Signs of Spring

The mango tree has blossomed, is still blossoming, produced so many blossoms we caught birds nibbling on them and yet the tree is still full of little mango fruits.

The jasmine is blossoming and the warm night air, clear and calm and full of bright, sharp, glittering stars smells like a Persian garden.

The green parrots are back, as are the ibis, the hawks and the vultures. And the blacksnake. And the toads which have been clinging to the glass doors of the lanai and driving the cats crazy with frustration.

All of the doors and windows have been open for over a month now, at least the ones with screens to keep the bugs out and the cats in. Somehow, the occasional lizard still manages to find its way in, though.

The bulldozer arrived bright and early and spent three hours scraping the topsoil off half the open field across the road in preparation for someone building a house there.

There's been an active For Sale sign on that field for a few months now. I can't tell if someone bought the whole field and intends to build on half of it or if only half of it sold. I'm sure it's zoned for two lots. In either case, a house on that site will severely cramp available parking for next Hallowe'en. But that's still several seasons (Spring, High, Summer, Rainy and Fall, at least) away for now.

Before She Teaches the Kids to Kill

Came home yesterday to find Neighbor Dan and the younger Neighbor Dan Daughter out in the lanai playing with the kittens. I like that it's that kind of neighborhood.

Neighbor Dan has examined the kittens a number of times and concluded we have three girls and a boy. Or maybe four girls. Or maybe not. I say take 'em all to the vet as soon as possible so it won't make any difference.

And take Little Gray Mama, too. She killed a bird a couple of days ago (and has probably killed more but that's the only one I caught her with). I heard several avian complaints from the mango tree and recognized them as anti-cat comments from back when I lived in Connecticut and the neighbor cat would come into my back field whereupon several species of birds including crows, robins, cardinals and a Baltimore oriole would all cooperate, forming a circle around the intruder, just out of reach, moving across the field from bush to branch, always with the cat in the center until she got too frustrated and went home. It wasn't an accident; they did it several times.

Anyway, I went to investigate and found LGM under the mango with a small crow she had just killed and was now trying to eat despite being fed between two and four times a day at our house and who-knows-how-many times again over at Neighbor Dan's where she disappears for hours on end. I took it away from her and gave it a quick burial and she let me know she was not pleased that I would waste a perfectly good bird like that.

Neighbor Dan's Daughters also discovered the partial remains of a couple of lizards in the lanai the day before so the sooner we can get the kids weaned the sooner we can get her fixed as well and maybe then her reign of terror will end.

Meanwhile, Bartleby watches a palmetto bug walk between her paws with total disinterest.

Deconstructing The Old Year

Our nephews came down for the New Year celebrations. They were down here to party with friends so, technically, they just used our house as a base of operations but they did visit for a while when their sister and mom returned from Georgia and they also helped tear up the back yard which was a good thing.

My brother has long wanted to remove the small mound out back that Dad built years ago. It originally contained a rock garden and a small working waterfall feeding a stream that emptied into a koi pond. The mound was built on a base consisting of the excavated dirt from the pond. On top of that, Dad stacked a short ton of coral boulders glued together with cement. The watercourse from the fall to the pond was lined with river stones embedded in cement. The pond was a homemade basin of cement over a sheet of black waterproof plastic liner and edged with slate cemented into place. Dad was a frustrated landscape architect and concrete was his medium.

The overall effect was very pleasant for several years but, eventually, the underlying earth sank a bit and the water didn't flow properly and the pump stopped and the whole thing was too tightly cemented together for the operating guts to be accessible to repair and so it became simply a pond with a slight rise in the background. The folks added and aerator to the pond and the fish were happy.

The fish were happy for a while, anyway. I was on the phone with Mom one day when she suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, look at the great blue heron!" which, of course, being on the phone from Connecticut, I could not, but she described in detail how it had just landed in the pond. Her excitement was understandable. Great blue herons are magnificent birds and not that common, even down here, are usually spotted at long range off in a swamp somewhere, and to have one standing not more than 20 feet from the back door was extraordinary. It was only after the great blue had flown that Mom realized the visit might have been somewhat less than exceptional and that, in fact, they had invited the heron by setting out such an easily accessible goldfish buffet. A few of the smaller fish survived by hiding under the leaves overhanging the edge of the pond but they were too traumatized to ever come out of the shadows again.

Dad died and the pond and mound became overgrown. The last of the fish were eaten by some other bird (no witnesses this time) and the water was allowed to evaporate. My brother didn't make any changes while Mom was alive because she liked some of the flowers that took root there.

