Skunk Ape! WTF?

So I inevitably got an email asking me what the F a Skunk Ape is! The Skunk Ape is a hominid creature that lives in Florida. It gets its name due to having ape-like features and it stinks, much like a skunk! It's basically Florida's answer to Sasquatch and the Yeti. I haven't heard of any claims that the Skunk Ape has been sighted recently, but according to a reliable source (Wikipedia!) sightings were much more prevalent in the 60s and 70s. No coincidence that a lot of people smoked beaucoup weed and popped LSD during that era! 

I actually thought I saw The Skunk Ape once! I was birding in Madison County and came across a homestead in the middle of nowhere. It was one of those places that reminded me of that movie, Jeepers Creepers! The curtains twitched as I drove past. The road I was on dead ended at a river, so I had to turn back and pass the creepy homestead again. As I drove by, I saw a hominid type creature standing amidst a pile of trash, scratching its ass and picking its nose. It looked to be a male but I couldn't be sure. I was in Madison County after all! It was covered in hair and wore a pair of boxer shorts and sported a very dirty stringed vest or wife beater as they're known as in the US. I spoke of my fear for being in close proximity to two bellowing bull gators in my previous post. Yep, I was scared driving past the Skunk Ape of Madison County as well. I jest of course; Madison County is a fine county with nice people....and The Skunk Ape!

There's actually a website dedicated to The Skunk Ape. You should take a look, it's fucking hilarious! People go looking for the it and you can buy Skunk Ape T-shirts and other cool memorabilia. I'm gettin' me a Skunk Ape T-Shirt!

The Skunk Ape

So if you're in the woods or swamps of Florida and you see a big hairy beast and it smells like ass, you may well have spotted The Skunk Ape of Florida. Something you can tell your Grand kids while roasting marsh mellows over a campfire. It'll scare the crap out of 'em and they'll  do as they're told.

I was just looking for an excuse to post a clip of my favorite commercial!

The Channel of Death!

I like being a human! We've got it pretty good, don't you think? So many cool things at our disposal. Most of us have adequate shelter, food and security, and we really have nothing to fear, except maybe Skunk Apes, Aliens and Chuck Norris. There are a lot of other organisms though that have a much tougher life than we do. Every day, they wake up and face extreme danger from one minute to the next. Fish, for example, have a pretty tough life. There are a plethora of organisms that want to eat the hell out of some fish, me included, so they (the fish that is) spend much of their day trying to avoid being eaten. At St Marks NWR I witnessed the daily struggle that fish endure. It was quite entertaining!

I was doing my weekly shorebird count at the refuge, mostly on Mounds Pool 3, as that's where most of the birds are. The pool or impoundment is slowly drying up, as there has been very little rain recently at the refuge, so the fish are gathering in the channels around the outer edge of the pool. The channel is several hundred feet long, about 20-30 feet wide and about 4 foot deep. The fish have attracted a lot of attention, and from their perspective that attention is probably unwelcome! As I was counting the shorebirds and enjoying my morning I came up with a nickname for the channel. The Channel of Death!

Death awaits an unwary fish on both sides of the channel!

Wood Storks like to eat Largemouth Bass

Great Egrets wait patiently for their prey to venture too close and then wallop, they grab them with their dagger like bill

Reddish Egrets chase their prey and remind me of the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park

Snowy Egrets also employ a sit and wait tactic

 this juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron walked slowly along the edge of the dike searching for smaller fish

The fish were having a very bad day! All manner of birds were puttin' a hurtin' on them. Catfish, mullet, bass, panfish and shad were all on the menu and the orders were coming in thick and fast! The channel is 4 foot deep you say? More or less. Well why don't the fish just swim to the deeper water and hide? The wading birds won't be able to get them, right? Yepper, that's why they are lining the edge of the channel where the water is shallower. Hiding in depper water in most parts of the United States would be a wise tactic to employ, but here in Florida....no where is safe!

here fishy, fishy!

