Thursday, December 27, 2018

Crops & Clips: Red-shouldered Hawk

The most common diurnal raptor seen on our local Wounded Wetlands is the Red-shouldered Hawk. 

Red-shouldered Hawk adult 01-20181203

When I see a Red-shouldered Hawk in its typical hunting pose it seems to be deep in thought, reminding me of "The Thinker."



Actually this posture provides the best view of its favored prey, which consists of small creatures often hidden in the grass and sedge, only visible from above.


It simply waits until a reptile or small mammal reveals itself. It also takes birds and insects. In our neighborhood I most often find it at the edge of an open wet prairie. This is the north wet prairie in the Wounded Wetlands, after a rain shower:

Rainbow over Wet Prairie 20181017

In riparian areas, frogs, snakes and salamanders are important food items. This adult exhibits its namesake red shoulders as it joins its mate, which is finishing off a frog's leg:

Red-shouldered Hawks 02-20150222

Red-shouldered Hawks 20150222

Adults in south Florida exhibit a range of depth of coloration. Most of our local birds are quite bright:

Red-shouldered Hawk 03-20160823

Red-shoulderedHawkFlying

At Corkscrew Swamp in southwestern Florida we saw some very pale specimens (note the leg band):

Red-shouldered Hawk 20110313

Red-shouldered Hawk 2-20110313

This past week, I was walking back to my auto after visiting the local Bald Eagle nest when the cries of a Blue Jay alerted me to the presence of an immature Red-shouldered Hawk on a power line a short distance ahead of me. The young bird has brown plumage for its first 18 months of life:

Red-shouldered Hawk immature 07-20181220

The hawk seemed to be undisturbed by my presence as I moved closer. Although I could not fit the entire subject in my prime lens, I obtained some very nice portraits :

Red-shouldered Hawk immature HDR 04-20181220

Red-shouldered Hawk immature HDR 01-20181220

The immature bird lacks the red in its shoulders but shows a distinctive wing pattern. Its outer primaries are light at the base with dark tips, creating a band near its wing tips:

Red-shouldered Hawk immature 03-20181203

On January 5th we will be leading our next South Florida Audubon "First Saturday" nature walk at Chapel Trail Nature Preserve in nearby Pembroke Pines.

Chapel Trail boardwalk HDR 20160905


Chapel Trail boardwalk 01-20180705


Red-shouldered Hawks nest in one of the tall trees in the adjacent pasture:

Cattle Egrets with Longhorn cow 2-20181201

This adult rested on the boardwalk railing before flying off:

Red-shouldered Hawk 20130520

Red-shouldered Hawk in flight 2-20130520

Red-shouldered Hawk in flight 20130520

The hawk's diet can include the exotic Brown Basilisk, here seen scurrying across the boardwalk:

Brown Basilisk 20130722


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Linking to Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) by NC Sue

Linking to ALL SEASONS by Jesh

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Please visit the links to all these memes to see some excellent photos on display

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Thursday, December 20, 2018

Crops & Clips: Snowy Christmas in Florida

Oh Deer, Christmas is here:

Deer Christmas Card

Deep snow on Miami Mountain in the middle of May, 2010? I looked up and, for a moment, thought I was in Oregon or Washington State!

Snow on Miami Mountain? 20100524

No, the image has not been photo-shopped. This mountain of coral rock was mined from the bottom of a deep flooded quarry about 1 1/2 miles to the south of our home in Miramar, Florida. I'd never before or since seen the stone piled this high. Demand must have been down and they were stockpiling it.

The rocks are rich in phosphate which formed millions of years ago on the floor of the ocean from the shells and skeletons of sea creatures.

Over 15 square miles of wetlands in nearby NW Miami-Dade County have been permitted for rock mining. In addition to the threat to the Everglades ecosystem, groundwater pollution of several nearby water wells is a concern of conservationists. 

The phosphate comes from sediment that was deposited in layers on the sea floor. The phosphate rich sediments are believed to have formed from precipitation of phosphate from seawater along with the skeletons and waste products of creatures living in the seas.

