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- A mangrove skipper on a Mexican mallow plant in my yard
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- A mating pair of Dorantes longtailed skippers in Arcadia
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- A banded sphinx moth caterpillar on primrose willow shows disruptive coloration for camouflage
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- The caterpillar of the cloudless sulphur butterfly blends in well with its food plant senna/cassia
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- A female Florida softshell comes on land to look for an egg laying site
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- An adult bald eagle prepares its nest for breeding along the Myakka River
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- A mixed species group of sea birds finds a resting place on a public beach
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- The black skimmer has a bizarrely shaped bill for catching small fish at the surface of the water
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- This male snowy plover bred in the Gulf Islands in the summer of 2014 and I photographed it on Palm Island in December of 2014 and 2015
Mother Nature has given us some beautiful gifts this holiday season in conjunction with unusually warm weather. The insect world has been especially active. This spectacular mangrove skipper was attracted to a Mexican mallow in our yard. A pair of Dorantes skippers was found in love near Arcadia. The long “tails” of this relatively recent arrival in Florida may be of benefit in deflecting the attacks of birds to a non-vulnerable area. Many caterpillars are quite difficult to find due to their camouflage and these two are no exception. The remarkably colored banded sphinx is a classic example of disruptive coloration and was found on a primrose willow; surprisingly its “coat of many colors” makes it cryptic. The cloudless sulphur caterpillar has a very different type of design that mimics the color and pattern of its food plant of senna/cassia quite well.
When I found a large female softshell turtle in early December on land at Wildflower Preserve I knew that it was looking for a sandy site to lay its eggs. Aside from occasional times of basking, these highly aquatic turtles rarely leave the water. They are even able to obtain oxygen under water across their skin and the mucous membranes of the throat. They compensate for their lack of a protective bony shell by their rapid swimming speed and a snappy disposition.
Winter is the time for eagles to breed despite the warm weather and this impressive adult bald eagle was working on a nest along the Myakka River.
Most beach birds breed in the spring/summer, sometimes locally but often far to the north, and spend the winter feeding and resting along our beaches. Some of the best mixed flocks can be found at public parks such as Chadwick Beach on Manasota Key where they are mostly protected from people, dogs and other predators and feel safe. It is a win win situation where the birds benefit and people can enjoy them. An up close view of one of the many black skimmers is memorable and emphasizes the improbability of the bizarre bill structure. I think that if this bird were only known from fossils, we would find it difficult to believe that they could actually feed by skimming small fish from the water’s surface.
One of my most interesting beach finds was this snowy plover with holiday bling on its legs. It had yellow/yellow bands on its upper left leg and orange/black bands on its upper right leg. By contacting bandedbirds.org I was able to identify this as a male snowy plover banded on its nest area in the Gulf Islands National Seashore near Pensacola, FL, in the summer of 2014. I had photographed this very same plover on Dec. 25, 2014, in almost the same spot on Palm Island just south of Stump Pass. I found it again a year later on Dec. 10, 2015, a remarkable illustration of the site fidelity of birds which tend to move to the same places year after year to breed and during migration.
So let us all be eternally thankful for nature’s fantastic bounty of wild creatures and work to protect them and their habitats.