Yellow-crowned Night-Heron babies

South Florida has two seasons. Simply stated they are the Dry and the Wet seasons. Some would call them the Tourist and the Hurricane seasons. Fall and winter nights are usually cool and there is no great threat of rain, allowing us to sleep with the windows open, while air conditioning becomes a necessity during the hot and muggy summer. By any name we have entered the second season, which begins by late May and lasts into late September.

• Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning;
• Red sky in the night, sailors' delight.

There are opposing theories about the source and usefulness of this old poem. Some say that the red sky at night is caused by high pressure and good weather (in the west), while red in the morning indicates a storm system to the east. Another explanation is that a reddish sunrise is caused by particles suspended in the air, foreshadowing an approaching storm from the west. Here in coastal Florida, the storm clouds often move in from the ocean, which is east of us, and red sunrises are common this time of year. This is the view from our back yard, showing a bank of clouds along the oceanfront, some 18 miles away.

• Mares' tails, sailors furl your sails

Cirrus clouds, long streamers high in the sky, usually mean that bad weather can be expected within the next 36 hours. Sailing vessels are well advised to take in their sails. Mary Lou is up ahead of me, walking north along the gravel road that leads to the heron rookery near our home. 

At the rookery, it was interesting to see this interaction between a pair of Yellow-crowned Night-Herons. The male (on the right) had just flown into the nest tree and the female appeared to be greeting him in what I believe to be a mutual recognition display.

Notice the bright reddish legs, characteristic of the male during the early part of the breeding season.



Nest #22 is out in the open, providing some nice photo opportunities. The pair at this nest posed with their two offspring on May 24.



The two little herons have plenty of character. I called them "Mutt & Jeff," after cartoon characters that were popular when I was a child. Younger folks called them "punk rockers."



They struck some comical poses....



...or at least I thought so (May 27). Maybe I looked just as funny to them.




They grew quickly (May 31).



Their parents kept watch and ignored them as they begged to be fed..



Here they look like unruly teenagers (June 2).



One of their free-flying neighbors, of the same species, is probably a week or two older.



There also were several juvenile Green Herons in the rookery.



On the walk back home, a Killdeer, flashing its conspicuous tail feathers and feigning serious injury, tried to draw me away from its eggs or young, hidden at the side of the road.



I took notice of other interesting creatures, such as a distant Great Crested Flycatcher...



...the persistent singing of a Northern Cardinal...



... the coos of Common Ground-Doves...



... a Eurasian Collared-Dove at the fruit of a Royal Palm...



... a dragonfly, which I believe is a Golden-winged Skimmer...



...a White Peacock...



...and a Gulf Fritillary..



The next morning it was cloudy but the weather forecast said that there would be no rain for the next 4 hours. We only walked out about a quarter mile when the skies darkened and we had to hurry back home. Folk wisdom trumped the science of the meteorologists!



That little red dot is Mary Lou moving away fast. She was smarter than I and turned around earlier as I lingered to snap a couple of photos of the gathering storm. I got wet, but a garbage bag protected my camera equipment!