Sunday, December 30 – Ed – Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years

We are back in 18 degree Okemos, after two days of driving. Time for a little catch up.

Wednesday the 26^th we met up with Tom and Claire at Myakka River State Park. The nice police officer there didn’t give me a $291 ticket for doing 31 in a 15 mph zone. I wasn’t deliberately speeding. I was looking at a kettle of vultures when, as the nice officer politely pointed out, I drove right past the 15 mph speed limit sign. We both got a gull-billed tern and American pipits. And I also got Wilson’s snipe. We should have gotten the pipits and snipe back in Michigan. Kind of lame that we had to go to Florida to get Michigan species but they still count.

Molly and Claire in the canopy walk at Myakka State Park.

In a new gastronomical experience we got to try some gator bites at the snack bar. They were tough, chewy, and tasted just like deep fried batter. For all I know they battered up a pair of old alligator shoes. I can add a new one to my eating life list but it’s nowhere near as good as scrapple. I have tried horse and cat meat and would put both above gator. At least as prepared by the Myakka State Park snack bar.

After leaving Myakka we used the iPad to help us find burrowing owls. Driving around Cape Coral looking in people’s yards we found the adorable little guys at the Cape Coral library. Right at dusk and another lifer for me.

We celebrated by going to play pool at some smoky den of iniquity in Ft. Myers called the Miscue Lounge. One of the google reviews (which I only read after going there) stated that the food and drinks are cheap, it is by far the cheapest place in town to play pool, and some of the clientele are “sketchy” but nobody bothers anyone else. That’s a pretty good description. Pool on good tables was $8 an hour. We played about an hour, I had a couple beers, and we had a couple sandwiches. Total tab was $25. It was worth the $25 just to check out the clientele. Sketchy is a pretty good description. This was kind of the “you mess with me, you mess with the whole trailer park” crowd. Molly got to see a different slice of life. But, nobody bothered us even though we pretty much stood out like a bunch of Yankee birders in a redneck bar. I have to say though; there were some damn good pool shooters in there. Slicker than deer guts on a door knob.

Friday morning Lise and I checked out some Ft. Myers Beach coastal areas. We got sandwich tern and Wilson’s plover. The sandwich tern was listed as very common but we just were not finding it. When we finally keyed one out, with the scope at a long distance away, they started flying over our heads. I think they were laughing at us.

After the beaches we went inland to the Babcock-Webb State Management Area looking for red-cockaded woodpeckers, yellow-throated warbler, and possibly even a Bachman’s sparrow. They also have wetlands that have bitterns and rails.

The red-cockaded is a federally endangered species. The red-cockaded area in Babcock-Webb is pretty well defined and the nest trees are marked so the biologists can easily locate them. They have a very distinctive call and we got them by an audible. That put me at 349.

After that a cold rain started in. We would stand in the rain trying to find a yellow-throated in mixed flocks of warblers. Sometimes we would have the van hatchback up so we could stand under it. No luck with the warbler. Then while I was walking by a wetland area, not one but two American bitterns flew up. Number 350, in the rain and almost at dark. On the way out we stopped at the shooting range to use the bathrooms. Virginia rails were calling in the wetlands by the outhouses. Number 351. Icing on the cake. 100.29% of my goal for the year. There is still a day left and a Townsend’s solitaire hiding out in Berrien County.

Lise trying to stay dry.

Wetland the bitterns flew out of. They didn’t care about the rain.

Ed after 350. Wet, tired, and happy.

I finished up my Florida birding on a misty, moisty Saturday morning at Bunche Beach Preserve. The preserve is listed as a great shorebird place. It has a long flat beach going out into the Gulf. At high tide you can walk out 100 yards out into the gulf and still be in knee high water. At low tide there are large expanses of pools and wet sand that are great for shorebirds. I was there at 7:00 AM with a low tide hoping for a snowy plover, whimbrel, or long-billed curlew. No luck on them but did see a bald eagle through the mist, had nice views of ibis and pelican flocks flying through the fog, and a piping plover. None added to the count but all were nice to see.

Shorebird tracks, Bunche Beach Preserve.

Whenever I see a photographer with a big lens I have to mention to Lise that his wife let him buy a big lens. Feelings of inadequacy I guess. Then at Bunche Beach I saw a nice lady photographer with a huge lens. Even her’s was bigger than mine. I may need therapy.

Florida is an interesting place in terms of both wildlife and people. Some serious weirdness in both cases. Judging by billboards, the whole southern Georgia – northern Florida area seems to be a mix of fundamentalist churches and porn shops. Maybe some combination of the two. Sacramental strippers with semi parking out back.

There are lots of people packed into the coastal areas. Some pretty sterile areas with multilane divided streets and gated housing areas. You can’t walk to get groceries, you have to drive. But then there are lots of really neat natural areas, both coastal and inland. Unfortunately all packed with people. If you wanted to do anything you had to do it early. By 10:00 any place worth visiting would be packed. Granted we were there at a major vacation time. I think 75% of the people were either European or Asian tourists and the other 25% us goddamnyankees. In the Navy I was told by a southern friend that goddamnyankees was a single word that just naturally rolled off the tongue. Like the word Momma. Anyway, the natives just hunkered down wishing we would dump our money and then go away as fast as possible. Probably coming at the end of January would be a different story but that ain’t gonna happen until Molly is out of the house.

The flora and fauna add another dimension of serious weirdness. Plants that don’t need soil. Vultures that attack cars. Honking big lizards with big sharp teeth. Big pink birds with spoon shaped bills. The beaches are full of interesting shells but we often forget there are some strange looking shellfish that live inside those shells. And then there are manatees. Like Stefan said, fat, puffy, and harmless. They just float in the water, not hurting anyone or anything. I would be up for throwing any jackass that hits them with a boat propeller in jail.

We really didn’t scratch the surface. Florida deserves some more investigation. Big water, interesting natural systems, weird plants and wildlife, and 70 degree January temperatures beat the daylight out of Okemos.

So I guess tomorrow I need to do a yearly wrap up and figure out what I’m doing for the next year. Any suggestions?