100 Dead Squirrels

In 1986, I learned as a teenager never to exaggerate anything that can be proven to be untrue. After our home in Venice, Florida escaped the passing of a tropical storm, I investigated the wind and rain damage and infamously reported discovering “100 dead squirrels”. My family was full of fact checkers and when I couldn’t turn up one live squirrel, they decided to torment me for the rest of my life. From that day forward every outlandish statement anyone made was met with “yeah right. And there are 100 dead squirrels.”

When my friend and wildlife scout Milla texted me that she had found 500 Sandhill Cranes in a field in Ortona, FL, I told her to stop licking Cane Toads. She sent a picture and a set of coordinates and offered me the task of checking it out myself.

Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) range throughout North America but the Florida Sandhill Crane (G.c. pratensis), which is non-migratory, is considered an endangered subspecies, numbering about 4000 birds. The thin, four foot tall, grayish-brown birds with red caps are not differentiated by physical appearance, but by their migratory behaviors. The northern subspecies arrive in the Sunshine State around October and leave around March, while the Florida subspecies enjoy the rays year round.

Urban development of the prairies and pasturelands of central Florida has led to the decline of the Florida subspecies. On the bright side, the unusually rainy winter of 2010 promises to be a boon for the birds as nest success increases in wet winters.

Although I have seen pairs of Florida Sandhills from time to time, the massive flock of birds that I spotted in the sod farm near Ortona was most certainly a flock of northern “snowbirds”. These sandhills were probably feasting on insects, worms and to the chagrin of the sod farmers, grass seed.

Fake Rubber Snake

I was wrong. I can admit it. Normally I would say “I don’t know what that is.” but in this case I was quite sure that the Wood Stork (Mycteria americana) that had landed near me during my alligator presentation at Lake Trafford, FL, was eating a snake. I don’t mind being shown up so I placed the juvenile American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) back in its exhibit and directed all eyes to the four-foot tall wading bird wrestling with a two foot long “snake” at stage right.

With cameras snapping pictures of the spectacle, I explained that Wood Storks are tactile feeders who wade in the shallows, swinging their sturdy beak through the water and feeling for fish, crabs, frogs, baby gators and other critters to gobble up. I noted the rarity of a Wood Stork feasting on a snake as I too focused my camera lens on the impromptu natural theater.

When a second Wood Stork dropped in to “share” the bounty, the first Wood Stork displayed a bit of justifiable avarice and took off with its catch to devour it in solitude.

When I returned home I uploaded my photos to my computer and was embarrassed when I realized that the Wood Stork appeared to be eating a fake rubber snake. It was slick and pliable, but I could see no scales or pattern in the photo whatsoever. And then it hit me – it was an Amphiuma! I had never seen one in person, but it was clear now that the Wood Stork had captured a rarely seen Two-toed Amphiuma (Amphiuma means) during its foraging.

Two-toed Amphiumas are slippery, long-bodied creatures found throughout the southeasternUnited States. On land they are often confused for snakes and in the water mistaken for eels, when in fact they are toothed amphibians that can inflict a nasty bite.

They can reach nearly 30 inches in length and have two useless anterior limbs that have, as their name suggests, two-toes on each. Amphiumas are nocturnal predators that can be found in ponds, marshes, canals, ditches and slow moving streams. They spend the sunlight hours burrowed in mud, hidden in crayfish holes or generally tucked away from probing beaks and prying paws.

This Amphiuma was not so lucky, and thanks to a hungry Wood Stork, was a rare sighting for an excited group who might never see such an unusual creature again.