That all changed this past weekend. The nephews gave my brother a new sledge hammer and chain saw for Christmas. I gave him a new orange tree. On New Year's Eve day we all went out and started dismantling the pond with the sledgehammer (my brother initially claimed he didn't need a new one so the boys started off with the old one but it broke about ten minutes in (Dad always made bunker-grade concrete.)) and the overgrowth with the chain saw.

The nephews have now gone back to base. The project's not done yet. The walls of the pond are completely broken up and it is about two-thirds filled in with rubble and dirt. The mound is half gone. We will have extra volume remaining thanks to the cement fill. The coral boulders have been rolled back to the property line in preparation for we know-not-what further use. The trees and bushes are down (with the exception of the central trunk of the tree on which the mockingbirds built their nest last summer where its ruins still perch) and the branches hauled out front for disposal.

The area looks disturbingly like a mass grave. Sod or grass seed will take care of that. What's worse, we can now see the neighbors.

The Eagles Are Coming, The Eagles Are Coming!

O.K., technically they're already here, and have been for a few years, but I didn't know we could watch them live.

After a few years of watching the Decorah Eagles in their home in Iowa (apparently deserted right now), I was delighted to find out we have our own eagle cams right here in town.

Ozzie and Harriet have been living down here for six or seven years and recently moved across the street. They are currently caring for two eggs which comments from the folks running the site seem to indicate could hatch at any time.

There are, officially, an even dozen eagle nests within the city limits. Fledging season runs through May 15, 2013 and the city has posted notice that any and all building permits in areas close to nests have been suspended until the little ones are out of the nest. This is in addition to the restrictions regarding how close construction can come to a nesting site in the first place.

Green Parrots Return and the Crow Family Picnic

Yay! The green parrots are back!

I was reading yesterday (Paul Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal, a little outdated (2005) but, for some reason, in our library's new book section) when I caught, out of the corner of my eye, a flash of bright green by the birdbath and my brother yelled "Guess who's back?" from the other room. A pair of green parrots, that's who. They perched on the edge of the birdbath and nuzzled each other, bobbing their heads, and taking sips of water. One or the other, sometimes both, would fly off for a bit and then return. They were perfectly willing to chase the crows away from the bath. Their calls were so loud we could hear them with the windows closed. Eventually, they flew off but their nest is somewhere nearby.

This morning, with no parrots around to interfere, a crow family came by to visit the birdbath. Mom and Dad and three juveniles. The adults were black, sleek and glossy with piercing yellow eyes. The kids, slightly smaller but all fully fledged, were a dark gray. The parents showed how to use the birdbath for both drinking and bathing. The kids caught on quickly and two of them went in at the same time, splashing each other (crows do love to splash) and mock fighting until I thought all the water would be gone. Meanwhile, the adults were off in the lawn finding munchable bugs which they brought back, showed the kids how to wash, and then fed to the youngsters.

Suddenly, one of them discovered the mockingbird's nest (which must have been abandoned because no mockingbird came out to defend it) and they all swarmed it, poking around, approaching it from different angles and actually sitting in it. It seemed to fascinate them.

A fun day out for the whole family.

(Bartleby lay watching the whole thing from four feet away until she got bored and turned to face the other way.)

Preparing to Leave Home

My brother mentioned, as we were enjoying our Memorial Day picnic, that there were no baby mockingbirds visible in the nest anymore.

No sooner were the words spoken than one mockingbird parent swooped down into some tall grass awaiting weed whacking surrounding one of Mom's life-size ceramic rabbits out back and began feeding the fledgling hidden there. The other one dove under Neighbor Mike's orange tree where a second young mockingbird was waiting. The parents each made several passes bringing insects and whatnot to the kids. The little ones were hard to see due to still being dun colored and had neither the very long tail feathers nor their black and white coloration distinctive to the species.

Eventually, the one by the bunny statue moved up under the nest tree. Shortly thereafter, the one under the orange tree flew the thirty feet back home. So all was well and they were just out exploring the big world.

New Things

I saw something new today. Two of these birds were in the grass in front of the town library.



Glossy Ibis



I thought, "Huh, black ibis," but a little research showed black ibis are native to India (and have a little red splotch on the tops of their heads) so apparently these are glossy ibis which are found in this area.

Red-Headed Woodpecker

And yesterday we were visited by a red-headed woodpecker that found good eats in the palm tree out back. Palms being very soft, there was none of the rat-a-tat-tat typically associated with woodpeckers just a happy full bird. It eventually moved up the tree and picked bugs out of the crevices where the leaves sprout from the bole.



