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.

Let's Go Fly a Kite

Well, that was certainly a very rainy week, wasn't it? Every time we had a few minutes to go outside and see what was happening in My Florida Backyard, it was either sprinkling, pouring, or something in between. There's no doubt we needed the rain (you could practically hear the plants sighing in happiness), but it definitely kept us inside most of the time. It was nice to get outside for a few minutes this weekend (yowza, it's hot now!) and see what's going on. While we were taking a stroll around the yard our attention was drawn up, up, high in the sky by some high-pitched calls.

Those tiny little dots are a group of Swallow-Tail Kites (Elanoides forficatus), more than we've ever seen at one time before. We usually see them in pairs, at most, so to see so many together was pretty exciting. We thought maybe it was a family group, but we can't seem to find any information indicating that a family group would be this large (we counted at least eight total) or that they would stay together like this.

The scientific name Elanoides is a Latin-Greek hybrid meaning "resembling a kite", while forficatus means "scissors" - referring to the forked tail. A Kite is a type of raptor with long wings and weak legs - they are almost always seen soaring in flight. They hunt and eat in flight as well; the Swallow-Tail Kite plucks its prey, including large insects and lizards, from the treetops as it flies. It drinks by skimming the surface of the water with its bill as it flies low over the surface.

Swallow-Tail Kites are seen during the summer in a limited range in the Southeast, including all of Florida. They reside in South America year-round, but when breeding season arrives, the spread out to the north to ensure everyone has enough food for their young. They nest in forested areas near water, and much of their range in the U.S. has been decimated by development (they were once found as far north as Oklahoma). If you spot Swallow-Tailed Kites, you can help track them by reporting your sighting to The Center For Birds of Prey - click here to learn more.

We can't take credit for creating the habitat that brings Swallow-Tail Kites to our neighborhood; we owe that to the last patch of undeveloped woodland nearby (at least the crummy economy has kept that from being bought and torn down!) and all the stormwater drainage ponds in the area. But we can definitely enjoy having them here, and knowing that our bit of Florida still has amazing wildlife just about everywhere you look.

From Orange to Pink

The amazing Florida photographer and artist Clyde Butcher has said that in Florida, clouds are our mountains. The towering banks of afternoon thunderheads add the texture to the sky that our flat landscape lacks. In fact, our flat landscape provides the wide-open sky needed for spectacular displays, whether it's the powerful spectacle of lightning in the distance, or the vivid but silent splash of color across the evening sky at sunset.

Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows

In yonder West; the fair, frail palaces,

The fading alps and archipelagoes,

And great cloud-continents of sunset-seas.

~Thomas Bailey Aldrich, "Miracles"

Let's Start the New Year Right

Last night's balmy weather was driven out by thunderstorms and a cold north wind early this morning - not exactly the way I would have welcomed the new year, but we did get another one of those watercolor sunsets out of it.
Regardless of the weather, a new year has begun, and optimistic people everywhere are making resolutions. We're making a few as well, ones that we hope will help us keep My Florida Backyard a Florida-friendly wildlife habitat throughout 2010.

1. Pull at least one weed every day.
2. Fill the bird feeder at least once a week.
3. Keep the palm tree free of dead fronds and fruit (which draws wasps).
   

We also have a few goals for the year, ones that can't really be called resolutions because it won't be entirely our fault if the wildlife refuses to comply.

1. Draw sulphur butterflies and caterpillars to our yard by establishing cassia plants, native when possible
2. Lure in some hummingbirds, both with plants and a feeder
3. Provide habitat for tree frogs by installing a few treefrog houses

Mark Twain said, "New Year's Day… now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual." Still, we'll do our best, because our resolutions are for the good of everyone who lives in or visits My Florida Backyard.

"The old year has gone...
All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!"
Edward Payson Powell

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

In My Florida Backyard, New Year's Eve is all about the fireworks. We don't set off any ourselves, but we don't need to. Folks all around the lake start setting them off in the afternoon, and by evening there are brilliant bursts of light in every direction every few minutes.

And of course, at midnight, the show is pretty spectacular. Fireworks are terribly hard to take amateur pictures of, but once in a blue moon you can get a few decent shots!

Happy New Year 2010
from My Florida Backyard
(and its residents)!

Winter Wonderland

Today is the Winter Solstice, and we ushered in the first official day of winter with below-average temperatures. In My Florida Backyard, it topped out around 62 this afternoon, but the sun was wonderfully warm and made the day pretty comfortable. The shortest day of the year ended with a wonderful watercolor sunset, followed by the first moon of winter, a frosted crescent in a silver sky.

Florida's Winter Wonderland may not have snowmen dressed as circus clowns or snow glistening in the lane, but our winter nights still bring beautiful sights... and sometimes it's even cool enough to give your nose a bit of a chillin'!

Deck the Halls

Well, we finally found the extension cords, so here are some pictures of the front of the house all decorated for the holidays. Sorry for the picture quality - you need a much better camera than ours to take good night pics.

(Note the incredibly straight placement of the lights along the gutter.
I have an unnatural abhorrence of "droopy lights".)

A close-up (those red blobby things are actually very cute cardinals):

A note about our lights: My Florida Backyard believes strongly in conservation and the responsible use of resources. In keeping with those ideals, we know we probably shouldn't be "wasting" electricity by putting up several hundred Christmas lights.

We looked into replacing our current lights with energy-saving LEDs, but quite frankly, the cost was prohibitive. I'm really not quite sure why LEDs are so expensive - a string of 100 regular mini-lights costs less than $2, while a string of 100 LEDs costs between $15 and $20. What's the deal?

We often choose the better environmental option in My Florida Backyard, regardless of cost, but we haven't been able to make that commitment yet with our holiday decorations. It's certainly something we'll consider as finances make it possible in the future, and we urge others to research their options and make educated and responsible choices.

P.S. I'm not sure why we bother with lights when Mother Nature puts on such an amazing show in the sky!

High Hopes

Even an afternoon shuttle launch is a pretty cool sight from My Florida Backyard. On Monday afternoon, Space Shuttle Atlantis took off on mission STS-129, headed for the International Space Station (ISS) with a load of spare parts.

As I stood in the warm grass watching the shuttle lift off, two Monarchs fluttered among the milkweed nearby. They, of course, had no idea that high above, some of their relatives were going where none had gone before. You see, Atlantis had some pretty unusual passengers on board as well - Monarch and Painted Lady caterpillars! The ISS crew will be overseeing an experiment to see how zero-gravity affects these caterpillars as they attempt to pupate and then emerge as butterflies.

There's a lot of great information on the web about this experiment - click here for an overview and links to photos, videos, and updates.

Here's hoping that our caterpillar buddies thrive 220 miles above the earth - we'll be thinking of them with our feet firmly on the ground in My Florida Backyard!

Skyrockets in Flight...

Last night, the Kepler spacecraft took off on a Delta 2 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Cape Canaveral is almost due east across the peninsula from our house, and about 135 miles away. We went outside around 10:50 to see the launch.

(Note: The pictures below are time-exposure; in "real life", the launch looks more like a very very bright orange star heading very quickly up into the sky.)

There's a night shuttle launch next week on March 11; if the skies are clear, we plan to head outside to see that one too. Just one more interesting thing to see in My Florida Backyard!