faulker015

Black scoters have been turning up in both of my primary eBird areas (Arapahoe County, Colorado, and Boone County, Missouri) in recent weeks.  These sea ducks breed along Arctic Coasts and on tundra lakes of Alaska and Northern Canada, wintering along both coasts of North America as well as the Gulf Coast. While they occasionally turn up on reservoirs and lakes of the interior, they are not as common away from the coasts as their white-winged cousins.  Black scoters are usually encountered in flocks, bobbing in the water of coastal bays and diving for mollusks, crustaceans and other aquatic invertebrates.  When observed on lakes of the interior, they tend to be alone or in small groups; most move on to coastal areas for the winter but some stay on inland lakes if adequate food is available and the waters remain open. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to observe this year's visitors to Colorado and Missouri but I have often seen wintering black scoters off Long...

The entire Gulf Coast of Florida, from the Keys to Pensacola, is especially vulnerable to storm surge as hurricanes and tropical storms come ashore.  Counterclockwise winds push water toward the coast on the "right" side of storm's eye, forcing it across the low country and up the coastal rivers. This process is accentuated along the Florida Gulf Coast due to the topography of the Gulf itself.  A broad shallow area, representing the west portion of the Florida Platform , parallels the State's Gulf Coast; as ocean water is swept in by the storm, it cannot displace downward and builds to destructive depths across the barrier islands and coastal lowlands, leveling structures and flooding the landscape. Hurricane Michael, now a Category 4 storm, is poised to come ashore near Panama City this morning.  Storm surge is expected to reach 13 feet or more in some parts of the Great Bend before the hurricane and its remnants cut a swath of destruction across the eastern Panhandl...

On our way out of Pensacola, Florida, this morning, my wife and I visited Tarkiln Bayou Preserve State Park, southwest of the city.  The Preserve's 4200 acres stretch east of Perdido Bay, occupying (and expanding) the former site of the Perdido Pitcher Plant Prairie.  Known for its orchids and carnivorous plants, the refuge is accessed via a network of earthen trails and boardwalks. Short on time and de-energized by the heat, we settled on the Tarkiln Bayou Trail (1.5 miles roundtrip), which leads southwest from the parking lot on State Route 293.  This paved walkway first crosses a woodland of slash pine and saw palmetto and then snakes atop boardwalks where pitcher plants (primarily of the white-topped species) abound in the shallow wetlands.  The trail ends on the east shore of scenic Tarkiln Bayou, which is surrounded by tidal marsh and empties into Perdido Bay. This State Park is named for tar kilns, locally used in the 1800s to process pine tar that was collect...

The Florida Panhandle is known for its sparkling white beaches, a trait that results from their composition.  The "sugar sand" of this region is composed of fine, ovoid quartz crystals, eroded from the Blue Ridge Mountains and deposited in the Gulf of Mexico by the Apalachicola River. Spread by currents within the Gulf, the quartz crystals are a primary component of beaches all along the Florida Gulf Coast but are least "contaminated" with shell fragments along the Panhandle.  In beaches along the Florida Peninsula and Keys, variable amounts and color of shell fragments alter the appearance of the sand; in some areas, the shell fragments predominate and the beach is gray, tan or nearly black. Here on Pensacola Beach, the white sand is dazzling in the bright afternoon sun, squeaking beneath your feet and producing a sharp contrast with the clear, turquoise water of the Gulf.  As one might expect from the above discussion, shells are small, mostly white and far less a...

Since the red tide was worsening on Longboat Key, we decided to head to the Northern Gulf Coast and settled on Pensacola Beach, an area that neither of us had visited.  The seven hour drive was uneventful, rather devoid of interesting wildlife; an exception was a huge number of cattle egrets on ranchlands to either side of Interstate 10, just west of Interstate 75.  Also of note was the change in character of the rivers, from the clear, tea-colored water of the peninsula (flowing through limestone and sandy soil) to the muddy water of the Panhandle rivers, draining the clay soils of the interior. Nearing Pensacola, we cut south on Route 281, crossing the broad east arm of Pensacola Bay to Gulf Breeze before continuing out to the narrow barrier island of Pensacola Beach.  As is typical of the Northern Gulf Coast, Pensacola Beach boasts a scenic strip of white sand, backed by modest dunes and hotels.  While it is surely a delightful location for sun worshipers, surfers...

For the first time since we purchased our condo on Longboat Key, a group of brown pelicans has established a roost on a mangrove island, some 50 yards off our seawall in Sarasota Bay.  Common local residents, these marine birds breed along both coasts of North America, from Southern California and the Mid Atlantic States, southward. Brown pelicans generally nest and roost in colonies, preferring offshore islands where they are relatively safe from predators; here in South Florida, mangrove islets are most often used.  Once their breeding season has ended, some wander northward as far as British Columbia and New England, returning to more southerly latitudes in the fall; vagrants may even turn up along major river valleys, especially in late summer. Comical looking but highly skilled as fliers and divers, brown pelicans usually feed by plunging into schools of fish, using their bill pouch to snare their prey.  Often observed at fishing docks, looking for handouts, they are...

Wanting to get closer to the red tide destruction, my wife and I visited Whitney Beach this morning.  Stretching along the northwest edge of Longboat Key, it is both the most scenic stretch of sand and (in my opinion) the best birding location on this barrier island.  As expected, the beach was littered with dead fish, eels, rays and horseshoe crabs and the variety of birds was far below normal. Wandering among the dead, we endured the nauseating stench of rotting sea life.  While a couple of yellow-crowned night herons and a dozen shorebirds (black-bellied plovers and ruddy turnstones) scoured the beach, they stayed clear of the victims; brown pelicans and large flocks of laughing gulls passed overhead or lounged far offshore.  Except for a lone hunter with his metal detector, we were the only humans on that popular beach. Though the algal counts have waxed and waned along Florida's Southwest Coast, the red tide is expected to persist until a tropical storm or cool ...

Since we had a wedding to attend in South Carolina in mid August, we decided to spend the second half of this month at our condo on Longboat Key, Florida.  Unfortunately, in the weeks leading up to the wedding, we learned that a severe and persistent red tide had developed along the coast of Southwest Florida.  Nevertheless, we decided to investigate for ourselves. A toxic algal bloom of Karenia brevis , a red tide results in extensive fish kills, littering the beaches with rotting fish; a neurotoxin released by the algae may also kill dolphins and manatees and, this year, the corpse of a whale shark washed ashore.  In addition, particulate debris from the abundant algae wafts in on the sea breeze, causing eye, throat and lung irritation for those humans who do not abandon the region altogether. We arrived to find that the dead fish odor was indeed strong along the beaches but that the wind-blown irritants were rather mild.  Though we will likely depart earlier than ...