Wallop!

This mullet is having a very bad day!

So as I was saying, it's nice being human and yes we are relatively safe on land in most parts of the world. Yesterday I got to experience 100% genuine fear! It was both exhilarating, and terrifying at the same time. I was about half way through counting dowitchers, a rather tedious task, when I heard a very familiar sound. It's hard to describe the sound a bellowing bull alligator makes, but it's pretty awesome. I looked up from my scope, and about 50 feet further down the channel, was a bellowing bull gator. Cool! I went back to counting dowitchers. I was merrily counting away when a real sense of dread came over me. I shivered, and looked up. About 20 feet in front of me was a bull gator in full threat posture and he was staring right at me! I positioned myself behind the tail gate of my truck and stared back. It bellowed right there in front of me! The other bull gator took exception to this and started swimming towards us! Great, now I've got 2 horny, pissed off bull gators sitting in the water a mere 20 - 30 feet in front of me. The dowitcher count was put on hold for a while!

Awesome! My camera lens was set at 100mm for this image!

400mm! What a spectacular experience! The water literally jumps of their back as they bellow!

After about 20 minutes of chasing and posturing the two bulls decided to go back to their particular section of the channel. The other gators, about 30 of 'em, were not interested in getting close to these two guys, who were considerably larger. The one above, bellowing, was around 10 foot long. Like the birds, the gators were depleting the number of fish at a steady pace. They were taking fish about once every 5 minutes and I was there for 2 hours!

just when the fish thought their situation couldn't get any worse!

Black Skimmers

Mounds 3 had a lot of shorebirds. The highlights being a single Whimbrel, 6 Marbled Godwit, 9 Red Knot, 15 Stilt Sandpipers, a single Pectoral Sandpiper, 21 Wilson's Plover and 4 Spotted Sands. Other birds of interest included 9 Roseate Spoonbills, 9 Reddish Egrets, 149 American White Pelicans and 6 Gull-billed Terns.

Roseate Spoonbills

Black-necked Stilt

Mixed flock

A splendid morning! It's great to be human!

Whinging Hawks!

At least one juvenile Broad-winged Hawk has fledged from the nest near the maintenance area at the park, and has been flying around, bitching up a storm!

Broad-winged Hawk - juvenile

We've had a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk flying around in our neighborhood as well. It's not stopped bloody whinging either! You'd think it was bloody starving to death the way it carries on! A Golden Orb Weaver has taken up residence on the back porch! One of the biggest I've seen.

Golden Orb Weaver

Shorebirds and St Marks NWR tomorrow morning, and then next Saturday I'm off on a pelagic. Sweet!

When in Rome

Had a meeting down at the refuge this morning, and thought it would have been rude not to have a quick shuftee down the lighthouse road to see what was about. Had my first 2 Belted K's of the fall (migration that is, it's still summer...unfortunately!), a Spotted Sand, Reddish Egret and a couple of Marsh Wrens. Took a few pictures. They're a bit crap but what the hell, I'm not sleepy yet so I might as well do something, because there's absolutely bugger all on the TV. 700 channels of total shite! There'll be a Housewives of friggin' Tallahassee before long. Ah yes, pictures...back on task!

Gator bait!

It's mother was freaking out and alarm called the whole time I was watching this fluffy ball of cuteness. It paid no attention to her at all. Not one bit! Kids, who'd have 'em eh?

Bloody Hell it's hot down here!

juvenile Great Blue Heron

photo shop made the original image a little more interesting

male Needham's Skimmer

Purple Gallinule on Lake Hall

It was another nice evening at the park. There were lots of Needham's Skimmers down by the lake as well as the Purple Gallinule, which ran away upon my approach, making me suspect it had young hiding somewhere.

As I was leaving there was a Great Horned Owl hunting by the maintenance area. Small four legged mammals beware!

