Birding Progress Update.

Barred owl. I haven't got one of these for my list this year yet but, in the
past, they have been easy to find. I should have one shortly.

I recently published the following list under the photo of the week at my homepage. However, I had commented that I was going to try to make it to 110 species before leaving Florida. The good news is, I did. The better news is, I actually made it to 111 with the fabulous additions of great horned owl, summer tanager, and chuck-wills-widow. The great horned owl was heard during our canoe trip down the Blackwater River, but I couldn't include it in the list until I was certain that was what I heard. After learning that the only two other owls known in the park were the screech and barred, I knew it could be neither of these. It must have been a great horned by process of elimination. Two of the other people with me on the trip, including an experience outdoorsman, confirmed my conclusion.
Now today is the 15th and I've been spotting a few more species. Here is the updated list.

January 1st
1. Chestnut-backed chickadee
2. Varied thrush
3. Dark-eyed junco
4. Northwestern crow
5. Glaucous-winged gull
6. Trumpeter swan
7. Bald eagle
8. Northern flicker
9. Spotted towhee
10. Song sparrow

January 2nd
11. Red-breasted nuthatch
12. Fox sparrow

January 3rd
13. Downy woodpecker
14. Pileated woodpecker
15. Common raven
16. Pacific wren
17. Golden-crowned kinglet
18. Hermit thrush
19. American robin

January 4th
20. Canada goose
21. American wigeon
22. Mallard
23. Harlequin duck
24. Surf scoter
25. Bufflehead
26. Common goldeneye
27. Common merganser
28. Common loon
29. Great blue heron
30. Hairy woodpecker
31. Eurasian collared-dove

January 5th
32. European starling
33. House sparrow
34. Northern pintail
35. Green-winged teal
36. Black-bellied plover
37. Killdeer
38. Sanderling

January 7th
39. Steller's jay

January 12th
40. Black turnstone
41. Eared grebe
42. Double-crested cormorant
43. Pelagic cormorant
44. Dunlin
45. Black oystercatcher

January 16th
46. Bewick's wren
47. White-winged scoter

January 17th
48. Red-tailed hawk
49. Rock pigeon

January 18th
50. Ring-billed gull

January 19th
51. Northern mockingbird

January 20th
52. Mourning dove
53. Red-bellied woodpecker
54. Blue jay
55. Pine warbler
56. Yellow-rumped warbler
57. Yellow-throated warbler

January 25th
58. Brown-headed nuthatch
59. Eastern bluebird
60. Palm warbler
61. Eastern towhee
62. Northern cardinal
63. Red-winged blackbird

January 27th
64. Pine siskin
65. American goldfinch

February 1st
66. Turkey vulture
67. Belted kingfisher

February 5th
68. House finch

February 8th
69. Redhead
70. Red-breasted merganser
71. American white pelican
72. Brown pelican
73. Great egret
74. Osprey
75. Willet
76. Ruddy turnstone
77. Laughing gull
78. Herring gull
79. Forster's tern
80. Loggerhead shrike
81. Savannah sparrow

February 15th
82. Red-shouldered hawk

February 26th
83. Cedar waxwing

March 11th
84. American crow

March 12th
85. Bonaparte's gull

March 15th
86. Fish crow
87. Ruby-crowned kinglet

April 5th
88. Least bittern
89. American coot
90. White-winged dove
91. Yellow-billed cuckoo
92. Ruby-throated hummingbird
93. Eastern kingbird
94. Gray catbird
95. Prairie warbler
96. Bachman's sparrow

April 10th
97. Clapper rail

April 12th
98. Common grackle
99. Brown-headed cowbird
100. Green heron

April 25th
101. Common nighthawk

May 3rd
102. Brown thrasher
103. Bay-breasted warbler
104. Scarlet tanager

May 8th
105. Black vulture
106. Spotted sandpiper
107. Great horned owl
108. Cliff swallow
109. Carolina Chickadee

