Bite the Hand That Feeds You

Recently, an Everglades airboat captain lost his hand to an American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) during a tour. Feeding, harassing or molesting alligators is punishable with a maximum fine of up to $500 and 60 days and jail. Losing your limbs or your life is an additional punishment for bad behavior.

In all of my years in the Everglades I have seen people do some dumb things around these giant reptiles. I watched a mother with a shovel in one hand and a bag of mystery meat in the other feed a wild alligator as her small children stood by and watched. The shovel she claimed was to hit the alligator over the head if it approached. I explained to her the first rule of alligator etiquette. Don’t do dumb things. I explained the law and she left (and probably to return another day).  

© Pete Corradino

I watched in horror as a European couple walked their child down to the edge of the water and backed away to take a picture. No doubt the picture of a small child with a six foot alligator just feet away might have impressed someone but I carefully approached and pantomimed the first rule. They didn’t speak English, but “don’t do dumb things” was easily articulated with two arms making a chomping motion.

I watched two teenage boy inexplicably chasing an eight foot alligator down the main road in the Everglades National Park. I stopped them and asked them what was going to happen when they caught up to the alligator. They had no clue. The alligator found an opening in the mangroves and slipped away.

© Pete Corradino

The law has a purpose. Alligators have a natural fear of humans. In fact there have been less than 600 wild alligator attacks in Florida since 1948 and only 23 of those were fatalities. Of those attacks, most were either alligators that were fed, alligators that were being handled (molesting) or occurred when someone was swimming in the water with them.

Once an alligator loses its fear of people it becomes a dangerous alligator. If you dangle a piece of chicken in front of an alligator, it’s going to bite the hand that feeds it. 

Mahogany Bombs

When the fruit fell from the tree it clanged on the hood of the car with the force of a well hit baseball. It rolled off the grill, falling to the pavement with the sound of the crack of a bat. The rock hard exterior of the fruit had cleaved into four neat quarters, each maintaining a slim connection to the adjacent quarter. Inside, several dozen reddish-brown, winged seeds had separated from the core, while a few had been ejected out upon impact. Today, this is a commonplace occurrence in department store and grocery store parking lots of South Florida where the West Indian Mahogany (Swietenia mahagon) has been planted.

The long sought-after hardwood is native to many islands in the Caribbean as well as extreme South Florida. Over harvesting has reduced the range and abundance of this tropical species, which most likely found its way to Florida millennia ago on the winds or waves churned up by tropical storms or hurricanes.

© Pete Corradino

Shoppers might find it hard to believe that the seemingly ubiquitous tree that has been planted prolifically is recognized as a threatened species. Most wild specimens are found on the hardwood hammocks (aka tree islands) of the Everglades. Mahogany can grow to fifty feet in height with a sixty foot spread. It’s an excellent shade tree and as landscapers recognize the importance of using native species, the mahogany is found  more and more in urban areas.

The adage “never park beneath a coconut tree”, which is understandably a useless sentiment for most of North America, should apply to the West Indian Mahogany as well. The problem though, is the popularity of this species in parking lots and the inability of most people to identify it. The main telltale clue is the brown mahogany fruit growing upright on a tufted stalk. At this time of the year, a good sized tree could have fifty or more. They don’t all fall at once. Some ripen, split and expel their seeds while still attached to the tree. But the rest? Bombs away. 

Urushiol - Sap of the Poison Ivy

I’ve told people to roll in Poison Ivy. To be fair, I’ve only asked people who insist they can roll in it but never develop a rash from it. So far no one has taken me up on my challenge.

Flowing through the vascular tissue of Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) and its relatives are liquid resins called urushiols that are contained in the sap. If exposed to skin, these oils can cause rashes varying in severity depending on the person. Generally speaking, only primate species are allergic. That includes us humans. I’ve never seen a monkey with a poison ivy rash nor have I seen one rolling in it. So far no monkey has taken me up on my challenge.

Deer browse on it. Turkeys, grouse and other ground grazers feed on the fruit to no ill effect. In fact, the seeds come out the other end with sufficient natural fertilizer, a bonus for the ivy.

