Avian Red-eye special

Scores of Florida Trema trees* in our local Wounded Wetlands were destroyed by Hurricane Irma back in October, 2017. Nearly all the taller ones were either felled or stripped of their leaves. Most went on to die within a year. Those remaining were mostly saplings which flowered but did not bear the fruit which is so attractive to wildlife. Tremas normally produce abundant berries just in time for autumn migration. This year, some of them have matured and been very productive.

Southbound Red-eyed Vireos usually arrive ahead of most of the other songbirds, often by mid-August and become quite common by early September. On the first day of September, a half hour after sunrise, a flock of five were eating the Trema berries: 

Three days later, just after sunrise, lighting conditions were poor. I did not carry my flash unit, but the vireos provided some nice views as they harvested the fruit:

A male Northern Cardinal joined in the feast. His tail feathers were molting::

I wondered why one of my favorite warbler spots was so quiet. Blue Jays were calling from hidden perches in the area. Then this Cooper's Hawk flew in from an adjacent tree. This species is a "true hawk" ( Accipiter) with compact body, short wings and long tail suited for chasing smaller birds through the branches:

The hawk took off, but patrolled the area and returned several times:

Spotted Sandpipers are returning. In spring and summer they have spotted breasts, like this "early bird" on July 11:

Adults like this one photographed on September 3, have clear breasts in fall and winter:

African dust lingered in the atmosphere just before sunrise on August 31, showcasing the dark shadows cast by cloud tops over the Atlantic Ocean. I followed the emerging solar (crepuscular) beams...

...across the southern horizon. Though straight as an arrow, they seemed to curve down opposite the Sun...

...appearing to cluster with other cloud shadows as an anti-solar (anticrepuscular) mirrored "sunrise:"

*Florida Trema (Trema micrantha) is a shrub or small tree up to 10 m tall. It is grouped with Hackberry and Hemp in Tree Family CANNABACEAE.  Leaves are egg-shaped, up to 9 cm long, green on top but covered with white, woolly pubescence underneath. Flowers are greenish-white. Fruits are yellow to bright reddish-orange, up to 4 mm in diameter.

REF: https://www.southfloridatrees.org/?page_id=530

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Linking to:

Garden Affair

Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections

Saturday's Critters

BirdD'Pot

Camera Critters

All Seasons

Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Natasha Musing

Our World Tuesday

Wild Bird Wednesday

My Corner of the World

Timeless Thursday

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Please visit the links to all these posts to see some excellent photos on display
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Crops & Clips: Flashback to October, 2017

As I do each month, I enjoyed looking back over my archived photos, taken three years previously, to remember how things were then and maybe get some idea of what to expect this year. (A big difference is that during the present year we never got back to Illinois because of the Coronavirus pandemic.)  As usual, I searched for images which reflected favorite memes: critters of all kinds (especially birds), skies and clouds, reflections, flowers and fences, as well as scenes which speak for themselves. We began the month at our second home in Illinois, after just returning from our stay in New Mexico after Hurricane Irma affected our south Florida home. 

On the first day of October a walk in Hawk's Bluff Park near our daughter's second home in Batavia, Illinois yielded a sighting of an immature Cooper's Hawk. It was in the same tree where it may have been raised by the resident pair which nested there earlier in the year. Indeed, the park was named after the area which it preserved, where ancient oaks were home to Red-tailed Hawks as well as this species:



Lippold Park, also in Batavia but across the Fox River, had a newly constructed pavilion with a boardwalk and an elevated viewing platform:

  

The boardwalk traverses a pond and leads to the river's margin:



Song Sparrows inhabited the areas of low brush:



We hiked and birded at our favorite Batavia location,  Nelson Lake Marsh/Dick Young Forest Preserve. One of its several trails crosses a creek spanned by "Audubon Bridge," amid a mixed habitat of prairie, wetlands and woodlands:



We saw many White-throated Sparrows,...





...Swamp Sparrows,...   





...and several warbler species, including Nashville Warbler...



...Black-throated Green Warbler...



...a female Common Yellowthroat...



...Tennessee Warbler...



...Orange-crowned Warbler...



...and both kinglet species, here the Golden-crowned Kinglet:





Male Golden-crowned Kinglets show a variable touch of scarlet in their crowns...





...but a Ruby-crowned Kinglet refused to display a red crest (or maybe it was a female who lacks one):



Acrobatic Black-capped Chickadees were busily foraging:



One last look at the fall foliage before  we "migrated" to our southern home for the winter:



Back in Florida, Hurricane Irma had inflicted much damage in our local Wounded Wetlands. The wind had uprooted an entire grove of fruiting Trema trees. They are an important source of winter food for wildlife. Almost all of the larger Tremas were stripped of leaves and most were knocked over. It would be almost three years before any survivors or saplings again set fruit:

   

The Yellow-breasted Chat is a burly warbler-like bird which had just been reclassified as a non-warbler and placed in a family all by itself pending resolution of its relationship to other songbirds. This was only my second-ever local sighting, on October 28: 



Here is a nice view of a male Common Yellowthroat to complement the female I had photographed in Illinois:



An Eastern Phoebe in habitat:



An Adult Bald Eagle flew low over the Wounded Wetlands:



Tropical Storm Philippe, the seventh named storm to strike Florida during 2017, moved in on October 28. The skies turned dark and we rushed home ahead of the rain. Wind damage was minimal:



A cold front dissipated the storm and we finished October enjoying cool air and clear skies. North wet prairie on October 31:




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Linking to:

Fences Around the World

Skywatch Friday

Weekend Reflections

Saturday's Critters

BirdD'Pot

Camera Critters

All Seasons

Wordless Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Natasha Musing

Our World Tuesday

Wild Bird Wednesday

My Corner of the World

Timeless Thursday

________________________________________________

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