I love the change of seasons in Florida. There’s a freshness in the breeze, accompanying a slightly lower level of temperature and humidity. It's lovely when you can go outside in the evening without hearing the whir of the mosquito fog truck. It’s healthy to leave the TV, the couch and the air-conditioning and venture outside to lay in the hammock to be entertained by mockingbird melodies from the wire above. The Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) is a fixture in my yard. I recognize one in particular by unusual growths above it’s beak and beside its right claw. My friendly greeting of “what's the matter birdie... how are you today? Are you finding the food you need? Are you happy? You're a pretty bird.” accompanies my arrival. The mockingbird sits calmly on its perch observing, allowing me to get close with my camera. (The bird must be thinking “get a life.”) Northern Mockingbirds are common in backyards, but they don’t often visit feeders. I see them hopping around on the ground stopping every few feet to partly spread its wings. They can be found high on a strangler fig branch, or among the branches of my mango or papaya trees, probing for ripening fruit. Though by necessity I must be more vigilant and pick the fruit before it becomes riddled with their peck marks, the mockingbird is helpful in my yard because it usually feeds on insects such as grasshoppers, crickets, chinch bugs and caterpillars, as well as weed seeds. Native plants like Simpson’s stopper, American beautyberry, wild coffee, and including fruit-bearing passion flower, wax myrtle and seagrape are excellent food sources for birds. Florida's state tree, the Sabal palm is a favorite source of fruit for mockingbirds, as are the fruits of the Washingtonian palm. From prior encounters, the mockingbird knows I am a regular in the yard, and I pose no threat to it or it’s nest. University of Florida researchers have found that mockingbirds can recognize individuals after only two 30-second encounters. On the large university campus researchers observed mockingbirds rapidly learning to assess the level of threat posed by different humans, and further enabling the bird to pick out the same individual even in a crowd. Pretty amazing! Mockingbirds have been known to dive-bomb humans who may have ventured too close to a nest, particularly during the spring. Joggers and dog-walkers beware of hit-and-run attacks to the back of the head as mockingbirds warn you to get away from their nest. Both male and female mockingbirds sing. They begin singing at dawn and continue throughout the day and into evening. The males can be quite loud while singing to attract a mate, and possess impressive acrobatic skills, often leaping a few feet in the air and flapping his wings while singing. Thomas Jefferson’s favorite bird was the mockingbird because of its intelligence and ability to mimic. Jefferson kept a pet mockingbird named Dick in the White House, and boasted in his Notes on the State of Virginia that Great Britain’s birdlife had nothing to compare with this bird’s vocal abilities. From the mimic thrush family, their Latin name translates to "many-tongued thrush.” They mimic the songs of other birds, as well as different animals like frogs and squirrels, and devices such as car alarms and horns, while they repeat phrases three times per sequence. The mockingbird is widely distributed throughout Florida year-round, and is one of the best-known birds, found in urban areas, suburban areas, and parklands. For the casual observer the mockingbird is just another unremarkable bird with feathers in varying shades of white, to grey. It has a long tail and slender bill, and when in flight a broad white patch is visible on its darker grey wings. There is little coloration difference between males, females, juveniles or while mating. The Florida Federation of Women's Clubs requested Florida schoolchildren to select a state bird; they chose the mockingbird and on April 23, 1927 the Florida legislature designated the mockingbird as the state bird, giving it protected status. According to Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 3, the "melody of its music has delighted the hearts of residents and visitors to Florida from the days of the rugged pioneers to the present comers.”
Some argue that Florida should not share a state bird with other states. The mockingbird is also the state bird of Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas. Suggestions for a new state bird are all over the map, but four main contenders have emerged: the Florida scrub jay, flamingo, osprey and roseate spoonbill. May I “mockingly” suggest Florida’s state bird should be the construction crane?
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I admit it. It was an innocent mistake, your Honor. I plead guilty of feeding the wildlife. It’s just my spoiled indoor cats refused to eat the little crunchies of kibble left in the bottom of the bowl. It was no more than a tablespoon worth, but I tossed it onto the ground. I’m sorry. I realized my error when upon return to the scene of my transgression, a giant raccoon was scratching the ground where I had thrown the kibble. This Northern Raccoon (Procyon lotor) looked pretty healthy. Its fur was bushy and there were no obvious scratches. I stood in the shadows of the garage and watched from a safe distance as I didn't want the critter to take offense and come after me. It turned its head toward me. With brown eyes with black fur surrounding its eyes, the raccoon looked like a burglar caught in the act of stealing, in broad daylight no less. Urban wildlife is not rare, it’s only difficult to see. Animals stay hidden during the day in nearby natural habitat or in quiet crevices around the home, then come out at night to forage. That’s why we call them night critters. Proof of their work can be seen in the morning as shown by overturned garbage cans and contents strewn across the driveway. My yard is a pretty happy, nutritious place for critters to live. There are lots of native plants and fruit trees, a pond with frogs, crawly insects, small lizards, snakes and nesting birds that all reside there. It is best to let wildlife forage naturally, but the crafty raccoon has adapted to begging for food in urban areas. Perhaps this raccoon’s well-nourished state is courtesy of the resort’s kitchen dumpster. My suspicion was confirmed as a result of research conducted at Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge, to see how human activities relating to unsecured trash and feral cat feeding stations, influence the movements of raccoons and possums. They trapped local possums and raccoons, fit them with radio collars and released them in the area where they were captured. Researchers found out a number of these animals with collars would go up to Ocean Reef and eat each night. Researchers had a serendipitous discovery when in September 2022, a GPS collar attached to a possum gave off a mortality signal, which is emitted when an animal goes several hours without moving when it should be active. The signal began moving, and it continued to stop and then move again over the period of a few