Top left: Poison Ivy covering a hickory in Ipswich, MA

Top right: Poison Ivy reaches for the sky through the top of a Cabbage Palm

Bottom left: The glossy, dark green, lobed variety in ht Everglades

Bottom right: Jungle Pete collapses in the Poison Ivy after a 6 hour hike in the swamp

Identifying Poison Ivy is so tough for some, they wouldn’t know it if they had rolled in it. It can grow as ground cover, a small shrub or a climbing vine. In the swamps of the Everglades I’ve seenPoison Ivy winding 60 feet up the trunk of a cypress. Leaves can be dull to glossy, light to dark green and rounded to lobed based on location and time of year. Each leaf has three leaflets, but occasionally they do fall off and in the winter the leaves will turn color and fall off completely, even in Florida. Urushiol still flows through the plant at this time so beware.

There are some people that insist they are allergic if they just look at Poison Ivy. Were they looking at the plant as they held it? Some say they have never gotten it and others say they have developed or lost immunity to the oils. All of these are possible. But if you’ve developed immunity don’t tempt fate. Or do. Go roll in it. I think you’d be a complete sap.

The Jester

Why don’t cannibals eat clowns? Because they taste funny. The same can be said for Monarch (Danaus plexippus), Queen (Danaus gilippus) and Soldier (Danaus eresimus) butterflies as well as other brightly colored showy species. Most predatory species, particularly birds will avoid the flashy flying insects because they do taste funny. Or awful. These three regal caterpillars feed on milkweed which contains alkaloids which will be necessary for breeding as adults and act as a chemical defense against predators. Once the caterpillar goes through the metamorphic process, bright colors act as a reminder to potential predators that these insects are poisonous. A predator may try one once, but if it survives, and they usually do, they probably will not do it again. This form of defense is known as aposemitism. If it’s brightly colored, best to move on to something else on the buffet line.

And then there’s the Viceroy (Limenitis archippus), orange oligarch of the Lepidoptera and faker in the first degree. Viceroys are said to effectively display Batesian mimicry. They look like the other poisonous members of the king’s court but are they poisonous? It has been long believed that they have evolved to look like a poisonous species which has provided them the defense necessary to avoid predation. Although their larval form feeds on host plants other than milkweed, it’s now thought that Viceroys may in fact be poisonous themselves. If anything the Viceroy is the Jester playing predators and naturalists the fool.

In the swamps of South Florida, the Viceroy looks similar to the abundant Queen butterfly rather than the rare Monarch. The individual that lit upon the back of the alligator prompted a debate regarding its identification. While someone claimed Monarch, I insisted Viceroy and pointed out the black band across the hind wing. They remained insistent and I, the Jester, suggested they move closer for a better look. 

Formerly Known As the Louisiana Heron

I have a book called “American Wildlife Illustrated” from 1940 that sits on my book shelf with all of my other aging natural history references. Some of the books are as new as 2010 but for every day that goes by there is a fact, a theory or a matter of taxonomic nomenclature that becomes wrong, disproved or obsolete. Printed material is old school. Your digital Audubon Guides can be updated when needed.

When I started guiding in the Everglades in the 90’s there was a bird that everyone in the swamps called the Louisiana Heron. I was told it was also called a Tricolored Heron (Egretta tricolor), but people can be stubborn and despite the bird carrying a name of another state, the locals were content to keep the traditional name. I took a few years off from guiding and returned again in 2007. When I pointed to a heron and called it a Louisiana Heron you would have thought I called a Badger a Buffalo. “It’s a Tricolored Heron. Ain’t no one calls it Louisiana Heron no more.” Ok then. Tricolored it is.

To be fair the name change had been approved by the American Ornithologist’s Union in 1983 so everyone had ample time to acclimate to the new colorful name. Why the change? Eliminating local geographic names was deemed more appropriate. After all, the “Louisiana Heron” is found from the eastern seaboard of the United States, south through Texas and in a few spots in Central and South America. The three colors of the Tricolored Heron include a white belly, a powdery blue body and a reddish patch on the back.    

