With the Wild Things

The White Ibis is a year-round resident of south Florida, but its population swells with winter migrants and shifts locations with availability of food in grasslands or shallow wetlands. While we think of it as a wetland bird, the White Ibis is also a grassland bird that is regularly seen along highways and even in our yards -- where it feeds on a diversity of insects and other small creatures. This ibis is a social bird, often seen foraging in small to large groups that are typically composed of birds of the same plumage – adults that are white, or juveniles that are gray-brown above and white below with a streaked neck. Adults and juveniles may be in the same group for a while, but a bird that is of a different color than others in the group makes it more vulnerable to a predator.

In 1996 the Florida State legislature passed a bill declaring the Zebra Longwing as Florida’s State Butterfly. This might be a good choice for the designation because nowhere is this species more common than in Florida. It is found throughout the state in somewhat shaded habitats – especially in wetter areas where their favored passionflowers occur. This is a butterfly that prefers habitats with relatively dense foliage in which it can easily move from sunlight to shade. Trees and shrubs are important to it for use as communal roosts. We have had a dozen or more Zebra Longwings roosting each evening in shrubs beneath a live oak and a cabbage palm in our back yard. Roosts including as many as 75 Zebra Longwings have been reported. The general consensus for such communal roosts seems to be the adage “there’s safety in numbers”.

Carolina Wrens are resident birds in Florida and seem to be almost everywhere. They feed extensively on insects and spiders on or near the ground – and sometimes even in homes and sheds left with open windows or doors. These small birds will even nest indoors – building their nest of small twigs and bits of debris in space between items stored on a shelf – or even in an empty, topless container. Garages are notorious places for spiders and having a pair of Carolina Wrens nest in your garage helps reduce the spider population. These are birds that usually stay within a few feet of the ground and if you can leave your garage door just a few inches open, these wrens will find a way in and out.

The Monarch Butterfly with its orange and black wings, and look-alike mimic the Viceroy Butterfly are well entrenched in our educational system from grade school through graduate school. But details of the Monarch’s life and its mimic relationship with the Viceroy Butterfly are not so well known. Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed and caterpillars that emerge feed on milkweed leaves. These leaves often provide toxins that protect the butterfly – often, not always. That protective toxin – gained during the caterpillar stage -- can disappear from the butterfly over time because the adult butterfly feeds on the nectar of many different flowers. Milkweeds are popular plants as ornamentals that attract Monarchs. One most prominently for sale is Tropical Milkweed, an exotic species with beautiful red and orange flowers. Tropical Milkweed has become an invasive and lives through Florida winters, building up populations of a parasite of Monarchs that can impair the butterflies. Unlike Tropical Milkweed, most of our native milkweeds die in winter and the monarch parasites die with them.

The Northern Flicker is a woodpecker that is often seen feeding on ants living in the ground or in very rotted wood. Like other woodpeckers, it excavates a nest cavity, but its bill is more adapted for digging for ants than it is for excavating in wood – it is relatively longer and more curved than that of other woodpeckers – to accommodate the long tongue that it uses to secure ants. It may excavate its cavities in very rotted wood, but will also excavate a nest cavity in the ground or in Styrofoam -- such as sometimes used in roof edging.

Spring brings more than blooming flowers and a rise in temperature; it also means that cane toad breeding season begins.

The Northern Mockingbird is one of the most conspicuous and well-known resident birds in Florida. It is well-adapted, for urban and suburban life where landscaping includes an open mix of mowed grass, trees, and shrubs. As a result of its status as a year-round resident, its habitat preferences, conspicuous behavior, and its presence through much of North America, it is no wonder that the school children of Florida selected this species to be our State Bird.

The Rosary Pea (also known as Precatory Bean, Crab’s Eye Vine, Jumbie Bead, and many other names) was native to tropical Asia. As humans became more mobile, they took the shiny red-and-black seeds with them. Sometimes deliberately, often accidentally, they have been planted in tropical and subtropical areas around the world. Missionaries and artisans found that the seeds made beautifully shiny bright-red rosary beads, necklaces, and bracelets. However, piercing one of these seeds for such things creates a serious threat. Rosary Pea seeds are very hard and less likely to cause harm if swallowed intact. But, if crushed by chewing, the toxins inside can be lethal. Birds will eat them, but can’t digest them and they are defecated intact with a bit of fertilizer, thus aiding their spread. Rosary pea is now very common in peninsular Florida.

Common Gallinules are resident birds found in ponds and marshes across Florida – especially where tall reeds, rushes, or cattails line the edges in shallow water. More northern populations are migratory. Adult Common Gallinules are somewhat chicken-like in appearance, but have blue-gray feathers, a bit of brown on the back, and white feathers that form a horizontal line along each side. Adults have a yellow-tipped bright red bill that extends to form a shield over its forehead. Young chicks are covered with black down – except for the top of the head which is nearly bald. Their tiny wings are bare, looking like pink toothpicks sticking out from their side. Downy chicks also have a red bill with a yellow tip – but no shield over the forehead. As the chicks grow and change plumage, they become dull gray birds with a dull, somewhat mottled yellow-brown bill. Older chicks stay with the pair and help feed the younger chick – a behavior known as “aunting”. As the bill of an older chick takes on the bright red color of an adult, the male chases it away.

In the mid-1800s there was a massive emigration of humans from the Old World to the New World – brought on by tough economic times. It was the unemployed, the farmers, and others seeking a new life in the “promised land” of the United States. They knew little about that land except that they could start a new life. They brought with them what they could – including birds that they relied on for pest control – English Sparrows – now known as House Sparrows. Wagon trains headed west and ships doing trade around the world took cages of these sparrows.