Leucophaeus atricilla, or dusky-white black-tail. Wearing eclipse plumage for winter, by next March most adults will be sporting a sleek black hood and red beak. Gotta look sharp for the breeding season! By September they are back to winter feathers.
2022-09-15 New Smyrna Beach, FL
Dendrocygna autumnalis, from Greek for autumn tree swan. Not your usual sort of duck: tropical, arboreal, nocturnal, monogamous. They look like geese and sound like songbirds. I saw a number of them hanging out in swampy grasslands during the day so not strongly arboreal or nocturnal. I'm sad I didn't hear them singing.
2022-09-14 Orlando Wetlands Park, Christmas, FL
Eying a tiny crab in the morning sun. Equally adept at foraging by eye or by touch, brooding females will forage during the night while the males tend to the nest. Street lights can be an attractive nuisance, bringing foraging night birds into urban areas where the food is lower quality and predators more numerous.
2022-09-16 Smyrna Dunes Park, New Smyrna Beach, FL
Unlike the female his head is mostly black, though in spring he will don bright blue-green eye-liner to impress the ladies. He will stay mostly submerged while he is in the water so you can't see the white on his wings. The neutral buoyancy allows for very slow swimming so that he can stalk prey, avoiding the rapid burst-and-glide motion of the cormorant.[1] DOI:10.1242/jeb.01856
2022-09-14 Orlando Wetlands Park, Christmas, FL
… or juvenile. Playing "airplane", she was striking various poses in the breeze. Unlike most birds her feathers don't interlock to trap air, which allows her to float with only her head above water; her cousins the cormorants need to actively paddle to stay submerged. This trick has a cost, though. With the water right next to her skin she cannot maintain her body heat and must bask in the sun after a swim. The pied-billed grebe does one better, using a swim bladder for buoyancy, emptying air sacs to sink effortlessly.
2022-09-14 Orlando Wetlands Park, Christmas, FL
Stretching its wings while watching raindrops splash into the ocean, it is taking a bit of a break from foraging. Like other members of the ibis family, it swirls its beak in the mud and snaps up anything that moves. This includes crustaceans, whose antioxidant beta-carotenoid astaxanthin protects the feathers and gives them a lovely pink hue. DOI:10.1038/175942a0
2022-09-17 Chokoloskee, FL
Perching for the evening with the mixed flock of ibises, herons, cormorants and gulls. They are active feeders, with more running and flapping and less standing and waiting than most of the heron family. Lots of strikes makes them pretty successful even though they miss often. Snowy egrets are more successful (#478) DOI:10.2307/1520962
2022-09-17 Chokoloskee Bay, Everglade City, FL
Plegadis falcinellus (literally "sickle sickle" from Greek+Latin). This is a cosmopolitan species which arrived in the new world in the 1800s and expanded its range in waves ever since. The recent expansion into the southwest may be driven by the creation of "wetland habitats", which is to say, sewage ponds and golf courses. Given that they can fly across the Atlantic it's surprising that colonization didn't happen sooner (birds banded in Spain have been found in the Caribbean---things you can learn when you band 15000 chicks). Meanwhile, populations have declined in its traditional breeding range in eastern Europe and winter range in the Sahal.
2022-09-14 Orlando Wetlands Park, Christmas, FL
[1] Patten, M. A., and G. W. Lasley. "Range expansion of the Glossy ibis in North America." North American birds 54.3 (2000): 241-247.
[2] DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082983
... brown pelicans and a half-dozen cormorants roosting for the night. Clearly they are social birds, with up to 100,000 pairs in a colony. Even during the day large groups will forage together, wading through the wetlands. Along with their adaptation to urban environments, this makes them an excellent reservoir for the flu and other diseases. [DOI:10.7589/2019-05-136]
2022-09-17 Chokoloskee Bay, Chokoloskee, FL
A pair of white ibises eating bugs in the grass. Not that you can tell from their colour. Like many species young ibises are mottley brown. They've adapted to urban living, surviving off garbage when water levels are too low to support fishing ("urban foraging"). DOI:10.1111/j.1474-919X.2011.01101.x
2022-09-16 Indian River Lagoon Park, New Smyrna Beach, FL
One more spider to close out Halloween. The decorative silk is interesting. Called stabilimenta since it was originally thought to strengthen the web, but it may also serve as a warning to prevent web destruction, as camouflage, as a "sun shield" for cooling, or as a UV reflection signal to attract insects.[1] The evidence is mixed, but I can attest to the warning function: the web stayed intact because I didn't walk into it.