They are occasionally confused with the much larger Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) and the similarly sized Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea). What always stands out to me is the white crest of feathers that the Tricolored adults develop during the breeding season. It pops out a bit in the back and looks like a mullet hairstyle.

There are still some old school birders who prefer “Louisiana Heron” but Tricolored Heron is certainly the norm. What you won’t see or hear anywhere  is someone petitioning for a name change to “Mullet Crested Heron”. 

Tame Deer - the White-tailed Deer

Animal identification can often be quite tricky. Differentiating a Yellow-crested Olive-sided Warbler from a Olive-cheeked Yellow-rumped Warbler can be nearly impossible without a 4-D 300 meter spotting scope, cannon-fired mist net and your own University of Cornell-trained Ornithologist. The larger animals on the other hand should be easily identified. Bears. Moose. Dolphin. How about the White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)?

White-tails are the most wide-ranging members of the deer family in North America and can be found in Canada, most of the United States, Central America and Venezuela, Columbia and Ecuador. Here in Florida they tend to weigh in on the leaner side. Males average 125 lbs and females a bit less than 100 lbs. Key Deer, a subspecies of the white-tail is even smaller with males maxing out at 80 lbs.

Deer are noted as being crepuscular, meaning they are active at dawn and dusk but I often see them in the Everglades and similar habitat during the daylight. My thinking is that the main predator of deer in south Florida is the Florida Panther which is a nocturnal hunter and with few other species to be concerned with, the deer forage in the daylight.

The deer in the top photo were spotted in the Picayune Strand State Forest, east of Naples, FL. They seemed to smell me before they heard me, and heard me before they saw me. As I carefully approached they raised their white tails and began to trot away. This serves as a guide for the fawn to follow as they flee. It also attracts predators and when the deer stops and the tail is dropped, the predator has now lost the white tail it was chasing.

The deer in the bottom photo was clearly aware of my presence. I proceeded no further. Eight tines in a rack of antlers trumps a 300mm zoom lens. The buck eventually sauntered off.

And as for the deer in the central frame? They were tame and quite possibly the ugliest White-tail Deer I have ever seen.

Things that bite in the Night - the Fire Ant

“Coffee” is usually the first thought that I have upon waking. On this particular day I awoke, panicked, thinking “I need to get my wedding ring off my finger now”. I didn't know why but the band was cutting off circulation to my finger which had swollen to a light shade of grape. The ring itself looked like a hula hoop on a hippo. Butter, Vaseline, WD-40, there was no way I was squeezing out of it.

I found a red bump at the knuckle. It itched so my assumption was I had been bitten. I treated it with “after bite”. I put my hand in ice. I kept it elevated. I tried Benedryl. Nothing was working. The finger was turning a deeper shade of purple and aching like a thumb hit by a hammer. By 10 pm it was time to go to the ER.

In the ER the red bump had grown into a white-capped pustule and the doctor quickly identified what I should have guessed already. As I slept I was bitten by a single Red Imported Fire Ant (Solenopsis invicta). Fire Ants are native to South America but can be found throughout the southern U.S. Back in the 30’s they were inadvertently introduced by a cargo ship docked in Alabama.

They are mound builders that can establish multiple satellite colonies of hundreds of thousands of ants. They inject painful venom to both defend the colony and take down potential prey. In Florida, these ants stand accused of causing the population decline of the Southern Hognose Snake (Heterodon simus) and the Florida Kingsnake (Lampropeltis getula floridanus) by consuming incubating eggs.

A White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) fawn will freeze in place at the sight, sound or smell of danger. If they happen to do so in or around a Fire Ant mound, the ants will begin climbing up the animal and then bite in unison. The bites are not only painful but the itching and swelling can last for four days or more. This of course happens to people as well. Some experience anaphylaxis.

In the ER I was given a choice. Leave the wedding ring unscathed and hope the swelling subsides or cut the ring off to alleviate the pressure and save my finger.

“Cut it off! The ring not the finger”

They did. The swelling subsided and wife insisted I get the ring fixed immediately. 

Angry Bird - The Evening Grosbeak

They say a bird in hand is worth two in the bush but sometimes a bird in hand is worth a bite to the face.