Eurasian Collared Dove



Also, thanks to the bird bath, we have a chance to study the various doves up close and it appears we have at least two, and maybe three, different species hanging about. I've definitely seen the Eurasian Collared Dove and the Mourning Dove. I think we also have the White Wing Dove. It's hard to tell because it gets crowded out there and we have to keep replenishing the water because the crows just love to splash everything.



Mourning Dove



White Wing Dove



The Wild Life

The mockingbird couple that built their nest in the backyard have been going berserk all day. Despite having cleverly positioned their home in such a way as to be pretty much blocked from sight by adjacent branches, we can see movement in the nest even when both birds are out.

The baby mockingbirds have hatched!

Apparently, mom and dad are zooming out and about and back and forth all around the home bush frantically trying to find food for the little ones. We can't tell how many there are, yet, but at this rate the parents are going to be exhausted by the end of the week.

On a completely, irrelevant note, I got into a big fight with the stupid opossum last night when it visited the cat again. I let the Bartleby into the house while I yelled at the 'possum and then threatened it with a nice big walking stick. That had no effect so I had to actually use the stick and started poking and prodding the invader. It hissed and growl at me and backed itself into a corner so I bopped it a few times in the direction I wanted it to go. Of all times for Bartleby to become curious about anything. She came back out into the lanai to see what was going on. I had to use one foot to keep her away while prodding the stupid marsupial out the door. At least now, maybe, the 'possum will take the hint.

Moon Walk

Our skies were mostly clear these past two nights so I took advantage to stroll around.

The moonlight was so intense some colors returned to the evening, the sky slate blue, the grass deep olive green but only when out from under the trees. All the shadows remained shades of gray. The few clouds were bright chalky white above and mithril silver below.

The moonshadows were almost as deep as the ones from a nearby streetlight but more delicate. When the hazy edge of a cloud partially obscured the moon, the moonshadows faded although the moon itself stayed visible. Otherwise, the only way I could identify the lunar shadow was because it was shorter, the moon being higher in the sky.

Some birds began singing, the opposite effect from a solar eclipse when the sudden loss of light sends animals into night time mode. If the night-blooming jasmine had been ready I might have stayed out there 'til sunrise.

Miscellanea

A brand new amaryllis has bloomed by the front door. This one is a deep garnet or ruby red.

The mockingbirds nesting out back have had to fight off an attack of crows. Three or four of the raiders swooped in, probably to steal eggs, but, as far as I can tell, were unsuccessful.

The mango tree, covered with blossoms earlier this spring, has lost most of its fruit, partially due to the high winds we've been having for the past week and partially to birds. We may end up with only a couple dozen mangoes this year. My brother already picked two smallish unripe ones off the ground. At least we still have bags of frozen mango from last year's bumper crop.

My brother kept saying he was going to cover the blueberry bush but never did so now the birds have had all of them, too. (I think this should be filed under the last Redneck Studies post.)

We joked about the inch long $3.00 plum tomato he "harvested" last week but another one just ripened so they're down to $1.50 apiece now.

Location, Location, Location

We broke out the binoculars yesterday.

A pair of mockingbirds have decided the amenities we offer, constantly refilled and refreshed birdbath, occasional seed balls, varied shrubbery and a never-ending supply of fresh organic lawn insects, make for a neighborhood in which they would like to raise their family.

My brother noticed them building their nest in a large bush about forty feet from the back door. He shredded some string and hung the lint on a small succulent just outside the lanai. The male mockingbird took a whole beak full back to line the nest. With the glasses we can see them fluffing and primping the insides.

So, not only will we have mockingbird song right outside all summer long, we'll get to watch them raise their babies, too.

(Also saw a black-and-pale-yellow zebra butterfly outside my window. A couple of sulphurs are already flitting around. Should be a good summer.)

Useless Beast

How hopeless is the cat?

Neighbor Dan's daughters came over because they were worried the cat had died because all it does all day long is lie there under the oak tree, unmoving, surrounded by a family of life-size gray ceramic bunny rabbits (one buck, one doe, three kits) made by Mom.

The blue jays are stealing food from the cat's dish while the cat lies there within ten feet, watching. Yet, when her dish is empty, she'll come to the front door and attempt to climb the screen to let us know she needs a refill.

The good news is, because the cat is useless, none of the other wildlife is afraid to come onto our property. There are now two dozen ibis under the mango tree obliterating the local insect population, half a dozen crows and an equal number of doves of at least two different species hanging around the bird bath, where they have reached a modus vivendi allowing both doves and crows access at the same time although the doves are not happy about it. The blue jays, being busy stealing from the cat, show up only for the occasional drink and the mockingbirds ignore everyone preferring to sing all day and most of the night.