Best Birding Days # 4 - Bald Point State Park

October 15th 2004 was and still is my best birding day in the state of Florida. I had only lived in the state for going on 10 months and I had visited Bald Point a couple of times previously and fell in love with the place. I get a special feeling when I'm birding there in the fall, I believe it's the best site in Florida to watch visible migration.

I arrived at the state park around 8am and it became apparent there were a lot of warblers on the move. Mostly Palm's, which seemed to be everywhere. It was hard driving down the park road without hitting them, I rolled along at a steady 5mph! As I climbed out of the truck I could hear migrants calling as they streamed over, heading north! Heading North? Bald Point is like a mini Higbee Beach, at least that's my theory. When a strong cold front pushes through overnight, migrants find themselves caught over the Gulf of Mexico. Some keep going but a lot of birds re-orientate and fly back towards land. The island on which Bald Point is situated, is shaped a little bit like an anchor with the right hand (or eastern) fork being Bald Point, which points north towards the mainland. Birds filter along the island until they find themselves heading north along the Bald Point peninsula and then some will stay in the park, while others cross Ochlockonee Bay and make second landfall on the mainland. I developed this theory after many visits during fall migration especially after seeing many migrants coming in off the Gulf in the first couple of hours of the morning at the KOA, which use to lie (destroyed by Hurricane Dennis) on the southern most side of the island. 

A strong cold front had passed over our area overnight on October 14th and all I knew was that birding the coast after a cold front, was a good idea! 

Like I said there were Palm Warblers everywhere. Some were feeding alongside the road and flocks of them rolled northward like a wave, heading for the tip of Bald Point.

Palm Warbler

I parked near the turning circle and began birding around there for a while, had the place all to my self! Birding migration hot spots with few or no other birders around still seems very odd to me, but I'm not complaining! I came across a single yaupon bush along the inland side of the sand dunes, and noticed a small bird hiding within. It took a minute or so before I got a good look at it, but boy was it worth the wait. A stunning male Nashville Warbler! I didn't have a camera back then, but if I had what I've got now, I would have had frame filling images to show off! Bloody typical. I've only seen 2 Nashville's since then and both have been uncooperative, which shouldn't come as a surprise because I had my camera on both those occasions! Anyway I watched this little gem for 10 minutes as it fed in the solitary Yaupon before flying off towards the turning circle. There were a lot of other warblers in the bushes, mostly American Redstarts and Magnolia's. I also had a couple of Black-throated Greens, a few Chesnut-sided and Tennessee's. Meanwhile there were still a bunch of birds flying over, small flocks that mostly went unidentified. A small group of Bobolinks flew over, low enough for me to glass them, although their call gave them away long before I saw them.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

 I wandered back around to the turning circle and was surprised to see a few birders had arrived. They were watching a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, a Rose-breasted Grosbeak flew by and crossed the bay! There was an older guy there and we got chatting about what we had seen. I lead him to where I'd seen the Nashville and we searched for it together for a while but got distracted by a couple of Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, that alighted near the point! The older guy's name was Jack Dozier and I had seen his posts on the listservs, so it was finally nice to meet him. He kindly offered to drive me down to Phipps Point at the other end of the island, and we had a great time of it racking up the species, including a Red-headed Woodpecker, which flew in off the Gulf and then headed along the peninsula towards the point. It was only the second one Jack had seen in that area. He told me about his yard on Bald Point drive, which sounded like the best yard in Florida, something I would learn to appreciate in the next year or so. We didn't have much at Phipps Point, although a few migrant hawks were now appearing, mostly accipiters. We decided to head back to Bald Point and to our amazement found 4 Scissor-tailed Flycatchers perched on a telephone wire just outside the park.

I took this picture of a Scissor-tail at the turning circle in October 2007

Bald Point is easily the best place in our area to see western tyrannids. October is a great month to see multiple Scissor-tails, Western Kingbirds and the occasional Vermilion Flycatcher. Jack had a Say's Phoebe once.