Phosphate rock and its by-product of phosphoric acid are valuable in fertilizer and industrial applications. It is also a source of gypsum for building materials (drywall), but the phosphogypsum produced in Florida is contaminated with radioactive uranium and thorium (and other isotopes including radium) and its use is prohibited domestically. It is thus stacked up indefinitely in dozens of locations. See: The Clock is Ticking on Florida's Mountains of Hazardous Phosphate Waste


We lack snowy mountaintops, but we have dancing Snowy Egrets:

Snowy Egret dance 02-20150817

Snowy Egret dance 07-20150817

Snowy Egret dance 10-20150817

Living decorations for our greenery--

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher on Brazilian Pepper:

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 20100108

Christmas Palm:

Christmas Palm 20181129

We lack spruce or fir trees, but what can be prettier than Egrets decorating a Cypress tree which conveniently turns red in December before shedding its needles?...

Egrets On Cypress 20100118

...or a Northern Cardinal... 

Northern Cardinal in Pond Cypress 5-20170401

...or Red-winged Blackbird on Cypress:

Red-winged Blackbird on cypress 20160722

Instead of glass and plastic ornaments and silk flowers we have mangoes from our back yard...

Maxing out on Mangos 20110605

...Wild Balsalm Pear...

Wild Balsam Apple Momordica balsamina  2008_05_26

...fleshy flowers of the Pond Apple...

Pond Apple Flower 2008_05_26

...and Wild Poinsettia:

Wild Poinsettia 01-20171216

Carolina Wren with wild Poinsettia:

Carolina Wren 02-20171203

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: Seven ducks a-flying...

 Ducks Flock 04-20151113

...Six storks a-nesting.. 

Wood Stork FOUR nestlings 02-20180411

...Five goldenrods...

 Goldenrod 20090923

...Four ducklings waiting...

Muscovy and ducklings HDR 20160222

...Three Swamphens...

Gray headed - Purple Swamphens 20170316

...Two Ground-Doves...

Common Ground-Doves 3-20170314

...And a Mockingbird in a berry tree:

 Northern Mockingbird on Brazilian Pepper 20181211

Christmas full Moon rising over our back yard, December 25, 2015...

Christmas Moon over lake HDR 20151225

...and, early the next morning, setting as  we walk into our local wetlands:

Cold Moon setting Miramar Pkwy HDR 20151226

Snow Moon is sinking...

Snow Moon setting at sunrise 20170211

...Bright lights are blinking, ...

Monaco Cove Christmas lights 20181211

...bringing us good cheer,
 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
   
I feel compelled to add a postscript to show feathered "ornaments" from our previous homes, including Cedar Waxwing on Cypress (Illinois)...

Cedar Waxwing 06-20170521


...and a Mountain Chickadee (New Mexico):


IMG_2628  Mt. Chickadee  Sandia Crest, Albuq. NM  2-12-10


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Linking to Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) by NC Sue

Linking to ALL SEASONS by Jesh
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Please visit the links to all these memes to see some excellent photos on display
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Thursday, December 13, 2018

Small discoveries

When I am out in the Wounded Wetlands of western Broward County, Florida, I do not have high expectations that some rare bird will suddenly brighten my day. 

Actually, working a "patch" might seem boring, yet I have recorded ("officially" per eBird) 171 bird species here since I started regularly posting trip reports in October, 2009. All but a handful were also photographed on-site. A number of species were seen rarely or sometimes only once.