My recent trip to Vermont had me reminiscing about an incident that occurred in nearly the exact spot where I saw last week’s Porcupine. In the summer of 2005, as I made my way through the hilly roads up to Plymouth, I spotted what looked like a piece of litter in the road. As I drove closer I recognized it was a bird and it wasn’t going anywhere. I stopped, waved cars around it and carefully picked up a dazed and confused Evening Grosbeak (Coccothraustes vespertinu) that had no doubt been struck by a car.

Evening Grosbeaks are members of the finch family and as the name might imply, especially to the French of which it derived, they have “large beaks”. Grosbeaks have the largest bill of the finches and feed on insects and seeds. The bill is strong enough to crack open the toughest of nuts. They also have been known to feed on roadside dirt and gravel to obtain minerals. Since roadside dirt is located near roads you can imagine the fate that often becomes of these birds.

I just happened to be heading to a bird rehab center where I worked at the time. I scooped the frazzled flyer up, put it on the seat of my truck and put my hat over it, noting to myself that the towel I should always have for these instances was nowhere to be found. While driving down the road I heard a few peeps from under the hat and decided to check on the poor thing. I lifted up the hat and maybe it is post-traumatic stress but I distinctly remember seeing flames shooting from the bird’s eyes and foam coming from its mouth as it flew at me.

It bit me on the face.

Imagine the power needed to crack open the hardest seed, unleashed on the softest skin on your face! 

I grabbed the bird, which quickly let go of my face and bit my finger. In agony – I swerved to the side of the road, jumped out and desperately shook my hand trying to unleash this angry bird.

It let go and flew off with vicious determination. It had escaped its horrible captor.

No good deed goes unpunished and I had a V-shaped wound on my cheek to prove it. 

Distracted–the Polyphemus Moth

I’ll be honest. I was just playing Angry Birds, the horribly addictive app I can play on my iPhone. It’s right next to Audubon Nature Florida. I’m supposed to be writing about a moth. I had intended to simply look up the scientific name for the moth in question on the Audubon app. No I don’t know all of the scientific names of every plant and animal. Gorilla is easy. But in doing that quick bit of research my attention was drawn to the small square box on my shiny smartphone housing an angry cardinal. The next think I know I’m launching ferocious birds at pigs. I’m ashamed.

The Polyphemus Moth (Antheraea polyphemus) lives and dies by behavior such as mine. The massive, night-flying member of the Saturniidae family of moths is decorated to both blend in among the leaf litter and confuse would-be predators with flashy eye spots. The six-inch wide, heavy-bodied moth has a week to live as an adult. There’s no time to feed. Females cast off an enticing pheromone that the males pick up on with their large, feather-like antennae. The males mate with multiple females while the females mate and go about finding a safe spot to lay their eggs.

At rest the tan, scalloped wing margins look like leaves and the insect can simply camouflage with its surroundings. At risk of being preyed upon, the Polyphemus Moth can flash the hind wings, unveiling two massive eye-like spots that give the appearance of something looking back. The wings are folded back in. The eye spots disappear and a confused predator either weighs the possibility of a challenge from another predator or can no longer find the thing with the bright flashy colorful spots that it wanted to eat.

Those familiar with Greek mythology might recognize Polyphemus as the one-eyed son of Poseidon and thus the naming of this beauty of a moth, which got me wondering why they named the movie the Poseidon Adventure. Back to the internet and long story short, Ernest Borgnine is still alive. Ugh. Now I need to research why the Angry Birds don’t have wings.

Pigs on a Scooter - UPO (Unidentified Pork Objects) Not a HOAX!

This photo of Pigs on a Scooter was taken on 10/31/2010 in Washington, D.C. by me in the company of trusted friends Eric, Rebecca, Frank and the less trustworthy Mandy. Recently a second photo of Pigs on a Scooter has surfaced lending additional credibility to the first photo. 

Some have derided it as a hoax, a composite of a bustling DC scene and an unrelated photo of two costumed Pigs on a Scooter. The technical skill of capturing Pigs on a Scooter as they whizzed by on a busy Saturday afternoon seems too daunting to some yet I was in fact able to capture the moment with my Nikon 4500.

