Snow and Saw Grass

The bright red of a male cardinal against new snow is one of January’s delights in the northeast. Along with a mixed group of regulars at the feeding station today, a male cardinal showed his colors. Others included a dozen mourning doves, several white-throated sparrows, a few juncos, two house sparrows and a song sparrow.

Back from three weeks in Florida, it was only a couple of hours before a female downy woodpecker and several starlings found out about my replenishment of suet in the cage.

Always fun to watch, the northern visitors are a far cry from large summer crews. But during our Florida visit from Dec 27 – Jan 17 we managed to make up for the lower numbers up north by tallying a huge assortment of wildlife in the binoculars, if not close at hand.

Wood storks have returned to the Audubon Corkscrew wildlife preserve east of Fort Myers after two winters of not nesting – a disturbing absence for birdwatchers, but not unnatural as the birds require very precise feeding conditions before they will choose a nesting site. This year’s rain schedule did the trick, providing the right water levels that will sustain enough food for the adults and chicks over several critical weeks. Local reports said they need up to 400 pounds of fish to nurture a single youngster through its first few months. We saw a dozen nests when we visited just before New Year’s Day and the number was up to 60 two weeks later.

In several venues we managed to spot Bald Eagles, Osprey, red-shouldered hawks and lots of ugly turkey and black vultures; dozens of egrets – downy, reddish, great white and cattle – and the largest numbers ever of white ibises along with a few glossies. Others making the list: northern shrikes, blue jays, blue gnat-catchers, a variety of warblers, anhingas, cormorants, mergansers, blue-winged teal, muscovey ducks, pied bill grebes, moorhens, coots, little blue herons, great blue herons, brown pelicans, royal terns, various gulls and red-bellied woodpeckers. Among the mammals, raccoon, manatees and dolphins showed themselves during an Everglades trip and a river otters plied the lake by our condo.