An immature Reddish Egret appeared in the spring of 2011 and remained for only two weeks. This species prefers brackish estuaries and rarely wanders inland:

Reddish Egret dancing 20110406

Another "one-off" species was actually represented by two captive-reared juvenile Whooping Cranes from Wisconsin which overshot their normal wintering grounds in northern Florida:

Whooping Crane 12-15 at 0849AM  20130207

A flock of 15 American Goldfinches, a species which winters in south Florida irregularly, arrived once on December 9, 2015 and departed the same day:

American Goldfinch 4-20151209

To date I have submitted a total of 1,307  eBird checklists, of which 860 have been from my local patch, a hotspot officially known as the West Miramar Water Conservation Area (WCA).
My eBird West Miramar WCA Life List

New additions to the list have decreased over time. I had seen a total of 80 species by the end of 2010, added 27 more in 2011, 13 in 2012, 14 in 2013.  8 in 2014, 15 in 2015, 6 in 2016, 3 in 2017, and only four species (Gray Kingbird, Royal Tern, Chipping Sparrow and Yellow-throated Vireo) this year to date. ADDENDUM (December 13) Only an hour after posting this I added a fifth new species at 6:30 AM, when we heard an  Eastern Whip-poor-will calling just as we started our walk!


Am I succumbing to the Law of Diminishing Returns? Is the "gain not worth the pain?" Time to quit and stop wasting energy?

Gray Kingbird (August 23, 2018):

Gray Kingbird 04-20180823


Yellow-throated Vireo (November 23, 2018):

Yellow-throated Vireo 03-20181123

If my walks were only about counting birds I might certainly get bored. More importantly, they are a time to observe and enjoy the beauty and mystery of nature.

No two sunrises are alike... Pink clouds and fog on November 25, 2018:

Pink clouds and fog before sunrise 01-20181125


An unsettled sky a half hour before sunrise on December 5, 2018:

Sunrise minus 25 minures 20181205


Sun rising behind the east gate to our patch (November 29, 2018): 

Sunrise behind the gate 20181129

Behaviors are interesting and sometimes unexpected. There is the thrill of the sudden appearance of a Bobcat, deer or even a Coyote...

Male Bobcat on November 19, 2018:

 Bobcat DPP 01-20181119

...and of finding beauty in the commonplace and the smallest of things.

Who would have known that there is a moth which resembles a wasp? Polka-Dot Wasp Moth-Syntomeida epilais:

Polka-Dot Wasp Moth-Syntomeida epilais 20111217

The smallest of our dragonflies also imitates a wasp, waving its wings slowly in a very menacing manner.  Eastern Amberwing - Perithemis tenera:

Eastern Amberwing - Perithemis tenera 01-20181024

I bumped into a wild pea plant with seed pods which rattled with a sound like pebbles rolling in a paper cup. I learned that is is quite poisonous. Flowers and fruit of Smooth Rattlebox, Crotalaria pallida:

Yellow Wild Pea Flowers 20081215

Yellow Wild Pea Pods 20081215

Later I found an unusually beautiful red patterned moth which requires that same plant to host its larvae, which themselves are protected by the noxious substances they ingest. Bella or Rattlebox Tiger Moth -Utetheisa bella:

Bella or Rattlebox Tiger Moth -Utetheisa bella 20161204


I admire the delicate beauty of the flowers of the Bent Alligator Flag, a plant related to members of the Arrowroot family: bananas, cannas and the Bird of Paradise. Their zig-zag stems reach up as high as 8 feet. 

Bent Alligator Flag - Thalia geniculata HD 01-20181107




Bent Alligator Flag - Thalia geniculata HD 02-20181107


Tiny insects are lured to their blossoms and are momentarily trapped and dabbed with pollen before being released so they may cross-fertilize other flowers. 

The insects attract Palm Warblers:

 Palm Warbler and Alligator Flag flowers 2-20151121

Purple Gallinules eat the flowers and seeds:


Purple Gallinule 2-20111204



I learned that this plant serves as host to a particular butterfly species, the Brazilian Skipper, whose leaf-rolling caterpillars also  inflict great damage to cultivated cannas and other members of the Arrowroot family:

Brazilian (NOT Three-spotted) Skipper 2-20180830


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Linking to Misty's  CAMERA CRITTERS,

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Linking to BirdD'Pot by Anni

Linking to Our World Tuesday by Lady Fi

Linking to Wild Bird Wednesday by Stewart

Linking to Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday) by NC Sue

Linking to ALL SEASONS by Jesh

Linking to Fences Around the World by Gosia


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Please visit the links to all these memes to see some excellent photos on display

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