Others have pointed out that two Pigs on one Scooter could not maintain the necessary speed and inertia to navigate the city streets but eyewitnesses confirm not only is it possible, they did it without proper safety helmets and a clearly under inflated back tire. Pig heads do not constitute proper safety gear for motorcycles in D.C. 

The other photo can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/voteprime/5132775952/ and recipes on http://meatblog.fishinnards.com/?p=653

Upon Further Review - The Lesser Scaup?

As my friend and I approached the wetland, we could see activity near the water, mostly obscured by a perimeter of tall cattails. As we ascended an artificial rocky berm that formed the bounds of this human made wetland we could see an armada of floating ducks and we both responded with an excited “scaups!” and then danced around as if we had just scored a touchdown.

Shouting while birding is not recommended but neither of us had seen a Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis), so it was hard to contain our excitement. There were around 400 of the birds paddling the small 20-acre wetland.
For those of us that maintain a “Life List” of bird species we have seen, checking one off is a big deal. For some it’s enough to simply see a bird fly over head but I like to watch and observe them, photograph them as much as possible. In doing so I notice different behaviors, color patterns and habitats and I have a record of when I took the picture. I often forget from season to season.

We left the marsh and the raft of birds, pleased that we had spotted not only a new species for the life list but an abundance of them.

When I returned to the car something didn’t seem right. Scaups are found in Broward County, Florida from December through February. Males are black and white with a blue beak – check. Size of a Mallard – Check. I looked at the photos on the Audubon Guides Bird app. Uh-oh. Scaups are white and gray across the back. Time out. I scrolled down to similar species. We need a booth review. I began pouring over the dozens of pictures I had taken of the “scaups” and noticed these had a white ring on the bill and when the neck is outstretched has a burgundy ring around the neck.

Upon further review – the call is over turned – We have a Ring-necked Duck (Aythya collaris)! A new species for my life list. Score!

2010 - The Year in Scat

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

The same can be said for poop in a sense. Call it scat, droppings, excrement, dung, feces, manure, guano. It’s still poop. Calling it sweet might be a stretch.

I’m fascinated by animal scat. Absent of the animal, it tells us who passed by, when they passed by and what they ate. It comes in many telling shapes and sizes and sometimes it’s downright artistic. Here are my favorites in descending order.

10) The armadillo is my holy grail of scat – I know they poop. I’ve just never found any.

9) Most of the time I can make an educated guess. Sometimes it remains a mystery. This large pile was found just north of the Everglades. Coarse black hairs suggest a feral pig was eaten. I’m thinking Florida Panther.

8) Scat names can be species specific. If it came from a bat it’s called guano. In most parts of North America it’s easy to differentiate from rodent droppings of the same size. Bats eat insects with chitinous exoskeletons which do not get completely digested when passed in droppings. Under a bright flashlight the insect pieces sparkle.

7) American Black Bears range all throughout North America and as omnivores, have the luxury of feasting on whatever is on the outdoor buffet. A fresh crop of acorns from the Florida oaks have helped fatten up the bears for winter. A large pile of poop adorned with bits of acorn is the tell tail sign.

6) Turkeys enjoy a wide range of foods as well, including acorns and insects. This lovely arrangement of comma shaped droppings has evidence of an abundance of plant matter.

5) Domestic and wild cats have the good grace to cover up their scats with varying results. This bobcat scrapped some grass together to cover a bone and fur amalgam of poop.

4) Manatees are herbivores that feed on up to 100 lbs of vegetation a day. They’re gassy and they poop a lot. Manatees are rare and endangered and the sea is their toilet bowl. Finding a Manatee scat is a treasure.

3) Insects poop too as evidenced by the droppings from this juvenile Eastern Lubber grasshopper.

2) I believe Shakespeare was referring to otter poop when he noted “all that glitters is not gold”. Otters are from the mustelid family and have droppings that range from sweet smelling to rotten fish. They feast primarily on fish and their scat is uniquely filled with sparkling, undigested fish scales.

1) What do you get when you mix American Beauty Berry with a Raccoon? Art. You’re welcome. Happy New Year. 

