Bird Beauties of Viera

If you can't get a good photo of a great blue heron in Florida, there is something wrong with you. But you can get wonderful photos of all kinds of much scarcer and shyer birds at Viera Wetlands, and the photographers all know it.

A glossy ibis preens its coppery plumage.

You beautiful thing. For this birdwatcher, for decades, glossy ibis have been just dark shapes through a spotting scope, and now here you stand right before me, preening unconcernedly.

A drake hooded merganser hides in the rushes, yellow eye like a panic button.

He gathers his mate and out they glide, and I am too close to get them both in (I'm digiscoping with Bill of the Bird's Leica rig, and loving every second of it). For more on the equipment I rather inexpertly used for my closeups, go to Jeff Bouton's Leica Birding Blog.

White ibis are confiding and nice, and pretty much everywhere around Space Coast.

 But the limpkin is a specialty of Viera Wetlands, and this is where wonderful photographers like my friend Marie Read come to immortalize them. Just look at her gallery of a spectacular limpkin fight at Viera!

They were in a much more pacific state of mind when we visited, but the air still rang with their staccato calls. Limpkins, more closely related to cranes than to their lookalike ibis, specialize in eating apple snails, and the empty shells strewn on the shore attested to their efficiency. I love their Latin name: Aramus guaruna. The origin of Aramus is unknown, according to Ernest Choate's Dictionary of American Bird Names, but the Guaruna are a tribe inhabiting the Orinoco region of Venezuela. There are not many bird names in Choate's gem of a book whose origins are unknown, and I like the air of tropical and systematic mystery surrounding this strange and noisy bird. According to Whatbird.com, it's called "Limpkin" for its jerky, awkward flight, but the Internet is full of tautologies. Jury's out on that. I can attest that the limpkin's haunting, hollow, cackling call has much of the resonance of the sandhill crane's purr, and that's good enough for me. Here's "Inspirational Sheila's" brief video of a limpkin calling. I have to confess I hadn't really thought about the limpkin's crane affiliations, but the voice truly gives it away. Listen to this bird's putts and then the full-out cry.

It was good to see and hear this dusky little brother of the crane.

News flash! A palm warbler actually on a palm!!  a sabal, to be exact. I like this photo a lot. You can even see its shadow.

                                                                                   

A shoveler nearly in full breeding plumage. Most of them were looking tatty.  

A lady of the lake (tricolored heron) fishes the clear waters. Hard to believe they were in a shower or toilet at one point...

Sun has its myriad attractions, but the colors of tricolored herons really show nicely in overcast, as on this rainy first visit to Viera.

The once endangered wood stork, another success story for conservation. I really though I'd never be lucky enough to see one, so critically endangered were they when I was growing up. It seems Ol' Ironhead is everywhere now. How lovely to have a true stork in North America. Nyah nyah, Old World. We got one too

and ours has pink feet!

Spectacular birdie he is. I almost drove off the road on my first visit to Fort Meyers in the early 90's, when I saw a bunch of wood storks in a roadside ditch. While I was growing up, wood storks were quietly making a comeback in Florida, spreading through the Southeast. I hadn't known. And now they are a reasonably common sight.

So many things to celebrate! It is what it is, and much of it is good.

Florida CSI

As we looked and took in all that Viera had to give us, we relaxed. We moved from one beautiful thing to the next. We all fell into the moment, let it stretch to hours, and didn't want it ever to end.

Phoebe found a pile of coot feathers, and the hunt was on to nail the murderer. For certainly it was premeditated.

Webb is an ex-cop, and he launched an investigation. 

 Figuring the coot was nabbed down by the water, he quickly found fresh pugmarks of a bobcat.

He'd had his suspicions anyway. He didn't think a raccoon would be quick enough to grab a coot.

The coot's wing feathers had saliva on them and looked chewed on, consistent with mammalian predation. An avian predator will bend wing feathers with its beak, but leave no saliva or fraying.

It was fun to puzzle out a natural mystery with a real live cop, one who taught crime scene photography, among other things. Webb doesn't miss much. He kept pointing out gators to Liam, for which Shoom will be forever grateful. 

Viera Wetlands is actually a water treatment facility, though you might not know it to look at the carefully managed vegetation in the impoundments. It has to be the most beautiful turd tumbler I've ever seen. A destination all of its own. And the management is to be congratulated for encouraging birders by maintaining nice diketop roads and making it accessible to us.

 The vegetation acts as a huge biofilter for the sewage, and the air is sweet and the birds are well-fed and healthy. Each impoundment has different chemistry and ecology, and it's fascinating to see.

