazy... just some simple garden tasks in the backyard that you've finally taken back from the weeds of last summer. Remember this nightmare from last fall?

You can't help but pleased to know you're finally in charge again, and your favorite bench is available for basking in the winter sun once more.

Once you're done getting your hands in the dirt, you can wander around and see what's new in the garden. Winter is a wonderful time for native Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), and in a few weeks the hummingbirds will pass through on migration and stop to enjoy it. This afternoon, the pleasure was all mine.

I've not been alone all afternoon, of course. The tufted titmice and cardinals are visiting the feeder, and a Great Egret is stalking its dinner in the pond nearby. Even more interesting, a pair of Blue-Winged Teal are floating past, the first time we've documented this species in My Florida Backyard.

And now, as the song goes, "the purple dusk of twilight time steals across the meadows of my heart..." as well as across My Florida Backyard. 

It's not as calm and peaceful as the pictures might suggest - our neighbors are racing a dirt bike around the block, children are playing a noisy game across the lake, and it's our time of night to be in the flight path for Tampa International Airport. But the frogs are singing too, and a mockingbird in a nearby tree is trying out every tune in his repertoire. A limpkin calls in the distance, and the flapping of wings on the ponds suggests not all the ducks have settled down for the night. Nature fights for dominance in the suburbs, and rarely wins. But we do our best to focus on the simple gifts of My Florida Backyard, and let the rest slide by - at least today.

Do You See What I See?

How many birds do you see in this picture? We see 9, with 4 different species represented...

... 3 limpkins, 2 mallards, 2 muscovy ducs, and 2 ibises. Did we miss any?

Our Only Native Stork

We get many wading bird visitors in My Florida Backyard. A couple of our favorites are Limpkins (which we've written about before) and Wood Storks, both of which are on the endangered list in the United States. It's exciting to know that our lake provides habitat for these birds, which we see regularly enough that if we didn't know they were endangered we would never have guessed.

Wood Storks (Mycteria americana) are the only storks that live and breed in the US. They're found in Florida and along the Gulf Coast, and a few isolated populations are known in North and South Carolina. During the drier months, they're often found in pretty heavy concentrations around freshwater lakes and watering holes, so as the rainy season comes to an end, we'll see larger numbers of them in and around My Florida Backyard.

Wood Storks are easily identifiable by their bald black heads. Presumably this lack of feathers makes feeding easier as there are no feathers to dry and preen after dunking their heads in the water. These birds wade in the shallows and use their brightly colored feet as lures. They trail their open beaks through the water until it makes contact with something (hopefully food), at which point it snaps shut with a reflex response time of 25 milliseconds - an incredibly fast response time among vertebrates.

Wood Storks are also easy to identify in flight. As you can see in the picture above, taken a few years ago, the bottom half of their wings are black. Combined with their dark heads, this makes them easy to tell apart from other large white birds in flight.

We're always very conscious of the amazing array of wildlife in My Florida Backyard. Knowing a species in endangered makes a sighting that much more exciting, but we value every thing that walks or flies through our gardens each day, including these magnificent Wood Storks.

Bend Down the Branches

When we opened the blinds on the back windows this morning, we squinted into the morning sun and were greeted with this sight:

Taking pictures through a screen into the sun isn't really optimal, but you can still get the idea. This female anhinga was perched in our very young cypress tree, bending it halfway to the ground as she dried her wings.

Anhingas (Anhinga anhinga) are waterbirds common in Central Florida. They resemble cormorants, but in warmer months, cormorants are nearly always found on salt water rather than freshwater. Anhingas are more common on freshwater all year.

Anhingas swim with almost their entire body submerged, ducking entirely below the surface to swim for prey. When they surface and wish to fly, they must emerge onto dry land and dry their wings. Unlike ducks, they do not have oils on their wings to make the feathers waterproof. This makes it easier to dive but harder to fly in a hurry. So they are often found perched along the edge of waterways, wings spread to the sun.

With a patch of tall strong pine trees only ten yards to the right, this cypress seems like an odd choice for this anhinga. The landing must have been amusing, as the tree bent closer and closer to the earth, and the bird struggled for balance. Still, she managed it, and although this great blue heron that wandered over almost seems to be saying, "What are you doing up there?", we're glad to have anhingas anywhere they want to be in My Florida Backyard.

Pink Houses

This weekend, a splotch of pink suddenly appeared on the trunk of our little cypress tree.

Upon closer inspection, we discovered a clutch of apple snail eggs.

Apple snails (family Ampullariidae) are freshwater snails that are able to survive both on water and on land. By laying their eggs above the water line, apple snails protect the eggs from predation by fish and other water dwellers.

Apple snails are the primary food source for limpkins, a common wading bird in My Florida Backyard. Limpkins have specially adapted beaks that curve slightly to one side, allowing them to easily extract the apple snail from its shell. Limpkins will only live in areas with large apple snail populations, so they are found only in scattered locations throughout Florida in the United States. We feel very lucky to have this bird as a regular visitor here in our yard, and we owe that to the apple snails and their pretty little pink eggs.

Turtle Power

Recent rains have raised the level of our lake dramatically - in fact, after the eight inches of rain we got in just three days a few weeks ago, the water was well up over the banks and we were considering building an ark. The animals of My Florida Backyard didn't really seem to mind, though, especially the ducks and the turtles. In fact, the turtles have been taking advantage of the high water level to climb out on the banks for some sun.