days. The researchers discovered that a Burmese python was responsible, as it ate the possum and the radio collar was now inside the snake. They changed the focus of the collared raccoon and possum research toward tracking python. Since 1995 when the Burmese python arrived in the Everglades, there has been a decline of 85% to 100% of the population of medium sized furry animals such as raccoons and rabbits due to the python. When the python swam 25 miles south to their new hunting grounds in North Key Largo, small furry creatures such as the Key Largo woodrat began disappearing. Camera traps placed inside woodrat nests provided evidence when a python preying on a woodrat was caught on video. Raccoons have few natural enemies other than man, and automobiles kill more raccoon than anything. Luckily for the raccoon urban food resources do allow these mesopredators - medium sized carnivorous animals such as raccoon and possum - to occur at much higher densities than the natural environment supports, which could indirectly help them sustain some of the python pressure compared to that in the Everglades. Animal survival success depends on how well they adapt to life with humans. The greatest concern with raccoons is the diseases and parasites they carry. Canine distemper and rabies will kill raccoons, and raccoon diseases can affect unvaccinated pets. The risk of rabies is small. The Monroe County Health Department, whose records go back to 2012, reports there have been no cases of rabies in Monroe County. According to the April/May 1988 editions of The Ocean Reef News:
“The fourth case of rabies in two months occurred in Key Largo March 4th, 1988. Two confirmed cases determine whether an epidemic rating is issued. Rabies, or neurotropic rhabdo virus, has been documented in raccoons at mile markers 101, 99 and two cases at mile marker 94, Key Largo. In each case raccoons approached humans during daytime hours acting erratically. Soon after, the animals were found dead and diagnosed in post-mortem as having rabies.” “Monroe County health professionals warn county residents to avoid all wild or unvaccinated animals and this, unfortunately includes squirrels. While many residents possess great affection toward squirrels and their antics, the very treat you present to a squirrel may act as an invitation to less desirable animals. There’s so many critters here in the Florida Keys, I’ve been able to write about a different variety each month. So far I’ve covered those who are feathered, furry, or scaly, from a spectrum of soft bodied insects to mammals, amphibians to birds, with some that slither, run, scurry or crawl and others that sail freely on the wind. It’s been educational and enjoyable, photographing and researching each subject. Up till now… my current subject spiders creeps me out. I am not really afraid of them, but I don’t like looking at them either. There’s probably some good reason why at Halloween a lot of decorations depict spiders. Arachnophobia!! When I was five years old, sleepovers at my friend Jennifer’s house were fun, and spiders were part of the excitement. The rarely used room where we slept had pecky cypress wood covering the walls and ceiling. and brown spiders the size of silver dollars hung from webs in the dark, dusty corners. (I guess the spiders were what the monsters ate when they came out from underneath the beds.) Researchers believe we are not born with the fear of spiders, but instead are taught this behavior. Children are curious about spiders, and will capture them and watch how their tiny bodies move via their eight long legs until a parent/teacher intervenes, with the message of “be careful, they bite.“ All spiders bite, however only two of them in Florida will provoke a strong reaction in humans: the Southern Black Widow spider (Latrodectus mactans) and the Brown Recluse spider (Heteropoda venatoria). According to the Florida Poison Information Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami (1-800-222-1222) if bitten by a Black Widow you will likely experience severe stomach pain, and you should go to the emergency room immediately. The Black Widow received its name from the belief the female spider would kill and consume the male after mating. The Brown Recluse spider is typically found in Central and Southern Missouri… not here. The only documented case in Florida of a Brown Recluse spider bite involved a sailor who was bitten on the hand by a male Brown Recluse in the cargo hold of a naval ship in Jacksonville. The Brown Recluse spider bite causes pain, blistering and frequently necrotic lesions in humans. They are often blamed for mystery bites, wounds and bacterial infections that require treatment with antibiotics— a misdiagnosis by the public and doctors who are not trained in spider identification, nor have seen the spider inflict the bite. There are more than 250 species of spiders in Florida. Around the house, spiders are beneficial insects who consume flying insects, cockroaches and other small domestic pests. In the wild spiders spend their days hiding in leaf litter, and under debris, and emerge at night to hunt. They also spin elaborate webs in clearings to catch flying insects who cannot see the webs until they are ensnarled. Once in their web, the spider bites it’s victim and a small amount of venom is used to immobilize the insect, then dissolve it into a “smoothie” for the spider to ingest as they cannot eat solid food. A spider may bite a human if held or pinched; the bite may hurt for a while but quickly goes away and is much less severe than a bee sting. I have a general rule when walking in the woods: always go with someone else, and let them lead the way. This is because my attention is usually behind the camera lens and I have a bad habit of walking into spider webs. The two methods people use to avoid walking into spider webs are (1) Carry a long stick to brush away webs in the path, (2) Avoid disturbing the web by walking around it. The second method respects the spider’s efforts making a web which is light, elastic and stronger than steel, and is how the spider, who may have poor eyesight, senses vibrations from their prey, as the web acts as an extension of their sensory system. Most spiders have eight eyes and eight legs. and come in a multitude of colors and can be patterned. Some have tiny hairs on their legs that can sense electric charges around plants or the movement of air emitted from a flying insect’s wings. Not all spiders spin webs, and those that don’t, rely on their better eyesight to capture prey.
Pest control is a choice, and my preferred method is preventing a bite by wearing gloves while working where spiders may be found, and shaking out shoes that haven’t been worn recently before putting them on. You can deter spiders by turning off outside lights at night, so not to attract flying insects, a spider’s preferred food. Realize that proper identification of the spider is the first step, and if the spider is beneficial, let it be. |
CAROL ELLIS
This photographic website provides me the opportunity for self-expression, for sharing Archives
September 2024
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