South of the Border–Monarch Watch Part I

When I was a kid our family made an annual summer migration from South Florida to Upstate New York and back again in the fall. It was an arduous trek that I liken to that of the Monarch Butterflies that are completing their southern migration as I type.

The circadian cue that prompted our northern departure was an overdose of vitamin D and the ability to roast ants with a magnifying glass at 9 pm in the evening. Too much sun. Time to head north. This was a huge relief for me and my siblings who grew up with no air conditioning. It was also an opportunity to avoid flea season which as I look back now was something that was probably unique to our home.

Our 1200 mile journey required many stops to rest and feed. Monarchs stop at nutrient-rich, nectar-loaded flowers before resuming their flight. We seemingly stopped at every Burger King and Arby’s along the Atlantic Coast.

The return trip was no less exhausting and the ravenous fleas waiting back home made it all the more dreadful, but “South of the Border”, the tacky highway tourist trap between the Carolinas was a refuge, a sombrero-adorned landscape, illuminated like fireflies at night like with festive green and orange lights. To my parents it was a Venus flytrap. They knew they shouldn’t stop, but they couldn’t help it. It meant we were half way home and it made for a fun rest stop full of as much Mexican culture as Arby’s was full of nutrients.

For migrating butterflies there is no shortage of dangers. Windshields, predators and exhaustion surely claim thousands each migration. Not all of them intend to make it all the way south. Some lay eggs and it will be that generation that carries on the migration south.

At the St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge on Florida’s panhandle coastline, the last of the Monarchs are gorging themselves on sugar-rich nectar before casting themselves from the shore and heading across the Gulf towards Mexico. There they’ll ride out the winter before heading back north again.

As I take photos and watch the spectacle of Monarchs, Fritillaries and Buckeyes feeding on salt bush and goldenrods, I search for inner calm as hundreds of no-seeums, aka blood sucking midges, feast on me. I’m reminded of the fleas and as much as I’d love to stay, it’s time to go.

Web Slingers

The prevailing sentiment seems to be that the only good spider is a dead spider. With over 40,000 species worldwide, that’s a large group of animals to drop the shoe on. Some people have expressed that it’s ok to have some spiders around but they just don’t want them in their house. Others go so far as to not want any of them anywhere near their home. For many people every spider is misidentified as a life-threatening Black Widow or a Brown Recluse.

The truth is spiders are around us everyday whether we see them or not and most of them serve a vital role in the diversity of habitats in which they are found. While it’s important to protect yourself from the extremely rare danger of a venomous spider bite, it’s also beneficial to offer restraint and tolerance towards those species that are not only harmless to humans but potentially valuable pest predators. Not to mention they come in a wild variety of colors, shapes and sizes and exhibit some amazing behaviors.

The Golden Silk Orbweaver (Nephila clavipes) (top left) is a beautiful species that spins incredible golden webs. They feed on grasshoppers, flies and other flying insects. Hairy “legwarmers” allow them to easily traverse their webs. A stunning, horror movie, skull-like cephalothorax (essentially the head and thorax) with black eye-like spots tricks would be predators into believing the spider can see in every direction.

The Spiny Orbweaver (Gasteracantha cancriformis) (bottom right) with its crab-like carapace, spins a web in gardens and around homes where it feasts on flies, beetles and moths.
While not dangerous, I usually escort the Daring Jumping Spider (Phidippus audax) (bottom left) back outside where it can return to feasting at the lawn buffet and practice its standing long jump. (They can jump over 50x their body length). This one wanted back in.

Even the notorious Brown Recluse (Loxosceles reclusa) (not pictured) eats its fair share of household pests like silverfish and cockroaches, but I wouldn’t put a welcome mat out for it.
Although spiders are unfortunately considered terrifying to most, when they are understood on an individual species basis they can be quite enjoyable to live with and near.

JunglePete turns 40

40 years. Time for a post-mid-life crisis. In the meantime - here's a nice montage put together by my sister of 40 years of birthdays. Some have reported this to be a tear jerker but I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying I don't die in the end of the montage.


Thanks Tiff and everyone who has shared them with me.

