Sappy Holidays - The Brazilian Pepper

As a child growing up in South Florida I had the good fortune of living on a 10-acre rural sanctuary for primates operated by my parents. The property was covered with native Slash Pines (Pinus elliotti), Cabbage Palms (Sabal palmetto) and Live Oaks (Quercus virginiana) but was persistently threatened by the noxious weed of a tree known as Brazilian Pepper (Schinus terebinthifolis). As a human primate I had far more freedoms than the other inhabitants and like a modern day Jungle Boy I would often take to the trees and explore. There were times when the property had become so overgrown with what some call “Florida Holly” that I could ascend into the canopy of the pepper trees and climb from tree to tree for several hundred feet.

The problem for a kid is you end up with ripped up jeans and sticky sap all over you, as well as the possibility of a poison ivy-like rash. The problem for the ecosystem is that the highly invasive tree has spread throughout South Florida, establishing dense monocultures where little else grows.

Brazilian Pepper was introduced to Florida sometime in the mid-1800s as an ornamental. It grows natively in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. In Florida it flowers from September through November and by December has fire engine red berries that express a festive spirit around the holiday season, when Florida’s native hollies had already lost there rosy red fruit. Certainly the intent upon introduction was not malicious, but 160 years later the tree is so pervasive that we could easily deck the halls with boughs of pepper if only it were legal to transport it.

Fortunately the tree is not cold tolerant. Unfortunately it produces an abundance of berries that are perfect holiday snacks for birds and mammals that digest them and poop them elsewhere with homemade fertilizer.

Every year at this time, the sight of the bright evergreen leaves and candy cane red pepper berries brings me back to my days on the sanctuary, either climbing in the trees or hacking them down with machete or chainsaw.

I learned long ago that wherever I am for the holidays, I am perfectly content to celebrate it by enjoying it with native style and tradition. This year I’ll be enjoying the sun, the sand and berryless hollies. Happy Holidays.  

The Graffiti Artists - The Double-crested Cormorant

There is no shortage of disparaging labels cast upon the Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus). The heavy-bodied, diving piscivore has been called a nuisance, a villain, a monster and a fish terrorist, mostly by fishermen and mostly undeserved. I call them nature’s graffiti artists. Their roost is their canvas. Their feces and cloaca is their paint and paintbrush.

The name cormorant comes from the Latin “corvus” and “marinus” or Raven of the Sea. Considering the large congregations of birds that roost together, the fish-eating cormorant is seen as a threat to anglers and the fish they seek. While studies have shown that this threat is often exaggerated, cormorants can have an impact on the vegetation they roost upon as well as the other species that might inhabit the same trees (and usually lower than the canopy-loving cormorants).

Over the last few decades, the cormorant population in North America has dramatically increased, a heralded consequence of the ban of the harmful pesticide DDT. Like most fish-eating birds, cormorants suffered the effects of the chemical that bioaccumulated through the food chain and resulted in their inability to lay eggs with sufficiently calcified shells. Cormorants, eagles, osprey, pelicans and others would attempt to incubate their eggs and crush them instead. 

Here in South Florida I have seen a colony of 40-50 cormorants routinely roosting in the same Pond Apple (Annona glabra) trees and over time, the acidic feces they leave behind has defoliated the trees. The herons and egrets that might have nested here are forced to find a more suitable location.

In the 10,000 islands of the Everglades National Park, the cormorants, with hooked beak held high, sit upon the channel markers and leave the tell tale white washing upon the signs, inadvertent artistry that remains on display when the cormorants fly off and then swim for a meal.

Call them vandals of vegetation if you must but I prefer to look at the droppings left behind as a clue as to who was here when the bird is not.