The action began to slow down but we still had hundreds more Palm Warblers moving through. A flock of 400 American White Pelicans drifted over, like diamonds in the bluebird sky, and we also had 5 Canada Geese come in off the gulf, heading north! Perhaps the most unusual sighting of the day.

Jack invited me for a bite to eat and we headed for Panacea. He treated me to a buffet lunch, which was very tasty. I was fortunate enough to watch birds with Jack on many more occasions. He sadly passed away on July 28th 2006. Jack was both a gentleman and a great birder, with limitless knowledge on the birds of our area. I am just glad I got to meet him, share a few laughs and most importantly, watch birds with him. I've probably had better days birding in Florida than October 15th 2004, in terms of species, but great company made that day even more special.

Jack Dozier (left) with John Murphy at Bald Point

Frolicking Goatsucker's!

Spent an enjoyable 4 hours at the refuge this morning, counting shorebirds. Despite the heat and the kabillion yellow flies I managed to make it back intact, although I had to drink two large bottles of Powerade back at the car, in order to rehydrate. Most of the refuge was devoid of shorebirds except Mounds Pool 3, which is where the majority of them were hanging out, along with several hundred wading birds, a dozen American White Pelicans and a small flock of frolicking goatsuckers! The goatsuckers were Common Nighthawks to be exact, and there were 6 of them flying around a small stand of pines. They didn't seem to be feeding that much, they preferred chasing each other around and displaying! One of the males kept stooping down like a Stuka dive bomber and when he did, made the most incredible noise, that sounded a little like a bellowing alligator!

I think this is a female

It was really hard to get flight pictures as they were flying around so bloody fast, I couldn't keep on 'em! Fortunately a male alighted in a nearby pine and spent some time calling before falling alseep! He was completely oblivious to my presence and I managed some alright digiscope shots.

 

After about 10 minutes all 6 nighthawks ceased their frolicking and alighted in their own individual pine tree. As I ventured further along the dike towards the northern end of the pool, a couple of white pelicans drifted over my head.

 

I began counting the shorebirds, which took a while, during which time I noticed 8 Roseate Spoonbills, all juveniles. They're pretty common in the central and southern part of the peninsula, but we don't get spoonbills all year round in the panhandle. We typically get juveniles, who go wandering after they have fledged from their breeding colonies in Tampa Bay and Florida Bay.

There were also 6 Reddish Egrets running around in typical velociraptor fashion. Who'd be a fish eh? Shorebird numbers were typical although 5 Red Knots and 20 juvenile Wilson's Plovers were noteworthy, at least for me! Time well spent.

Get a Tattoo and Save the World

Just got through reading Tom McKinney's latest post on Birding Blogs and just had to post this. A birder by the name of Tristan Reid is trying to raise money for Bird Life Turkey in order to save some seriously endangered species from becoming even more seriously endangered! He is going to have 10 species of bird that occur in Turkey (selected by popular vote), tattooed on his right arm (at his own expense). If he raises over 10K then he'll have his left arm tattooed with another 10 species, and his whole torso tattooed if he raises over 50 grand! Fuckin' awesome! My hat goes off to the bloke and I think it's great. I think every birder should now go out and get a tattoo of their favorite bird. I've always wanted a Peregrine Tattoo!

So, please donate a couple of bucks to Tristan's cause. It's a very worthy one, and I don't know about you but I can't wait to see a picture of his tattoos when their done.

Read about Tristan's Cause here

Donate here

Are you ready to save the world and its birds?

St. Marks NWR

Maisie and I drove down to the refuge this morning, to see what we could spot along the lighthouse road. It was blazing hot and the yellow flies were out in force, so we stayed in the car and watched in comfort! You try managing a 3 year being bitten by yellow flies! We saw a lot of cool stuff along the road, mostly wading birds, including a couple of Reddish Egrets. The tidal creeks were full of bait fish and larger predatory fish, like Red Drum, were taking advantage of the easy to catch food. So was this Snowy Egret.