The Fly and I

Life is short. Enjoy every moment. Clearly that is what this Common Housefly (Musca domestica) was thinking when it lit upon the radiant, pinkish-purple, rain-kissed Glades Morning Glory (Ipomoea sagittata). Right?

With only 2-4 weeks to enjoy life as a winged adult, there is so much to see and do! There’s the perfect mate to find – oh those compound eyes! Garbage to locate – does this smell rotten to you? Perfect! And 500 maggots to tend to – the sight would be enough to drive a fly to drink – out of the glass at your picnic.

Through multi-faceted lenses in the eye, the subtle gradient from cherry blossom pink to violet, reflected through massive, coalesced water droplets must look magnificent. The tightly spiraled tendrils of the climbing vine must appear dizzying as it twists skyward and out of sight.

Or maybe a fly landed on a perfectly water-dappled flower just as I took the picture and my attempt to shoo it away cast off the liquid decoration, leaving with a lovely photo of a flower with a fly in it.

Either way, I’d like to believe the fly and I enjoyed this ephemeral moment. The Morning Glory unfurled with the rising sun, stayed open all day as it enjoyed a rare, overcast summer day and a typical Florida, late-afternoon rain shower before it withered up and went to seed as morning glories do.

The fly probably flew off and regurgitated on someone’s BBQ before being swatted.

What a day.

Small Bites - The Yellow Rat Snake

You know you’ve done it. You ate the whole thing. And you can’t believe it. Now you’re trying to digest the 32 ounce steak and a double serving of apple pie (with a slice of cheese) along with the side of vanilla ice cream. You couldn’t help yourself. I do it too, from time to time. I get overwhelmed by the notion that I might never eat again so I better eat everything in front of me.

Snakes do not have to eat every day. Some don’t have to eat every year, but when they do they put themselves in a precarious position during digestion. When I came across this 5-foot Yellow Rat Snake (Pantherophis obsoletus) in the Big Cypress National Preserve, it was hard to miss the rat-shaped bulge in its midsection. I could tell it was a male because if it was a female it would have asked “does this rat make me look fat?”

The snake paused. Clearly not blending in. Probably thinking it did. It didn’t even blink. Mostly because snakes don’t have eyelids. Not wanting to disturb the digestive process, I kept my distance while I photographed the constrictor.

I considered what had gone on before. An unsuspecting rodent of some type was seized by the snake, who coiled around its prey and squeezed the life out of it. Once its lunch was dead, the rat snake opened its mouth upwards of 130 degrees and began to systematically swallow the critter whole. Muscles in our esophagus help us get food from mouth to stomach. Snakes don’t have those muscles but instead rely on the movement of the entire body to envelope their prey and get food to where it needs to be for digestion.

 

I then considered what was in store for the rat snake. The rodent was now riding the reptilian roller coaster of digestion and within the next five days will be reduced to nothing but fur. Inside, the snake’s intestine will grow 2-3 times the normal size, allowing for an increased amount of digestive juices to dissolve the food to nutrients. It’s a meal that may hold the snake over for weeks if not months if no other prey is available.

I better go eat dinner now. Must remember to take small bites.

Send in the Clones

I’m a sucker for big trees. For an ecologically young environment, Florida has some big ones. Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) and Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) are the Redwoods of the southeast and the behemoth pictured below is one of the largest Live Oaks in Florida. Located in Lake Griffin State Park in Fruitland Park, FL, the tree stands over 83 feet tall and has a 131 foot crown spread.

The name Live Oak refers to the evergreen appearance of the tree. Each year the oak develops new leaves before shedding old growth, so it lacks the bare look of its northern deciduous cousins. This particular one was once a “Champion Tree” and considered the largest of its kind until others were discovered and displaced it. One of the reasons Live Oaks are successful is their ability to clone themselves. While the Live Oak maintains genetic diversity through cross-pollination and the subsequent dropping of a crop of acorns, they can also spread via clonal roots, also known as root suckering. Underground buds attached to the roots send a genetic copy of the primary tree to the surface and the shoot begins to grow. This can be in response to various forms of damage to the primary tree; clipping, storm damage, insect damage, etc., or it is simply a way for the primary tree to compete with other forms of vegetation growing in the understory.

