The Bugs Are Back

Sunday, February 12, 2017

It was another relatively cool night, but Ellen's cold had turned into a night-time cough and she didn't get much sleep. That didn't prevent her from getting up early to join Sally for a morning bird walk. They did the campground loops this morning before going off to Eco Pond, searching for the Barred Owl that we keep hearing in the mornings (and sometimes in the evening).

Their Eco Pond loop was pretty successful. As the water level continues to drop, more birds arrive looking for fish. Today, the Snowy Egrets were joined by both Great Egrets and White morph Great Blue Herons (Great Blue Herons that are pure white but not albino). They had all three white birds standing next to each other and the sizes really stand out. The pond was now also attracting Reddish Egrets and Roseate Spoonbills in addition to the already present Tri-color Herons, Black-necked Stilts and Greater Yellowlegs.

I decided to ride out to West Lake and Mrazek Pond, a nice 15-mile round trip. West Lake still only had coots, but now I could see two big rafts. There were at least 500 birds. Mrazek Pond was really active today. In addition to the big flock of Blue-winged Teal, there was a solo Northern Shoveler, Pied-billed Grebes, more coots, at least three Belted Kingfishers, Anhinga and the Great Blue and Tri-colored Herons. But the bird of the day was a Green Heron, usually pretty secretive, that popped up on a branch only about ten feet away and hung around for quite a while until a car pulled up. As I was about to leave, I could hear a pair of Barred Owls hooting in the woods across the road. Maybe that's why Ellen and Sally couldn't find them.

After a quick stop at the visitor center to upload my sightings to eBird, it was back to camp. Ellen, Sally and Harry were all in their screen house and I joined them. Ellen had brought over Sally's birthday presents, an Everglades pin, a giant mosquito and the "Buff" which would come in handy later.

It was a bit warmer today than yesterday, so not much activity was undertaken beyond reading and stationary birding. I just wrote up the previous day's journal entry. After lunch and Ellen's editing of my musings, I rode up to the visitor center with my Mac to upload to the Speedy Journal. While I was there, I collected email.

In the mail was a message from the local eBird reviewer with a comment about my West Lake coot sightings. I'd listed them as American Coot, the only coot I know. The reviewer asked that they be listed as American Coot (Red-shielded) or (White-shielded). Apparently there used to be a "Caribbean Coot" which is now known as the White-shielded sub-species. Most coots have a red spot on the top of the bill (where a forehead would be), but in the "Caribbean" it is white not red. According to Sibley, the White-shielded variant is found in at least small numbers in all populations, even in places like Michigan (a bit far from the Caribbean), and it was deemed that it was only one species with two variants. Got that?

I replied to him that I hadn't known about the difference and with the rafts being backlit by the sun, it was impossible to see the spot (I don't think I've ever noticed it) and the eBird program didn't even offer the variants. In any case, it seemed prudent to just call them American Coot.

I received an almost immediate reply. Evidently, the variants can be selected by loading the complete eBird taxonomy and that the Red-shielded was the default bird. I still don't agree that I should assume that with that many birds, that they were all the same variant, but I updated my list to Red-shielded.

We went out to dinner at the Buttonwood Restaurant at the visitor center to celebrate Sally's birthday. As we were about to leave from the campground, Ellen asked if we should bring cash. I replied that it wasn't necessary, since the restaurant took credit cards, as that is how I paid the other day. We all got on our bikes and rode the mile to the restaurant. When we went to enter, there was a sign on the door, "Cash Only Today". Their card processing link had failed. With much grumbling, I rode back to Speedy to find cash.

The restaurant has a pretty limited menu and we all ended up getting fried grouper, as it seemed the only local speciality (aside from the "Gator Bites"). As it was the last time Ellen and I got it, it was quite good. We all had the restaurant's excellent Key Lime Pie for dessert.

It seemed a bit buggy when we left the the screened confines of the Buttonwood and we stopped in the vestibule of the vistor center to escape the mozzies and get a last Internet fix. Harry decided to ride straight back to camp. Ellen, Sally and I rode over to the marina in the hope of seeing the Black-crowned Night Herons that roost there and we have seen in the past. We never got that far as the hordes of mosquitoes descended on us. Even though we were drenched in repellant, we high-tailed it out of there and back to camp to the relative safety of our respective Roadtreks.