Displaced Bobcat

I’m still caring for my Mom in Florida.  Like all the other condos around here, my Mom’s place is on a retention pond, which is now swollen with rainwater.  We had nearly five inches just yesterday from a tropical system moving through.  Surrounding rivers are flooding, including the nearby Little Manatee River that goes through a natural park area.  Flooding in Florida means wildlife becomes displaced – usually we hear warnings about alligators, snakes, and poisonous toads.

This morning when I looked out lanai sliders, there was a shadowy silhouette under the jasmine hedge that didn’t belong there.   At first I thought it was a piece of palm bark that had fallen into the jasmine, but then I realized I was looking at a cat – and definitely not a house cat.  It was a bobcat, obviously a bit disgruntled, and probably displaced by the nearby flooding.  I managed a couple of photos, but this is the only one that turned out at all, since I had to take them through the patio sliders and the screens of the lanai.  The cat is only inches from the lake, under the only cover available out there.  It had it’s eyes closed, but the thrashing of it’s short tail indicated it was agitated and not a happy camper.

We were able to watch the cat for about 10 minutes before it opened its eyes and looked at us – got up and stalked off across the lawn.  Another horrible photo through the screen, but the best I could manage under the circumstances.

My guess is the cat may hang out on the golf course across the street until the water recedes.  Now, we’re watching for alligators and snakes.

Ho-hum…

Baltimore oriole

Needless to say, not much to report for banding in NJ since the rains have been pouring down for weeks.  Cailin did increase the spring banding species count to 61, but not much else is going on at the moment.

I’ve been catching up on reports and website maintenance, caring for my ailing mom, and enjoying the FLA sunshine.  I’m savoring the moment and keeping in mind that I may very well be in NJ and partially frozen just six months from now, so no complaints here about the heat and humidity. I’m also trying to learn more about all the technical stuff  that should accompany blogging that I’ve never paid much attention to before,  and I’m not sure I’m liking it much.  We’ll see how long that lasts.

Chat

Spring migration is drawing to a close, and Cailin has banded a total of 61 species – five of them new banding records for RRBO, including one of my favorites, a yellow-breasted chat.

yellow-breasted chat

We’ve heard chats on the property in the past, but never caught one. When I was banding in Kentucky, chats were all around the nets and again, never caught one.

Chats like shrubby fields and dense cover, so our study area is actually very good chat habitat.

Whistling Duck

I was sitting out on my Mom’s lanai yesterday morning, enjoying a cup of coffee and talking with her, when an odd, sharp-whistling bird came flying in over the lake to land right in front of us, albeit on the other side of the jasmine hedge.   This was all wrong.  The bird was a duck.  In my mind, ducks are supposed to quack.  Not being an avid duck birder (and willing to admit it) – and having spent the last six months caring for far too many quacking ducks – my first impression of this duck was rather comical.

black-bellied whistling ducks

Of course, I DO know enough about birds to know that it was a whistling duck (imagine that!) and a quick consult of the field guide further identified it as a black-bellied whistling duck – and a handsome creature it was.

This photograph is from the USF&W public domain photos – because getting my own photo of this bird was impossible.  Our visitor was an adult, richly colored and very striking, for a duck.

Even though it was only about 15 feet away, it remained hidden behind the jasmine hedge.  It was eyeing up the neighbor’s corn-bearing squirrel feeder, but never ventured more than two steps in that direction.   There was no mistaking the ID, but there was no photographing it either.  The duck didn’t stay long, but took off with it’s characteristic whistling call after a few moments on the lake bank.  Wrong, just wrong.

Timberdoodle

One of the first birds I learned as a kid was the American woodcock – sadly because my father, uncles and older brothers were hunters, and I would see the dead woodcocks lined up with the pheasants, grouse and rabbits.  Ah well, those days are long gone….

I think I was also drawn to this little bird because of one of its folk  names – timberdoodle.  Who came up with that, I have no idea.  But it does have a certain ring to it.

American woodcock

It was a pleasant surprise to receive an email from Cailin, letting me know that the ‘little star of the day’ at RRBO yesterday was an American woodcock.

This is a new species for banding at RRBO, bringing the total species banded just this spring to 57.

We had one other new species this year – hairy woodpecker.  We used to band quite a few of these at the original RRBO years ago, but haven’t seen any on the grounds for a very long time.  A bit encouraging…

Transitions…

It’s funny how we make plans, lay out what we want to do (and what we don’t want to do) and just when we think we have it all sorted out, it suddenly isn’t anything at all like what you expected.  That’s part of what makes life interesting…

So in the short, more-than-you-need-to-know version, I’ll say that I came to Florida to be near my ageing mom.  I took a job at a seabird sanctuary hospital  and rented a cute little cottage on the beach.

In the last week, my mom’s health has reached a point where she shouldn’t be alone.  My beach cottage is rented out now to someone else, my job at the seabird hospital is over, and I’m staying with my Mom, at least until my sister returns to FLA in July.  Then, we’ll swap out time spent here.