Snowy Egret

There were thousands, and I mean thousands of dragonflies but they weren't perching, probably too busy eating skeeters and such like! An American White Pelican flew over Mounds Pool 2. There were a lot of birds on lighthouse pond and this Osprey was seeing if it could grab a fishy meal.

Osprey

We started to get an appetite for fish ourselves, so we headed to The Seineyard in Woodville and had lunch. Maisie loved her catfish fingers, and I had me some grouper! Good times. I'll be back down there tomorrow to do my monthly shorebird count....can't wait!

It's raining turkeys and frogs!

We have finally been getting a decent amount of rain the last couple of weeks, so maybe the mini drought is over? I bloody hope so. The rain and clouds have kept the heat down, which is a blessing at this time of year. The other good thing about the rain is it brings out the wildlife. While doing my rounds on the trails this afternoon, I came across a few critters who were taking advantage of the rainy conditions.

I think this is a Southern Toad

Yellowbelly Slider (female) just finished covering her nest

these male  turkeys were out on the power line

on my way back to the shop I came across this hen

she had two large youngsters with her, here she is with one of them, a male I believe

I saw 23 Wild Turkeys altogether. There were at least 50 Wood Ducks on Lake Overstreet and I also saw a couple of juvenile Mississippi Kites. More thunderstorms rolled over the park later on in the evening, which brought out a plethora of frogs. Had a hard time driving down the park road, trying my best to avoid squishing them!

Bucket List # 8 - Crocodile bird

I am sure that most of you who visit my blog regularly, know that I love shorebirds, and there are quite a few on my bucket list. Number 8 is perhaps the most beautiful shorebird on the Urf! Egyptian Plovers can be found across sub-Saharan Africa. It's called the crocodile bird due to a myth/legend. It was once believed that the plover had a symbiotic relationship with crocs. Crocodiles would open their mouths and let the plover pick bugs and parasites off the inside of its mouth! There is no evidence that this ever actually happens but the nickname stands, which is cool. I much prefer the nickname to the accepted English name.

Photoshop can make myth, a reality!

Another reason why the Crocodile bird is so cool is that it buries its eggs in warm sand to incubate, which allows it to spend more time cleaning teeth! When the sand gets too hot the adults wet their belly and then lay on top of the buried eggs to cool them down.

Mississippi Kites

Had an enjoyable morning cooling off at Wakulla Springs yesterday and while there watched several MIKI's flying around, hunting dragonflies. Sucks to be a dragonfly!

 

The kites will be leaving for South America soon, and I am sure they are starting to gather at places like the Tram Road Sewage Farm, where dragonflies and other tasty morsels are abundant! Maybe I'll head down there one day in the near future and see how many have gathered. Watching  a couple hundred Mississippi Kites is quite a sight.

Ground Control to Major Tom!

Been a while since I put finger to keyboard, mostly because I've been up north in Ohio for 8 days, enjoying family time, cool weather and yummy Perogies! Best bird sightings on our trip included Warbling Vireo singing in the woods along the southern shore of Lake Erie and a Red-tailed Hawk catching and killing a Chipmunk right in front of us. Of course I didn't have my camera!

Back down to earth with a bump this week, with lots of downed trees to cut up at work, after all the nasty thunderstorms we've been getting in Tallahassee. We really do need the rain though, so we're not complaining, and the temps have been lower than normal, which is keeping summer ass at bay!

During a safety inspection this afternoon, I came upon 3 Toms feeding in their usual spot near the power line creek. Got a few shots. Broad-winged Hawks have been very obvious in and around the gardens as well.

I kind of gave up on the June challenge when we went on vacation but I think I got 76 species for Leon County in total, which isn't bad considering I didn't really have much time. A visit to Tall Timbers would have boosted the total up near 100, so next year I'll try harder. I think Miami-Dade County won the challenge this year with over 150 species, which is pretty impressive for June.