I have not been able to do much nature scouting the last few days. The weather has been bad in general, although its interesting to watch how fast conditions can change. There is often complete blackness as a cloud passes over, and then unrelenting light and heat as the sun becomes exposed. Raining in one spot, and dry just a few feet away. Heavy rain at one point of the day, and completely beautiful just minutes later.
The other major obstacle to my documentation of nature is the demise of my digital camera after less than a year of use. So I have just been relaxing and looking out at the little inlet of water that runs past my aunt's back porch.
Circling turkey vultures and hungry sea gulls are in abundance here, but every once in a while something more interesting flies by or stays a minute to greet us.
Its very funny, while I am writing this a belted kingfisher just perched on a wooden pole that supports my aunt's boat dock. It is a really beautiful individual, with a rich gray-blue head, upper breast and back, and a pale white lower breast. There is also a thin white stripe (collar) which runs across the entire neck. This bird is perched low, so they must have very short legs. There are small white spots in front of the eyes. This individual is clearly a male, since females have an additional maroon band that runs across the belly. Apparently, this is one of the rare cases in North America that a female bird is more decorated than the male. This species is easily identified by the rattling call it gives while flying. They can hover on rapidly beating wings before finally diving head-first into the water to catch prey. These birds nest in a tunnel made in the sand or river bank. I have often seen them conspicuously perched along rivers or dock poles scoping out food sources.
This morning my mother spotted a little blue heron (Egretta caerulea) searching for food under the dock. I am getting to know this bird better, and this one looked like a classical little blue. But I thought I saw pale yellow legs, even though the legs are described as dark in the field guide. The bill was gray at the base but turned black toward the tip. This individual is an adult since the immatures are white.
The last few days it has become clear that there is a green iguana inhabitanting the little patch of mangrove next to the dock. I did snap a not-so-great picture, but I cannot get it off of my crippled camera as of now. This species (Iguana iguana) is rapidly becoming a major pest in south Florida. It eats a lot of vegetation in residential areas as well as some endangered plants in the wild. They've also been seen using the burrows of the Florida Burrowing Owl, which is threatened. There are probably hundreds of thousands individuals (or even more) of this species in south Florida. It likely invaded through several different routes including hurricanes, pet release/escape, and accidental transport on ships.
But, the most interesting thing I have seen while lounging on the back porch is what I am pretty sure was an American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) perched on the very top of a sailboat. This bird is difficult to describe because it has a complex color pattern, particularly on the head, and I only had a frontal view. The upper breast is pale brown and the lower breast is white with black spots. The head has a series of stripes or blotches along the horizontal axis that are black, brown, or white. The top of the head appeared to be a dark gray cap. The wings seemed to be dark like the head, which is indicative of the male (the female is completely rufous on back and tail). The bird was very small, indeed the size of a jay as described in the Peterson field guide.
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I just discovered that the residential island that my aunt lives on is crawling with warblers. I was playing basketball and I saw them flitting about atop the fence which surrounds the court. So, what did I see?
Bird #1: Small bird, brilliant yellow color with deeply contrasting black streaks along the head and side of the body. One of these black streaks appeared to run horizontally right through the eye. The back was a drab greenish yellow and it was white underneath the tail feathers. This almost certainly seems to be a prairie warbler (Dendroica discolor). I did not see any chestnut markings on the back, which are usually visible in the male. This bird doesn’t fit the description of the other yellow warbler species with black streaks. Others like the magnolia, canada, yellow-rumped, etc. don’t have the multiple black stripes on the head as does the prairie. I was able to get extraordinarily close to this bird, which is very unusual; maybe she was a basketball fan.
Birds #2: Small bird with rich maroon cap and white breast with big yellow blotch at the throat. The back was dark. The throat/cap combination suggests it is probably a female Palm warbler (Dendroica palmarum) of the “western race.”
Bird #3: Small bird with medium pale gray breast streaked with darker gray/brown. There was also barely visible pale yellow coloration in blotches across the breast. This bird was bobbing its tail like crazy and had yellow undertail coverts. Looking at the “confusing fall warblers” page of the Peterson guide this individual clearly seems to be a winter form of the Palm warbler, and this is confirmed by the flicking of the tail which is prominent in both palm and prairies.
Bird #4: A very small bird that I did not get a good look at. It was basically comprised of two colors, blue-gray on the back and wings, and white underneath. The only thing I can think of is a blue-gray gnatcatcer (Polioptila caerulea).
-Scott
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