And I’m loving it!  I get to spend time with my Mom (which wasn’t happening with working 50+ hours a week at the hospital).  I get to freelance full-time, work my own hours, and have coffee after 5 pm if I want to because I can also go to bed late and sleep in the morning (so far, hasn’t happened.  Old bird-bander habits die hard).  And – you guessed it – I have time now to blog!  Oh, the sheer joy of it!

And – are you ready?  Yup, I’m heading back to RRBO in time for fall banding.  After that, we’ll see.  I’m thinking I’ll probably join the ranks of the ’snowbirds’ and undertake my own migrations each season.  Life is good.

Banding Again

It amazes me how small the world can seem sometimes, and how much these computers we rely on each day can help reduce the miles.  Banding is underway at RRBO and though I’m not there doing the actual fieldwork  for this migration, the administrative tasks, report-filing, website maintenance and daily communication with the current bander-in-charge, Cailin Fitzpatrick,  makes it seem like I’m there.

Red-winged blackbird

The season started with the usual common winter birds – sparrows, blackbirds,  titmice,  and in Cailin’s own words, “way more black-capped chickadees than necessary.”   Chickadees tend to gather as much net as possible in their feet and weave intricate patterns with it while they bite and hammer at the fingers attempting to quickly and delicately extract them from the net.  But all things considered, fair is fair….

A very nice catch was a sharp-shinned hawk, only the second hawk to be banded at RRBO.   In September of 2006, a migrating broadwinged hawk landed in the nets after he snagged a garter snake on the ground in the net lane.  I wrote about it in this post.

Brewster's warbler

A Brewster’s warbler (cross between a golden-winged and a blue-winged warbler) was among the first migrants. We’ve banded only one golden-winged, though several pass through our primary netting sites each spring.  We’re hoping the habitat there will attract some breeding golden-wingeds in the near future.

Woodpeckers and Wrens

red-bellied woodpecker nestlings

downy woodpecker

Carolina wrens

Not really a bad way to spend the day.  Check out the hairdo on the wrens.  These babies are slightly larger than a lima bean at the moment.  I’ll post more pictures hopefully as they grow.

Perk-Keets

One of the perks of working at a bird rehabilitation center are the opportunities to care for and have the option to adopt some of the ‘exotic’ class species that come through the door.   Technically they aren’t in the center’s rehab program, since it can only deal with wildlife, and technically the birds cannot be released back into the wild, since they ARE exotic species that don’t belong loose in Florida.  SO, staff and volunteers must adopt the babies and take them home.

There are two of us taking care of these parakeet babies.  The youngsters are different ages, and so are different sizes and stages of development.  Parakeets like to hide and huddle together, and the more they can climb on top of each other, the happier they are.

Happily, all of these five babies are eating well from a specially-designed spoon.  We bent a measuring spoon with a pliers to simulate momma’s beak and it’s working great.  The formula is Exact baby bird diet – extremely messy but oh! so yummy!  And NO, I’m not keeping all five!

Just maybe this one…

Pass-a-Grille

I had some time today and decided to go explore Pass-a-Grille, at the south end of this barrier island where I live and only about 8 miles from home.  It didn’t take too long to fall in love with the place. The history of the town says that Europeans first landed at Pass-a-Grille  in 1528 when Spanish Explorer, Panfilo de Narvaez anchored his ship just off Pass-A-Grille pass.  Later, the island became a camp area for fisherman to obtain fresh water and to grill their catch. According to the stories, Pass-A-Grille derives it’s name from the French Passe aux Grilleurs.

I liked it not only because it is located where the intracoastal waterway meets the Gulf of Mexico at the end of this island, but it has also, for the most part, escaped the pseudo-mediterranean mansion invasions that seem to be everywhere else in coastal Florida.  Instead, there are older, weathered, and very quaint beach bungalows and Key West type houses with lots of charm and character.  There’s a small fishing dock and pier where a charter boat was just returning from the morning trip.  Red snappers seemed to be the catch of the day.

The usual collection of pelicans were waiting on the poles.  Fish brought in from these trips are filleted on the dock, and the seabirds quickly learn where and when the boats are coming in.

Fishermen are advised not to throw heads and bones into the water for the waiting birds, but unfortunately, many of them do it anyway.  There’s a great risk to the birds when this happens.  Pelicans and other seabirds are supposed to swallow whole fish, not a skeleton.  Exposed fish bones turn into spears that can puncture internal organs.  It’s like feeding the bird a handful of needles.

Pelicans aren’t particularly bright, but they aren’t stupid either.  Notice the left leg of the peli above.  It has a band on its leg, as does the one in this photo.  That means both of these birds were former patients in the seabird hospital where I work, and were admitted in the past for some type of injury or illness.  Chances are we’ll be seeing some of these again, as they apparently have not learned their lessons about what happens when you hang around fishing piers and boats.  I guess that’s why we call some of them “pier rats.”