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.

Fauna, Successful and Otherwise

Something I did not know.

It seems the white ibis that flock all over the place around here (just this morning two dozen of them were walking across the street out front and caused more than one car to slow to a crawl to avoid them) are officially endangered. Now, after ten years and with a population estimated at 90,000, that may change.

The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission will be reviewing the entire list of threatened species and might remove protection from the ibis and and snowy egrets. While a local population of 90,000 doesn't sound "endangered," removal from the list could open up habitat to development starting the cycle all over again.

On the other hand, some of these beasties on the list are critically endangered. The Sanibel Island rice rat is so rare nobody could find one for three years and, now they know its not extinct, may need to have some whole new islands built specifically for it to populate. (They're small as rats go and, apparently, disease-free.)

The Everglades mink and Florida panther both live in the swamp and are equally threatened. There are probably fewer than 200 panthers and nobody knows how many mink.   Every year a dozen or so panthers are killed by cars or other panthers. Still, the population is ten times what it was 40 years ago, so that's something.

Meanwhile, the Great Python Hunt is coming to an end this weekend. Total estimated Burmese python population: anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000. Total kills in the GPH: 50 or so.

That'll help.

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



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.

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.

There's a Fable In There Somewhere

I was sitting at my desk pretending to write when I noticed, out the window, a mockingbird repeatedly dropping from a tree branch claws first onto a black spot amid a tangle of dead leaves. It would hit, bounce back up to the low-hanging branch, sit for a second, and drop again. On the third or fourth attack the black spot moved. It slithered through the leaves revealing a decent size black snake, maybe two inches diameter and two+ feet long. It just wanted to escape and didn't even try to fight back.

Mockingbirds really hate snakes.

This morning the snake was obviously nowhere around as a young rabbit was out in that spot enjoying the early sun. Later the flock of ibis came by to graze the lawn.

Did I mention before that we live in an extremely suburban development?

More Irrational Exuberance (and Some Reality)

As I was out walking this morning I noticed two new Century 21 For Sale signs up in the neighborhood. The new house under construction has the cinder block walls up (including the faux buttresses on the front), the interior framing is in, and the crew was starting to lay tarp on the plywood sub roofing. So much for the exuberance.

The irrational part is all this is happening while yet another house (just around the corner) has been abandoned. All the furniture is out and the lawn is growing rank. Not one of the other abandoned places has been taken up nor have any of the other For Sale signs produced results.

On the bright side, I passed a great blue heron on my walk this morning standing by the side of the canal. More than a dozen ibis were grubbing in the back yard when I got back. And two eagles swooped (very) low over the house yesterday.

Our Version of Winter

Several of the homes in the neighborhood have these large, Mediterranean-looking pines which I have not yet been able to identify. They are up to fifty feet tall, very thin, with short regular branches that are set absolutely evenly up the trunk.

This morning a (small) flock of ibis flew in and perched together at the very top of the tallest one in the area. I know birds are very light for their size but these at least looked too big for the branches they occupied. The dozen or so birds were spaced evenly around the top half dozen branches and the tree swayed only a little.

They looked like snow capping the pine.

A Word to the Wise

I've noticed recently that most of the birds that were hanging around the neighborhood seem to be gone. The mottled ducks are still up at the north end of the road by the canal and most of the burrowing owls are still there, but no ibis, vultures or parrots and hardly any doves, crows, mockingbirds, etc. I presume nesting season is over and most of them are just off somewhere but it is weird to walk around at dawn in silence.

The neighborhood falcon is still here, though. This morning he was sitting on the telephone line in a front yard at the end of my street. We stared at each other as I walked directly beneath him. As I went by a squirrel came down the driveway toward me, obviously oblivious to the raptor over his head. He was coming from behind the hawk so the bird didn't see him either. I stopped, pointed and yelled at the squirrel, "You idiot! Look up!!" He froze. I continued on a little way, then turned around. The squirrel was gone.

The falcon saw me coming back and swooped off the wire, diving down to my height before gliding up to the top of the nearest telephone pole. As soon as he did, the squirrel popped out from under some ground cover planted along the driveway and took off.

The falcon is not that big and the squirrel was probably more than he wanted to deal with, but still, it's nice to know the rodent paid attention to my warning.

Bird Magic

Not a geezer basketball reference.

Several days ago, as I was walking, I saw up the road a flock, maybe forty-fifty strong, of ibis. Ibis. Not the same species that's been observing Pharaoh and Moses and a hundred million other Nile River dwellers for the past five thousand years, and were sometimes made into gods, but their close cousins. A foot or so tall, pure white (most of them--a few brownish) with long, thin, down-curved beaks. They had spread themselves across the road, some picking at the grass on one side, some at the lawn on the other, but most wandering the asphalt between the verges. I wondered, as I approached, just how close I could get before they spooked.

When I got within about twenty feet, I dropped my torrid four-mile-per-hour pace down to a shuffle. Imagine my surprise and delight as I touched the edge of the flock and they did not break but flowed around me until I was shin deep in a fluffy white feathery cloud. I slowed even further and tried not to laugh out loud. (I do confess to a quiet giggle or two.) They looked at me and moved as little as possible to let me pass continuing with their own business as if I were no more than a tree stump. When I got to the far side of my little cloud, they flowed in behind except for one who had something obviously inedible in his beak, a piece of paper of some sort. This one walked beside me up the street for several feet before deciding I was boring and turning away.

Then the houses reappeared, and the mailboxes and light poles and all the other stuff we make. But, for a couple of minutes there...

...and the rest of the day was perfect.

This morning a falcon swept down within ten feet of me, shoulder high before swooping back up and landing on a street light stanchion. I stopped and we nodded to each other. There were empty lots on both sides of the road and I think I might have interrupted his breakfast selection. It is the most important meal of the day, nevertheless, I am glad I'm the size I am. Looking up at those eyes I felt sympathy for the mouse.

Happy New Year!