The turtle on the left is a Florida Softshell Turtle (Apalone ferox), whose carapace (or shell) is almost leathery in texture - very tough but flexible. Softshell turtles are pretty large, topping out around 30 inches, and have very long necks. They are amazingly fast on both water and land. They're shy around humans, so if one is up on the bank when you approach, you're likely to see it shoot back into the water at an almost alarming speed. Florida softshell turtles are carnivorous, with a diet made up of fish, frogs, and even ducklings. Over the last few springs, we've had a female soft shell turtle emerge onto land in our backyard to lay eggs - click here for details and video.

The other turtle is a Red-Bellied Cooter (Pseudemys nelsoni), another very common Florida freshwater turtle. This turtle is an herbivore, helping to keep lakes clean of algae and other plant matter. This turtle spends much of its time on land or on logs, basking in the sun. We frequently see them swimming along in the lake with just their heads poking out - so fun to watch.

Living on a lake gives us such a wide diversity of like to appreciate in My Florida Backyard, and turtles like these are great examples of those treasures.

Duck and Dive

Winter months bring a variety of seasonal residents to My Florida Backyard, including several varieties of diving ducks. In the fall, we had large numbers of Ring-Necked Ducks, but more recently, large flocks of Lesser Scaup have congregated in the lake out back.

The Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis) is one of the most numerous diving ducks in North America. It is closely related to and difficult to tell apart from the Greater Scaup (A. marila), but the Greater Scaup is much less likely to be seen in this area, and is generally found on salt water. So our visitors are certainly Lesser Scaup (the plural of scaup is scaup, by the way).

Males (shown above, left) have more striking plumage, as is often is in the bird world, but both male and females have the bright blue bills that give this species the common name Bluebill. When the ducks first arrived in early winter, males had much duller plumage, and females had smaller sections of white near their bills. As mating season draws closer, the male's black and white feathers have become clearer and more defined, while the female's white bill patches have grown.

Lesser Scaup are noted for their interesting head shape, which almost seems to be squared off at times. At other times, though, their heads are more rounded. What explains this change in shape? It turns out that when a duck is relaxed, just paddling around and enjoying the sun, its head naturally takes on the squarer shape. When they tense up and prepare to dive, the head becomes more rounded, possibly making them more streamlined for the trip to the bottom of the pond. In the series of pictures below, compare the duck in the middle with the duck on the right to see this in action.

Lesser Scaup do not breed in Florida - they'll head north for the summer to breed there. Since we can see they are taking on the brighter plumage in preparation for mating, we can also expect them to begin their northern journey pretty soon. As spring approaches, they'll be off up the Mississippi Flyway to Northwest Canada, gone for another year. We'll look forward to seeing them again the in fall, when they bring their new offspring to enjoy the warmth of winter in My Florida Backyard.

I Love a Parade

Lately My Florida Backyard has had a daily parade almost as reliable as the one at Disney World - although there's nothing animatronic about this one. Ours consists of about 25 ibis wandering through on a search for lunch:

The American White Ibis (Eudocimus albus), as these fellows are more formally known, is one of Florida's most easily-identifiable wading birds, due to the prominent curved orange beak. They are gregarious, and nearly always seen in large flocks. In fact, a single ibis wandering on its own is actually pretty unusual, and always causes us to speculate on what may have gotten him excommunicated from the tribe. 

Ibis eat insects along with small fish and frogs, so you don't need to be near a water source to see them. They are just as frequently noted wandering through grassy areas where insects and lizards no doubt make fairly easy prey. They are also commonly seen along beaches, darting in and out of the waves. White Ibis juveniles are darker in coloration - presumably this gives them better camouflage - becoming mottled and eventually all white as they age. The ibis shown on the right below is nearly full-grown, with only the head and neck retaining the darker colors.

Florida is also home to Glossy Ibis (Plegadis falcinellus), which is not nearly as commonly seen in the Tampa area. We've only spotted it at Lettuce Lake Park, in the distance through binoculars. The Glossy Ibis is very dark in coloration, and can be confused with a juvenile White Ibis, but there's an easy way to tell them apart. As you can see in the picture below, even when a juvenile White Ibis is still very dark in color, its underside and rump are white. The Glossy Ibis does not have this white underside at any life stage. The Glossy Ibis, incidentally, is thought to be native to Africa and Southern Europe, accidentally introduced here in the 19th century. The White Ibis is native to Florida and other parts of the US.

Our daily noon parade may not be accompanied by 76 trombones, but it's a joy to watch all the same. Ibis are a common Florida bird, but one we have a soft spot for here in My Florida Backyard, so it's a pleasure to have their company on a regular basis - no admission ticket required.

The Babies on our Block

The first official duck babies of spring have arrived - and boy, are there a lot of them!

By our count, this proud mama duck has TWENTY babies! They're at least a few days old, judging by their size, so she's been doing a very good job protecting them from the predators that ravaged last year's baby ducks.

We'll keep you posted on their progress!

Little Fish in a Big Pond

Spring is most certainly here, and the animals in and around My Florida Backyard are making the most of it. While birds are building nests in the trees overhead, fish are doing the same in the pond nearby, and we managed to grab a pretty decent picture of one the other day:

One of the interesting things about fish who build nests to spawn is that it is often the male who does the hard work. He first builds the nest by choosing a good site and then swimming in circles, fanning out the sandy bottom with his tail and fins. When the nest is ready, a female deposits her eggs, which the male then fertilizes. After that, the female takes off, leaving the male to guard the nest until the hatchlings emerge. It's surprising how many instances of male-heavy parenting take place in the natural world!

P.S. We're not entirely sure what kind of fish is pictured above - if you know, please do drop us a line in the comments.