2022-09-12 St. Francis Trail, Ocala National Forest, DeLand, FL
[1] Phangurha, Josh. Construction of the orb web in constant and changing abiotic conditions. Diss. University of Bristol, 2019.
A large (body 24-40mm female; 6mm male)[1] and colourful spider for Halloween. Their webs are a couple of meters across with a tough sticky silk that is hard to get off (sorry!). They have been known to trap the occasional song bird[2] but that's not their intended prey.
2022-09-12 St. Francis Trail, Ocala National Forest, DeLand, FL
[1] https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/golden_silk_spider.html
[2] Zenzal Jr, Theodore J., et al. "A Tennessee Warbler (Leiothlypis peregrina) captured in the web of a golden silk orb-weaver (Trichonephila clavipes)." The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 132.2 (2020): 456-459.
Often called a crab spider but I prefer the name jewel spider. Her shell comes in bright white, yellow and red (males are dull brown and have no spikes; they also don't live very long, dying within 6 days of sex). She's a tiny thing with an enormous web marked with patterns of white tufts. Between the bright markings and the web highlights she clearly wants to be seen, but the literature is inconsistent about why.
2022-09-15 New Smyrna Beach, FL
"Halloween" because of the orange/black theme. "Pennant" because he likes to sit on a high perch to survey the domain. Although not territorial, the bigger guys do seem to get the "better" perches (higher, closer to the water, more visible to birds). DOI:10.1155/2016/9028105
2022-08-27 Gunner's Lake Local Park, Gaithersburg, MD
Standing in the grass and looking stuck I thought maybe it was caught in a trap. Instead it was the trap, holding down a frog and calling out to its mate.(?) It later flew to a nearby perch so I could see its prey. The identification AI got very confused, thinking that a frog hanging from a branch was some strange kind of bird. In the current generation of programs context is everything
2022-09-14 Orlando Wetlands Park, Christmas, FL
Returning home from a successful fishing trip. [Zoom in to see the fish.]
2022-09-14 Orlando Wetlands Park, Christmas, FL
Playing in the surf on a warm Florida evening. It is an active hunter, running and jumping through the waves. In still waters it will dip its beak in and vibrate, making ripples like a trapped insect, to catch any curious mosquito fish hoping to score its own meal.
2022-09-15 New Smyrna Beach, FL
Back in black, it's curious how the chicks look more like the parents than the juveniles. They can't fly but according to wikipedia they will piggy-back on a parent if they need to make an escape. No idea how you get a half dozen chicks to safety like this.
2022-09-13 Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville, FL
With brown feathers and no frontal shield you might think this is a new species, but no, it's a juvenile. Genetic evidence indicates that the shield evolved four separate times[1] so it must be beneficial (protecting the face while walking through the reeds?) but then why don't the juveniles have it? Of course once a trait is there it is used for mate selection. The biggest and the reddest have the most testosterone.[2]
2022-09-13 Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville, FL
[1] DOI:10.1016/j.ympev.2014.09.008
[2] DOI:10.1006/hbeh.1999.1569
Emphasis on the "common" at least in Florida in September. There are some stragglers coming down from Minnesota and New Brunswick as late as November. 0.06% of all observations on eBird are from Maine. Next April they head back north, as shown by "migrant tower kills": On cloudy nights with no stars to guide them birds fly toward the warm, steady, glow of the lights on communication towers, circling them like moths until they get tangled in the guy wires. 6.8 M deaths per year across all birds by one estimate. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0034025
2022-09-13 Blackpoint Wildlife Drive, Merritt Island NWR, Titusville, FL
A convenient perch for monitoring the sea. Too bad it can't hand out speeding tickets. Boat strikes are the leading cause of death for Florida manatees. They are sitting low in the water so they can't see, and the Lloyd mirror effect attenuates low frequency sounds so much that they can't hear. The result is that 96% of adults show propeller scars, with 25% showing 10+ hits. Outfitting boats with high pitched underwater directional beacons might help. DOI:10.3354/esr01075
2022-09-17 Chokoloskee Bay, FL