The lizards claim the front walkway and the lanai except when this one crow, who has figured out a way to get into the lanai and is pretty pleased with himself about it, wanders in and inspects the various plants at which time they hide in the couch cushions. Every now and then we'll find a frog attached to a window or screen.

None of this would happen if our cat behaved like a cat and was not what it is, for which I am glad, which is:

Useless beast.

Not the Hunter Type

I was pleasantly surprised to notice a couple of small lizards skittering across the entry foyer this morning. I'd seen a rather large one hanging on the screen of the lanai room yesterday. So they're out of "hibernation" or wherever they go during "winter."

I was worried they might be gone permanently from the front of the house because of the cat. She has appropriated one of the cushioned lawn chairs as her official bed and snoozes at various spots (depending on the position of the sun) along the front walkway. She's not any kind of hunter at all and I didn't think the lizards were in real danger. But I thought they might still steer clear of her.

Apparently, they're not much more concerned with her than the birds are. In the evening I can usually hear a bird in the bougainvillea, no more than three feet over the cat's head, yelling at her, and during the day when all the doors are open she can see straight through the house to the birdbath in back with its various rotating congregations of bathers and drinkers yet she can't be bothered to do anything about it.

She's too busy plotting ways to trick us into letting her inside.

Out of Town Visitors

Yesterday, my brother decided to fix a picnic lunch/dinner. And so we had barbecued ribs, baked beans, cole slaw, potato salad (for Mom and me) and macaroni salad (for himself) and sat and watched the birds at their bath.

The cat, now she is being fed regularly, is content to confine her wanderings to the front of the house between the head of the driveway, where she is fed, and the cushioned lawn chair by the front door where she naps. The birds retain the backyard unmolested. In addition to the expected murder of crows and piteousness of doves there was a small band of blue jays (not unexpected but seldom seen in quantity) and a couple of mockingbirds. The crows were quite civilized but the doves, and especially the jays, kept splashing water everywhere necessitating a half-time refill of the bath.

What excited us, however, were two singleton visitors we have not seen before: a red-wing blackbird (smaller than the crows and blending in until it took flight and revealed its stripes) and a Baltimore oriole which perched in Neighbor Mike's orange tree. We're hoping they'll stay around for a while.

Winter in Florida.

The Mother Lode

This morning an ibis apparently hit the bug jackpot in neighbor Mike's backyard. It began dipping and pecking at his lawn in a frenzy, swallowing and dipping again and again. The ibis have been flocking together recently and it wasn't long before this one was joined by another and then another and then three more followed by five additional as the number of diners increased geometrically to around forty or so. They formed feeding rows ten or twelve abreast and worked one side to the other breaking only to move around the orange trees. The feeding was so good, when something startled them they flew only as far as the nearest trees and power lines, waited the minimum time to recognize the false alarm and returned to pick up right where they'd left off.

When ibis fly into trees they, of necessity go to the top branches since they are too tall to comfortably fit where another branch is above them. The exceptions are palm trees where they will fly directly to the vertical bole and cling tenuously for a few moments before their own weight, levered out almost horizontally at the end of their long legs, causes them to lose their grip.

Those long legs also give them a difficult time with power lines. All birds sway a little on the line since the wires are very thin and free to move but the arc of a balancing ibis can be as much as 30 degrees forward or back. A row of ibis, shoulder to shoulder, on a house feeder wire will cause it to sag noticeably. One bird will lean forward, catch its balance and lean back (often overcorrecting). This causes its neighbors on either side to compensate by leaning forward and then back themselves which requires the next ones in line to do the same and so on. If they get the timing right they can create a kind of sine wave and for a few seconds it is possible to watch the wave crests roll down the line and back. Usually, though, and inevitably, it gets chaotic pretty quick and the whole thing explodes off the wire in a flurry of white wings, skinny legs and long bills.

After the second false alarm, the original crew was joined by another twenty or so putting the total at the feeding frenzy over sixty. Then they all took off at once and kept going.

Followed by another neighbor's just-out-of-puppyhood black lab with a look of sheerest joy on its face chasing after them across neighbor Mike's yard and ours.

Followed by the neighbor's teenage son.

There is a large, low white cloud circling the neighborhood. Maybe they'll return for dessert.

Protocols of the Bath

Doves will congregate around the edge of the birdbath and socialize, although only one will go in the water at a time and the others usually leave for a moment or two. They also drink separately.

Mockingbirds are heavy drinkers and will bob and gulp five, six, seven times before reaching their fill and moving on. They are also delicate bathers preferring to settle into the water and soak for a few moments.

The finches are understandably skittish, given their size, and although we can see a number of them around, will only approach the bath one at a time and then only for a quick sip before flitting.