May 9th

110. Summer Tanager

May 10th

111. Chuck-wills-widow

May 14th

112. Wood duck

113. Band-tailed pigeon

114. Rufous hummingbird

May 15th

115. Black-throated gray warbler

PHOTO OF THE WEEK: Banana Spider

I thought that if I dedicated a post to a butterfly (everybody loves butterflies) than I had better dedicate a post to a spider (not many people like spiders). This gall (elegantly named Nephila clavipes) is the perfect candidate for one very obvious reason; she is drop-dead gorgeous. And besides all that, she is nearly the breadth of may hand from leg tip to leg tip, hence the name of banana spider. She has a number of other common names, but I like to call her Nephila. I know it's a she because the males are all little tiny blokes. Interestingly, the genus Nephila has been found as fossils which have been dated to about 165 million years ago. Living fossils like that are a challenge to Neo-Darwinianism. That species (N. jurassica) had a leg span of 15 centimetres (6 inches) and is the largest definitive spider fossil. The web of this spider is also of interest. The silk is so strong and beautifully gold (hence the common name of golden silk orb-weaver) that people sometimes try to make clothing out of it. This individual was photographed on September 21 of this year at Blackwater River State Park in the panhandle of Florida. Anyways, I hope this girl helps you appreciate the beauty of some of the other members of creation who might not seem as loveable at first glance.

Return to Blackwater River State Park

Here is the sort of cypress swamp that I was wading through earlier this spring. Only the weather wasn't as nice.

It takes a sharp eye to make out a turtle hatchling like this,
so far from the water. Not expected. Very surprising. Even
more surprising that I spotted it at all.

As I mentioned in my previous post, my favourite spots at West Campus, my usual weekend destination, was destroyed by a mob of excavators and bobcats. Thus, I started making regular trips out to Blackwater River State Park. When I got back to the park this second time, the weather was perfect. Insects buzzed and people played; birds bounced around the branches of magnolia and pine. After a long hike, we even cooled off in the river a little bit (though it was still quite cold). Sliders of all sizes were out basking on logs and a menagerie of other cold-blooded creatures where spotted and captured. Here are a few of the highlights.
When stalking through the forests, it often takes me a few minutes to "tune in," if you will. I'm usually not at optimum levels until after at least an hour. Then I start seeing things that I would normally never have noticed. A leaf moves on the ground on a windy day and turning it reveals a ground skink. The rustling grass at my feat rustles in a way that disturbs the music and I know someone else is down there. A rodent or snake, perhaps. It's almost sixth-sensish. My peripheral vision becomes exceptionally clear as well. On this hike, my eyes scan back and forth across the cypress swamp, focussing in on logs, stumps or any other protrusion from the waters surface. Ripples reveal a fish turning just under the surface. A soft point reveals the nose of slider spying on me from the rushes. As my field of vision moves toward a slanted trunk, my eyes clamp onto a small lump a couple feet from the water. It's too far away for my eyes to decide exactly what it is, but the lens of my camera does better. It's a juvenile cooter.
Meanwhile, my friend Dakota has begun his own visual search of the pond. He said something, but I was clicking away on my shudder and missed it. Then I caught a key word: snake. "Water snake," he said. I'd never caught one of those (though I've come awful close) and wanted to really bad. My heart skipped a beat as I aimed my zoom lens at the bush he was pointing at. "That's not a water snake," I said, just a little disappointed, "I think it's a cottonmouth." It was after all. That being the case, I wouldn't going to disturb his quiet ambush position over the pond. I've caught lots of cottonmouths before.

This young cottonmouth snake is hiding in a snag above a pond. I'd nickname Dakota "Eagle-eyes" if the title didn't belong to someone else I hunt snakes with already. It's a wonder he spied it. Even after he pointed it out to me I could hardly make it out.

Here is the fence lizard before I tried
catching her. Gorgeous, eh?

Notice the pale blue spot on the
throat characteristic of this genera.