And yet...A native Floridian I spoke with said, "I won't go there. I hate what's happened to Viera. You think it's beautiful now. You should have seen what was there before they made it into a sewage treatment facility." And this is the paradox that is Florida. People are always mourning what was there before the now. I understand, being one who remembers the before in my own region, and took her comments as sincerely as they were meant. I was glad I didn't know that when I visited. I was taken in by the birds and the marshes, and I hadn't stopped to think about what might have been replaced. Viera itself is bloated with strip malls, pavement, golf courses and planned communities, and there has to be a place for all that waste, doesn't there? 

I will say this. Viera Wetlands is a spectacular bit of  environmental mitigation. But mitigation it is, and I am glad there are those who still remember that, who treasure their memories of before. Head in hands, deep cleansing breath. Forge on. It is what it is...

Dear Friends, Ducks and Egrets

 This is me, in bird form, in Florida. Basking, that's all I wanted to do. To go from 22 and grey flannel skies to 72 and sunny: pure heaven.


There are so many reasons for an Ohioan to be excited about going to Florida in January. First, our lousy winter weather. The cold and snow clamped down at Thanksgiving and haven't let up yet. Sunny winter days? We've had a handful, but not nearly enough. The snow shovel is parked permanently at our front door. There's no sense in putting it in the garage, because most mornings we have to use it to get to the garage.

Second, the famous Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, at which Bill of the Birds has been featured as a speaker and field trip leader for the last four years or so, while I've held down the wintry fort here in Ohio. I've always been resigned to hunkering down in January, because that's his busiest travel month. This year, we decided to switch off. Had I known what fun it would be to speak and help lead a field trip there, I'd have been yanging about going years ago.  From my first phone conversations with festival pillars Barbara Hoelscher and Neta Harris, I was hooked and ready to rock.

Third, the people I might be able to meet face to face. I set about machinating to try to lure three Floridians whom I was dying to meet to the festival. And succeeded.

Fourth, fabulous birds and animals. Enough said.

About those Floridians. Two of them are Bill and Michele Webb. Bill comments here (although not quite as much as he does on Murr's blog) as the always insightful and gracious Digitalzen. And he blogs at Crackerboy, where you can read his account of our get-together. Of course, he can't restrain himself from plugging Murr yet again, even in a post that was ostensibly about ME.

See, I was sure in my bones that I would like Crackerman as much in person as I do online. Sometimes you just know. I have to say I knew that about Murre, too.

And I cackle to point out that for the time being I have it all over Murre, because I have spent Quality Time with Bill and Michele and she has, as yet, not. And I have the photos to prove it. We decided to take a MonkeyCam shot of the five of us, and Webb, having much the longest arms in the bunch, was elected to hold the Canon G-12. Because its screen can turn and swivel backward, you can point the camera at your own face and see what you're shooting! Oh!  For those who are not familiar with MonkeyCam, that's Bill of the Birds' name for a photo of the photographer taken by the photographee.  And I'm my own grampa.

Well, how do I work this? Webb took this shot without knowing it. Har!

We finally got it mostly right, Webb having to fold himself into the shot, being one tall drink of water. His wife Shel is constructed on a more human and reasonable scale. Durn Phoebe's going for TDOW status, too, and Liam is following closely behind. Sigh. Shel and I will have to drive minicars in the Shriner's parade when that happens.

Phoebe snapped off a few photos, including this one of the three of us Chimping in the Viera wetland marsh, wondering out loud whether we're looking at pennywort or sumpin' else growing down there in the water.   We ran through our considerable mentalbotanical catalogues and came up empty.

                                                                                
And we spent a completely lovely day together doing just such timeless and meaningful things. We looked at beautiful birds who flock to the Viera Wetlands to fish and feed and mate and party. Where else can you be assured of arms-length looks at American bitterns? (and often least bitterns?)          

Blue-winged teal glide by

and slice the air with sky-blue wings. What a nice detail to put on a duck, that big epaulet of dusty cerulean.

There are all manner of leggy waders like this suspicious little cattle egret

 this lovely snowy egret (taken in the rain on our first, aborted attempt to visit the wetlands--we got squalled out).

and his great egret cousin, afrill in aigrettes

These are the plumes, grown as breeding season approaches, that very nearly caused the great egret's extinction in the U.S. They looked so nice on ladies' hats that great and snowy egrets were shot right in their nesting colonies to supply the craze. And from the outrage of bird lovers everywhere grew the National Audubon Society, to oversimplify it quite a bit.

Like fox fur and coats, aigrettes look infinitely better on egrets. What a trophy this ol' boy would have been for the hat hunters! Now he can wear them with pride, and not have to worry about being rubbed out for his plumes.