At 400 kg you need a lot of lettuce to keep one of these fed. 45 kg per day of romaine, plus monkey chow biscuits, carrots and assorted aquatic plants as treats. With time and training you can do a complete hearing sensitivity test showing about 20 dB above shallow water background between 400 Hz and 16 kHz. Below 400 Hz sounds are more "felt" than "heard". DOI:10.1121/1.424681
2022-09-13 Manatee Observation Deck, Mims, FL
No, not a simple black-white colour substitution from #471. This is an unrelated moth native to eastern North America (MN to ME) and south to Columbia and Venezuela. Bright colours, so poisonous, in this case using alkaloids from rattlebox plants (Crotalaria spp) collected as caterpillars. Males will transfer some to females during mating along with a nutrient packet as a nuptial gift, supplementing the females own alkaloids for self defense and for adding to the egg: Sexually transmitted chemical defense. DOI:10.1073/pnas.96.10.5570
2022-09-13 Scrub Ridge Trail, Merritt Is NWR, Titusville, FL
A south Florida species where it uses paradise trees (Simarouba spp) as its host, it has spread north with the introduction of the tree of heaven from northern China (Ailanthus altissima; same family, different genus). Tree of heaven conducts chemical warfare, killing nearby native trees and many native insects that might limit it. There are options for biocontrol (for example, the spotted lanternfly) but many of these are known invasives in their own right. DOI:10.1080/09583150500531909
2022-09-10 Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Woodbridge, VA
Unlike the brush-footed butterflies you can see all six legs on this skipper. You also get a clear view of his proboscis sipping nectar from a yellow milkwort flower (from Middle English milk+plant when they believed milkwort improved dairy production).
2022-09-13 Scrub Ridge Trail, Merritt Is NWR, Titusville, FL
An early season migrant stopping at the DQ for a snack. This tiny plot of wild land too small for a house had a half dozen butterfly species fluttering about along with numerous other insects (my legs can attest that mosquitos were present). At butterfly speeds it takes a couple of weeks to fly from Massachusetts or Missouri to south Florida where they can safely overwinter. This is not a random walk to somewhere warm; it is the purposeful flight of hundreds of millions maintaining a straight course despite obstacles while compensating for crosswinds, likely using the sun as a compass.
2022-09-11 DQ parking lot, Darien, GA
[1] Walker, Thomas J. "Butterfly migration in the boundary layer." Migration: Mechanisms and adaptive significance (1985): 704-723.
You can tell it is not a black swallowtail by the "blue comet" replacing one of the orange spots. Also its final orange spot is solid with no black center. The recent black (#466) doesn't show this either, having lost the bottom of its wing. Maybe it caught it on a thorn while dining on a thistle. Hate it when that happens…
2022-09-11 DQ parking lot, Darien, GA
A lucky butterfly sipping from one of its favourite nectar plants, the bristle thistle (Cirsium horridulum). Over 80% of butterflies have some sort of damage to the wing. In this case it is symmetric, so presumably a bird took a chunk out of it while it was perching with wings closed. It'll still be able to fly (one was reported to be flying with 80% of its wing surface missing), but it'll have to burn a few more calories to flap a little faster. The paper is a tour de force, with 16,901 butterflies captured, measured, and released and recorded. DOI:10.1111/1365-2656.13139
2022-09-14 Orlando Wetlands Park, Christmas, FL
Butterflies have different behaviour depending on body temperature. Rawlins[1] measured this using itty-bitty thermocouples implanted in each butterfly. After cooling a group of males over ice (butterflies can survive -5C without ill effects) he let them warm naturally, gently tossing them into the air by their wing tips and recording their behaviour. At 14C to 21C they could start to crawl and move their wings. At 24C they could glide around. By 28C full flight was restored. As it gets hotter they need increasing humidity to keep their wings from drying out. They don't have active cooling, so their thorax stays about 10C above ambient temperature as it gets hotter. They do, however, practice active heating, and can maintain a body temperature that allows flight (about 29C) using perch location, posture and movement even as the air temperature drops to 14C.
2022-09-14 Orlando Wetlands Park, Christmas, FL
[1] Rawlins, J.E., 1980. Thermoregulation by the black swallowtail butterfly, Papilio polyxenes. Ecology, 61(2), pp.345-357.