Besides cotton mouths and cooters, Dakota also spotted a fence lizard. From his initial call, it took quite time before I caught the little rascal. My brother and I were crawling and scrambling up and down the river bank grabbing at the frightened little lizard. When I finally had it in hand, both of our hearts were racing. I took as many pictures as I liked to and passed it to some of my friends so they could feel her little beating heart. People find it easier to love something that they can touch and hold. She was released into the shade of the tree that I had caught her under. Always release an animal right where you found it.
I enjoy breaking from the main group and poking around an area alone for a while. In one of my frequent diversions, I spotted a large frog under the board walk. He was sitting in the shade on the bank in a shallow depression. He seemed aware of my presence but had a secret hope that I hadn't noticed him. I approached carefully and was able to successfully swing my net overtop of the ranid and pull him into the open. Once in hand, I called the others over and had my friend Jonathan take some photos of me with my catch. At the time I thought it must be a bullfrog but, after getting back to my dorm room I decided it must be a river frog instead. The mottled groin (area just in front of the leg on the side of a frog) seemed characteristic.

West Campus

Here are a couple shots from the pitcher plant bog at West Campus. To summarize the events that happened on this trip (and the one before), I will paste an email I sent to a friend of mine:

This is a white top pitcher plant. The colours of this
specimen are far more vibrant than the colours of the
specimen in the last post. I took it as a hint that the
Florida spring is finally underway.

"I am pleased to announce that I have found the elusive pitcher-plant! Twice, at that! The first time was in Blackwater River State Park (that was our starting point at least). After wading up to my waist through a flooded cypress swamp and watching one of my friends fall into the river while another flailed, screaming like a girl, from a large spider on the water, we found the precious plant for the first time. It wasn't really in the park that I found the pitcher-plant bog, though. It was a few miles down a game trail into the state forest. While there I experienced nearly every kind of habitat known in these parts, but I resolved to find a more accessible pitcher-plant bog nearer to home. That was last weekend.

A fresh fern frond pokes out from
the bog. Spring will come to this
part of West Campus.

This weekend, I had made plans to make it to West Campus, and I brought along one of the noblest companions a budding biologist could hope for, Tim Gurke. While I didn't know it at the time, he would prove to be the driving force that kept me from giving up hope. We were about to make two very important discoveries and one of them, alas, would change my life forever. When we first arrived at West Campus, I have to admit, pitcher-plants were not foremost on my mind. Cottonmouths were. We immediately moved for the ponds, the best and richest place for wildlife, when we made our first important discovery. All the places that were dear to my heart were gone. A bobcat and an excavator stood in their place. The shady paths around the rim of the ponds where I found my first cottonmouths, the little meadow where I found my first box turtles, the quaint grassy places where I found my first glass lizards; all was replaced by wood chips and churned soil. In despair, I resolved to go back but Tim, that intrepid soul, encouraged my heart and we moved on. We followed the fence up to its first edge and found that that path was flooded. All this water, being a good sign that the bog was near by, was encouraging so we veered off the path into the forest (for the bulldozers hadn't made it that far back). It wasn't more than fifteen minutes before I stumbled upon our first pitcher-plant. We took plenty of pictures and Tim took a specimen in the hopes of presenting it to you (and perhaps National Geographic). It took us some time to get back to the road. The bog became more of a dark, shaded cypress swamp the deeper we trod and the vicious thorny vines gored our legs and arms. Yet, though the blood flowed, Tim kept his pitcher-plant at his side. He displayed loyalty to the cause that would have put the best dog to shame. But, despite his best efforts, tragedy would strike. When we finally broke out onto the path (and the tics had been picked from our scalp and legs) fortune had shattered our hopes, and the coveted plant was gone, lost somewhere among the cycads. Thus, we bemoaned our failure and wondered how we could ever convince National Geographic of our story now. Then it struck me. We still had our photographs! And so these, at least, we can still give to you. Tim will forever be remembered for his bravery and heroism, however short of his goal he came in the end.

Unfortunately, I don't have many of my friends left at West Campus, and I have been making many new ones in Blackwater River State Park (there's a gorgeous watersnake that lives there), so I wont be going to West Campus much anymore."