Undone

Bill with two-month old Phoebe 

Bill brings out the old salt in 8-month-old Liam, terror of the Muskingum River

Running Lionel trains on the huge beautiful train table he built for Liam's birthday

William Henry Thompson, Jr, William Henry Thompson III and William Henry Thompson IV

Christmas 2009

That wee infant with the starfish hands grew up and loved her GeePop the whole way. Lucky Phoebe, lucky GeePop.
Thanksgiving 2010. Photo by Annalea Thompson

Presiding over Thanksgiving dinner, 2010--he always carved the turkey and patted the mashed potatoes

Playing the jazz brunch with BT3 on fretless bass at the Blennerhassett Hotel, January 2, 2011

William Henry Thompson Jr. August 9, 1932-January 25, 2011

So deeply loved, so sadly missed

Rhinos-Learning by Seeing

I devoured the rhinos with my eyes and camera. I was like a blind person, wanting to feel them all over, to try to figure out what I had in front of me.

A rare look at the udder of a female, lounging briefly on her side. She wasn't nursing.

This one was.

Sun through the sparse hairs of a rhino tail.

A moment of repose, resting a head so heavy. I wonder if they wish they were impala sometimes.

The great folds of skin and fat, the scooped hollow ear. All warm and soft where things have to bend and move; armored and hard where they don't. But warm all over, like sun-heated concrete.

So much bone in that massive head, protecting the brain. The horn, for defense, surely, but also to part the thorn scrub where they live, to let them through.

Rhinos are huge, powerful, but with almost unimaginable gentleness for a beast so weighty. I still marvel that they can be trusted with our eggshell skulls and frail hands, but they just seem to know that we are breakable. 

Would that we had been so considerate of them.

The rhino's horn, which is made of fused hair, has long been thought to have medicinal properties; powdered down, it was the Viagra of the early 20th century. In addition, ceremonial sword hilts, much in demand in the Middle East, were carved from rhino horn (mostly that of black rhinos). In South Africa, southern white rhinos have been terribly persecuted by farmers and trophy hunters. They very nearly vanished by the beginning of the 20th century--down to less than 200 animals. 

Concerted efforts to breed them in captivity and protect the remaining animals (anyone else remember the National Geographic photos of rhinos, each with its own personal armed guard?) allowed them to rebound. The world population now stands around 14,530. There are now more individual southern whites than there are individuals of all other rhino species combined.

Poachers still take them, and almost all of them live in South Africa in parks and game reserves. They're vulnerable, any way you look at it. 

I enjoyed seeing them in the wild in 1994. At Hluhluwe Reserve in South Africa, I remember seeing a huge female with a very long, thin horn. "That's The Witch," my guide, Peter Lawson, told us. "She's infamous for damaging vehicles." And indeed, this female ambled toward our vehicle, intending to scratch her huge bottom on its side, thoroughly scratching its paint and denting it. Peter sped out of the way.

I loved knowing that she could do whatever she wanted, ambling up to unsuspecting drivers, charming them with her proximity, then wrecking their paint jobs. And there wasn't a darn thing they could do about it, either. The Witch was Endangered, and she seemed to know it.

Smile for the camera, sweet rhino boy.

Now a nice profile. 

I don't need to tell you to be gentle with my babies. You know how to do that. 

Big Fat Baby Rhino.

What a difference a year makes!We were blessed to see Anan, the captivating little rhino who weighed about as much as I did when we saw her in January 2010.

 But this was January 2011, and Anan is now 17 months old. She's about half the size of her mom!

Still very much a rhino child, but well on her way to the 6,000 pound mark she'll reach as an adult. She's eating  hay and rhino pellets now.

I was astounded at how she'd filled in, filled up, grown overall. She even has a nice little horn!

My friend Sandy Brown, who was in another group visiting the barn before we did, was lucky enough to see Anan nurse from Zenzele, and she shared this photo with me. Ack ack ack!! She has to lie down to nurse now!

photo by Sandy Brown

Just thought you'd enjoy a little follow-up on the magical rhino girl Anan and her beautiful mother Zenzele. Many thanks to Sandy Brown!

I'm just back from the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival in Titusville, Florida. Took both kids with me. We had the most delightful time on Florida's beaches and in her scrubland. Oooh. That doesn't sound so good, does it? Put it this way. We loved Florida, and I'll tell you all about it as soon as I can. Until then, please read FloridaCracker's post about the meeting of two like-minded bloggers. And then make sure you bookmark his blog, because it is the BEST, and not just because he said nice things about me and my babies. If you like animals, nature, food, funk, fun, Florida, and graceful, sometimes loopy writing, check him out.