Buffet Mixer

There are a variety of benefits to doing things in groups. Consider the last cookout you attended. Someone else bought the food. Someone else cooked and cleaned up. There was less risk of being eaten by a predator. Communal roosting makes sense too. Eating and roosting together makes sense for Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets and White Ibis.

More ears and eyes means predators are at a disadvantage during a sneak attack. While roosting, huddling can conserve warmth for those with the best spots in the roost. The downside is when you head out for breakfast in the morning everyone follows. The older and experienced birds tolerate social parasitism in exchange for safety in numbers. There is a pecking order and bigger birds can dominate others in the flock.

Finding food is also easier with many eyes looking. Once located, the buffet commences. Here a flock of Great White Egrets, Snowy Egrets and a few White Ibis have found a high concentration of fish and frog eggs to feast on.

Around the outskirts of the buffet are Little Blue Herons who are exhibiting commensalism. As the Egrets and Ibis stir things up, the Little Blue Herons feed on what the rest of the birds are not interested in. Essentially commensalism is when one species feeds among others and benefits without harming or benefiting the main species. In this case the Little Blue Heron is the guy that came to the party with the friend you invited. Little Blues are twice as successful when feeding commensally as opposed to individually.

May marked the end of the dry season in Florida which generally runs from December through May 15th. As the wetlands begin to fill with water and prey species re-colonize the marshes and swamps, many of the wading birds will rely less on communal feeding and venture out to forage solo. After a long day of hunting, it’s back to the communal roost for an evening of preening and sleep. Party on.

Wading Into Controversy - The Great White Heron

It would be easy for the casual observer to dismiss a tall white wading bird in Florida as a Great Egret (Ardea alba-top photo). The long, black-legged wader has a slim frame, thin beak and is found in a variety of shallow wetlands around the state. But in the fringes of southern Florida, every all-white wading bird requires a second look. It might be a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodia-bottom left).

I took a walk in the 10,000 Islands National Wildlife Refuge recently. Located just east of Naples and north of the Florida Keys, the refuge is part of the second largest mangrove forest in the world. On this sweltering March morning, a volunteer welcomes me and suggests I may not see much on the boardwalk since most of the water has dried up. I step on the path, round the corner and standing before me is a Great White Heron (bottom right), a rare color morph of the Great Blue Heron. This all white heron is larger than the Great Egret, has a heavier bill and sports light colored or yellowish legs.

The Great White Heron population is estimated to be around one thousand and most of them live on and around the Florida Keys and mangrove islands. The debate that I will not settle for you has been their taxonomic classification. For years they were considered a distinct species (Ardea occidentalis), geographically isolated from the Great Blue Herons of the mainland. They have also been considered a subspecies with the ability to interbreed with Great Blue Herons but do not do so naturally due to geography. Or do they?

Great White Herons do migrate up to the southern peninsula of Florida but mainland Great Blue Herons rarely migrate down to the keys. The Great Blue Herons and Great White Herons that live in the keys are larger than their relatives to the north. When they do form mating pairs it is often with a color morph similar to their own.

The Great White Heron probably does not merit species status. It could very well deserve a subspecies distinction. I’ll leave that to the taxonomists, but it certainly warrants a second look.

Living Without Aigrettes

The screaming never stops on the bird rookery. Babies want food. Mates need help. Competitors jockey for better territories and struggle to secure mates. It's so noisy here on this island in the middle of the Caloosahatchee I almost forget the foul smell of fish and bird poop. During the breeding season, many birds develop special plumes or bright colorations to attract a mate (the teal blue eye of the Anhinga, the crimson legs of the White Ibis). The Great Egret has spectacular tail feathers called aigrettes that were once prized by plumage hunters. They appear wispy and delicate and have a yellowed - burnt marshmallow appearance towards there tips. In the late 19th and early part of the 20th century, plumage hunters sought out rookeries where they would slaughter nesting birds and take their feathers. Chicks were left to starve. Eggs left unincubated never hatched. The feathers were used for decoration and specifically for women's hats that were all the rage at the time. In 1908 - an ounce of plumes was worth more than an ounce of gold. Great Blue Herons, Flamingos, Roseate Spoonbills, Wood Storks, Egrets and other bird populations were severely impacted by this less than noble trade.When the plume rage was exposed as murderous fashion, the rage of the nation led to federal legislation banning the sale of plumes. Populations have been slow to rebound over the many decades that have passed and some say for every Great Egret you see today - you might have seen 10 a century ago. Here at the rookery, Wood Stork nests far outnumber Great Egret nests. Nevertheless, courtship continues as Egrets flash their aigrettes like a Peacock (since the courtship period is over - I don't have a shot of this). Mates are wooed. Eggs are laid. Chicks are born. Here -one of several chicks pesters an adult for partially digested fish.
We can be thankfull in large part to the Audubon Society who led the way in protecting South Florida's birds well over 100 years ago by introducing protective legislation, developing educational programs and putting boots on the ground to physically protect the birds - assuring that we wouldn't have to live without aigrettes.

Light it Up

Forget Rockefeller Center. There is no tree more ornate, more spectacular or more literally full of life than what I witnessed a few nights ago. In the middle of the seemingly unending urban sprawl that is the megalopolis of Miami/Fort Lauderdale/West Palm Beach is a little pond rimmed with Bald Cypress that remains as a vestigial wetland behind a massive executive building complex in Oakland Park.

I had stopped just a few hours after sunset in search of a geocache and was wildly distracted by the squawks and croaks that emanated from the darkness. As my eyes adjusted, I fixated on the ever shifting white spots that decorated a Bald Cypress in the middle of the unlit pond. As I continued to listen and watch, a near full moon began to rise directly across the pond, illuminating the Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets and White Ibis that had all taken refuge in this well protected tree.
How fantastic to be in the right place at the right time. Could a scene like this be what inspired the early pagans to decorate trees around the Winter Solstace, a tradition that evolved into today's Christmas trees? Either way - it would inspire my holiday decorations in the days to come.....