Winter Continues But Nature Remains Beautiful

A characteristic of winter weather in SW Florida is an alternation of warm periods interspersed with cold fronts. These fronts typically arrive as bands of clouds from the NW with light rain. In April and May this type of weather can be accompanied by amazing “fall outs” of neotropical avian migrants that are displaced to the east of their desired flight paths. As I write this on March 1, we are several months from that situation but are beginning to have daytime temperatures in the low 80’s. Our modern cell phones with weather apps allow us to track these fronts on radar and yesterday I was leading a nature walk in which we evaluated the chances of being hit by thunderstorms huddled over our phones. In the old days we looked to the sky for dark clouds and watched how they moved as shown in the first photo. This “old school” weather prediction technique actually works quite well when you have a wide view of the sky.

I was walking along the eastern side of Lemon Bay recently and noticed quite a lot of drift algae washed up on the shore. This tends to be red algae whose growth is stimulated by nutrients flushed from Lake Okeechobee down the Caloosahatchee “river/sewer.” Is the solution to pollution really dilution? Ideally one would work on reducing the emission of such pollutants at the source but unfortunately this takes education, time and money and we don’t typically see quick responses.  The eastern side of Lemon Bay also receives the impact of the gradual but persistent increases in sea level and the erosion from around the roots of a slash pine growing on the bank illustrates that fact.

The next picture of three mailboxes may puzzle you. This was taken from my front yard looking to the west and you can see the bluish Gulf beyond. I was suddenly struck by the fact that the level of the Gulf seems quite high. This may be due to a “superior mirage” caused by the cooler air near the water ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage ). This illustrates once again how we are constantly challenged to be aware of unusual things we may see around us.

Some flowers are blooming despite the grip of winter. The Christmas berry is an interesting nightshade which is very tolerant of saline conditions. In contrast the elderberry requires damp soil of a very low salinity. Despite the fact that elderberry is a very poisonous plant, the flowers are edible as are the fruits when properly prepared. The fact that a specialized toxic beetle feeds on elderberry should alert you to the dangers of this common plant ( https://bugoftheweek.com/blog/2019/8/2/admire-but-do-not-eat-elderberry-borer-desmocerus-palliatus ). I found several horsemints in bloom attracting a few insect pollinators. Although it is in the same genus as beebalm this flower is less outstanding than those relatives, I also found a few yellow buttons flowers left over from the fall. One of the most anticipated flowers of late winter is the beautiful sky blue lupine, a bean that flourishes in extremely poor soils of scrub habitats. Some plants lose their leaves in winter and then quickly resprout- this Hercules Club is shown with a flush of new leaves which will attract giant swallowtails to lay eggs.

It is very hard to avoid the compulsion to feed wild animals and I have unfortunately succumbed to that desire. The large female gopher tortoise that lives under my shed has pretty slim pickings among the dried grasses near her burrow so I occasionally supplement her diet with cut apples. I learned not to hand feed her as she gave my finger a sharp bite in her rush to get the apple. As the rains return in May, she should be able to subsist on natural vegetation as she will have to after I head north in late April. The blooming of the non-native silk cotton trees (Bombyx) has offered a bounty of nectar and flowers for birds such as this fish crow.

The wintering white pelicans will soon be migrating back to western N America but they provide a welcome view of the beauty and majesty of these huge birds that feed in flocks on the water surface. Their relatives, the brown pelicans, are plunge divers that feed more independently. White ibis feed in flocks and have adapted to foraging on land as well as in wetlands. This flexibility in feeding behavior will provide them with a greater probability of survival as humans continue to dominate the planet. The killdeer is another species that has adjusted well to human presence and will even nest in parking lots.

Red bellied woodpeckers are a common inhabitant of my yard and are obviously not well named since it is their head that is a fiery red color. It is interesting that the male has a larger red patch on the head and that some other woodpeckers also utilize bright red patches in their coloration. A bird that is just the opposite in coloration is the common grackle which is darkly iridescent with a yellow eye; females and males are indistinguishable. Our larger local boat tailed grackles have a brownish female and the eye is dark, unlike the same species on the north eastern coast of FL. One of my favorite birds is the petite ground dove which is virtually always present as a pair of individuals- love birds?

Well winter is winding down and there is great excitement for the upcoming Spring season. Birds will be migrating, frogs will be calling and many forest flowers will be in massive bloom before the canopy trees leaf out. The anticipation is huge but there is still much in nature to enjoy before Spring arrives.