Live Oaks are capable of enduring hurricanes, tolerant of salt-spray and are relatively disease free – attributes which provide the opportunity to grow for centuries. It’s difficult to tell how old this particular tree is since they won’t let me cut it down and count the annual rings, but park staff suggest it’s anywhere between 250-350 years old.

Measuring the circumference was a bit easier. I had to send in my clones to measure the distance around the base of the tree. Assuming each of my clones stands 5’9” and it took six of us to wrap around the tree, that’s a circumference of 34 feet and nearly 11 feet in diameter. Now if I can just get one of my clones to write my columns for me.

Faker - The Black-necked Stilt

I remember lying flat on my back on the soccer field, staring up at an oval formation of heads. Teammates. Coaches. Refs. And my mom who warned me “you better not be faking it.” I was twelve and apparently prone to such behavior, but in this case I wasn’t. In a spectacular attempt to score a goal, I had torn my ACL. I think about my mom when I see certain birds exhibit “distraction displays” and I always think “FAKER!”

Ground nesting birds such as Black-necked Stilts (Himantopus mexicanus) and Killdeer (Charadrius vociferous) have developed a unique method of protecting their chicks. While many birds would rush back to the nest to cover up their young, Stilts and Killdeer leave the nest when disturbed. They use themselves as bait to draw the attention of the predator and lead them away from the nest. The key to success is their flair for drama. With one wing outstretched, the bird will limp along as if injured or sick. The predator thinks they’ve stumbled upon an easy meal and as they follow the feathered thespian, they are unknowingly lured away from lunch in a nest. Some fakers will sit on the ground and pretend to incubate a fake nest as well. Once the parent feels the predator has been sufficiently duped, they drop the act and take off, leaving the bamboozled hunter hungry.

Stilts have distinctly long, red legs with a higher leg/body ratio than any other bird in North America except the Flamingo. Currently they are winding up their nesting season in south Florida. Some Stilts nest near the shore and just above the hide tide mark, while others nest on mounds in muddy marshes where they have 360 degree views. The excessive amount of winter rain we received in South Florida has left the inland mud flats underwater. You can’t lay an egg if you don’t have a place to nest.

Despite knowing the injury ruse, I can’t help but follow spectacular birds with my camera and snapped these two in flight, only later realizing they had led me away from their chicks. The parents soon returned to this chick, who someday might be a good little faker too. 

I Give Up

Why is Jungle Pete riding the leg of a 26-foot tall aluminium nurse in this photo? Static electricity experiment? Publicity stunt for the Meat Blog? Bad Mexican food? Do you give up?

The statue "Unconditional Surrender" brings dimension to the famous World War II photo of a sailor smooching a nurse in Times Square. The classic impromptu moment captured the thrill of victory as Japan announced their surrender. Subsequent photos reveal the nurse pulling pepper spray from her skirt and spraying the anonymous sailor in the face.

None of this explains my bucking calf ride.

The statue was first unveiled in New York City in 2005 before it came to the shores of Sarasota, Florida. It remained there for the "art season" before the colossal creation was shipped off to San Diego. Residents of my birthplace of Sarasota were so elated that the steel curtain was falling on this 3-D peep show that they brought it back. Sort of.

Yes people hated it. But enough people enjoyed it that a Category 3 hurricane-proof aluminum replica was created as a modern day Colossus for Sarasota Bay. Although the size pales in comparison (the statue of Helios, aka the Colossus of Rhodes was over 4x the size), the cost to the city drew a few more detractors. At $700,000, the price tag to keep the piece of art was more than the community was willing to bear. Case closed. Haters go home happy...until an 88-year old WWII veteran came forward and offered to pay for the statue which will now apparently remain in the city of.... in the city that.... what the hell is Sarasota famous for???

Which brings me back to the original question - Why am I riding the leg? Friends Rebecca and Eric Gordon, who will remain nameless brought MaLe and me here over the weekend to enjoy the spectacle. As we approached, a passenger in a car passing by yelled "that statue sucks". I disagree and to finally answer the question - I'm riding the leg because there wasn't a sign that said I couldn't.