Blue jays, on the other hand, are exceptionally enthusiastic, jumping into the water, hunkering down and splashing for all they're worth until drenched and dripping they fly off (at a much lower altitude being laden down with all that water). They'll line up in a nearby bush waiting their turn but two's the limit. After that the basin needs refilling.

Robins are dirty birds (what to expect with a name like Turdus migratorius?) and are never (to our experience) found anywhere near water.

El Suicidio de la Paloma Blanca

My brother went out this morning to buy new tires for his truck and discovered a beautiful snow-white dove huddled up against the front door. It's left wing was injured and it was unable to fly. It walked far enough away to feel comfortable as he passed by and then went into the lawn to eat bugs.

I called around to a number of rescue shelters for birds and was finally told (by an otherwise pleasant woman who nevertheless asked if it was a dove or a pigeon and when I said "dove," snarkily asked if I knew the difference which, turns out, didn't make any difference, although I do (know)) that, after consultation with the vet, the bird was considered "exotic" not native (whether dove or pigeon) and would therefor, if we brought it in, be euthanized.

Since this was not the point of the exercise, I asked for alternatives and was told we could always take it to a vet. There were two problems with this. One, we would then be liable for the bill (for what was probably someone else's pet) and, Two, we would then have a pet of our own since Florida law forbids exotic animals from being released into the wild. See, Pythons. Two was the deal breaker.

By this time, the bird had wandered away from the front door so I went looking for it and found it huddled up against the north side of the house mostly protected from the light drizzle. I said, "Well, it looks like there's not much we can do for you." It looked me right in the eye. I think it understood.

I went back inside and the dove went back out into the lawn to eat some more. A few minutes later I looked out the front window and there was a flattened white lump in the middle of the road.

Quick, clean, no mess to speak of, and no doubt better than being attacked and eaten by a cat or hawk. and much better than being euthanized by a rescue shelter.

Line For the Bath Forms In the Bamboo

My brother bought one of those concrete lotus birdbaths a few weeks ago. He put it just out beyond the edge of the lanai. It's taken a while for the birds to notice and become comfortable with its presence, but recently they've taken to it with a vengeance. The end of Rainy Season may have something to do with it, too.

A couple of evenings ago I noticed three blue jays sitting together in the bushes up against the lanai. The one closest to the birdbath leapt over to it, took a sip of water, and then began to bathe ferociously, ducking its head under and flapping its wings, water spraying everywhere, until it was soaked through. When it flew off it was noticeably slower and lower due to the additional water weight. The second blue jay moved in and repeated the show. The third one hopped over. Just then a luminous deep warm-copper-colored bird, a thrush of some sort landed on the opposite rim. It had something in its mouth, either a very large berry or a small snail. They stared at each other for a minute and then the blue jay left. The thrush took a long messy splashy bath and a good drink, picked up its prize again and took off.

I went out and refilled the water in the lotus basin. Fifteen minutes later the last blue jay was back and was able to enjoy its bath uninterrupted.

The jays repeated the show again last night. A couple of ring necked doves have discovered the place, too. Mom doesn't always notice when the birds arrive but, if we point them out to her, she gets a kick watching them.

Necrophages in the Shade

We had a rough weekend in terms of system collapses and infrastructure breakdowns. People are all O.K. but the air conditioning quit on Sunday and my brother's truck has developed an out-of-alignment condition that led on Saturday to a shredded front tire which was rust welded to the wheel so he was vehicleless until today when he could take it into the shop. He got back just as the HVAC guy was crawling into the attic.

So it was no real surprise to me to find four turkey vultures on the front lawn standing in a circle under a large shade tree. One had the red head of an adult but the other three were black-headed juveniles. They stood a little over two feet tall with three to three-and-a-half foot wingspans. They circled the tree and each other occasionally rising up into the lower branches although they would descend again almost immediately.

I don't think they eat air conditioners or pickup trucks but apparently they can sense the entropy around here and are hanging out in hopes something carbon-based is next.

Mango Mania

We are buried in a mango glut this year. At the beginning of the season, when the first fruit were just showing, we estimated over a hundred on the tree. That may have been a little low. My brother takes anywhere from two to six with him to work almost every day as gifts to his co-workers. That only leaves another half dozen on the counter at any one time. I need to replenish the mango salsa again. Also mango iced tea. And cold bite-size chunks to nibble on or put with ice cream.

We don't technically pick the mangoes. We wait 'til they fall off the tree dead ripe. And we leave any the birds/bugs/rabbit get to where they lie.

There're enough to go around for everybody/-thing this year.