Life Recovers After the Storm

As I write this 40 days after hurricane Milton devastated my home on Manasota Key, FL, the long difficult job of recovery among the human population is well underway but will continue for years. The animals and plants living here have also had a major shock from which some will never recover. The surprising thing is how many species have bounced back and are gradually returning to a new normal. I watch my resident box turtle walking around my yard and wonder how its food supply has been affected. The same is true of the birds as they forage among trees and bushes that may be dead or recently sending out new leaves and fruit at an inappropriate time of year. This will be a report on what I have observed recently on my land and in a nearby area on the mainland, Ann Dever Park. This park is especially interesting because it is designated primarily as a recreational area for humans ,not a natural preserve. Yet despite some rather destructive management practices the ponds in particular harbor some very interesting species.

When you may feel a bit sad, observation of a beautiful sunrise can be very therapeutic. This is the view out my bedroom window of our docks on Lemon Bay. The left hand dock was lifted up by the storm surge and may never be repaired. The right hand dock has been rebuilt so that it can be used and a new bench gives me a wonderful observation point of the eastern sky and the bay.

Pine trees showed a remarkable resilience to salt water during the storm and this magnificent old long leaf pine stands tall in Ann Dever Park. There were likely never many of these in S Florida compared to slash pines and few remain today. This mature tree has a rounded crown indicating that it is not growing much anymore. In this habitat with very nutrient poor sandy soil it is likely more than 100 years old and deserves our respect and protection.

In a nearby fresh water pond this water lily bloom is striking. It is representative of a very primitive flower type in comparison with asters or composites which are much more recently evolved. As a result the water lily is pollinated by beetles which are far more ancient and more speciose than bees or butterflies.

Butterflies have been somewhat slow to recover from effects of the hurricane. This monarch female was the first butterfly to appear in our yard and she did find a few recently opened jatropha flowers to feed on. She also made the rounds of my giant milkweeds and deposited some eggs. Dragonflies and damselflies in contrast have been rather numerous. These two (a Rambur’s forktail damselfly and an amberwing dragonfly) are particularly interesting since both are “andromorphs.” These are females that resemble males. One theory for this is that it allows such females to avoid the intense amorous attentions of territorial males along the pond edges.

We are surrounded by water but along the coast of course most of it is salty. Thus my dripping water baths are always quite popular with birds. Here you can see a communal bath with three ground doves enjoying a dip together. I noticed an anhinga perched down at my dock on Lemon Bay which is of course quite salty. This is unusual since anhingas are intolerant of salty habitats generally, presumably because they lack nasal salt glands which assist the kidneys in excreting sodium chloride. In contrast cormorants can be found both in fresh and salty habitats. A similar difference is found between salt tolerant yellow crowned and intolerant black crowned night herons.

When I am sitting down on my new dock bench scanning the sky I have noticed two interesting birds soaring overhead. White pelicans are now moving south in their annual migration from western N America. Frigate birds are periodically seen overhead as southerly winds bring them up from the Caribbean.

Along the shores of wetlands there are always some interesting scenes of herons and egrets feeding. The beautiful snowy egret with its “golden slippers” or yellow feet is quite striking. The bright feet are used to shuffle in shallow water and scare up prey. Wood storks do a very similar thing but with bright pink feet. Moorhens or gallinules feed in a very different way- they are primarily herbivorous and feed on floating plants and in this case on grass along the bank. It is interesting that moorhens have become less common during my lifetime and the reason seems to be the fish shown here, the African tilapia which has infested virtually all fresh water ponds. Apparently they are outcompeting the moorhens for their aquatic food with the result that moorhens feed on land to some degree. Great egrets have also discovered the benefits of foraging on land and will eat lizards avidly as they stalk around our yards.

We have several warblers that are winter residents such as the yellow rump which breeds far to the north. The yellow throated warbler does not breed in our area but can be found breeding in the southeastern US.

It is always a treat to see eagles and I was particularly interested to observe a young bald eagle which does not yet have a white head and tail. Indeed it is clearly older than a juvenile and likely between its second and third year. Note the “saw tooth” configuration of the secondary wing feathers. The few remaining longer juvenile feathers are being replaced by shorter ones. Our next door eagles are still thinking about nesting in a tall Norfolk Island pine but have not begun nest building yet. I am still hopeful I may have some eagle neighbors.

So while I will sorely miss some of my favorite plants that may be dead after exposure to deep sea water (such as a very old strangler fig), I rejoice that life goes on with renewed vigor and beauty after the destructive but natural force of hurricane Milton. This is the first storm to hit us with such a high storm surge during the 30 years of my residence here on a Florida barrier island.