A Birding Trip to Florida - Part 2

In the air of south Florida, the vulture reigns under the hazy sun, but the clouds soon tower up and drop tropical rains, creating the great wet glades that once almost entirely covered this land without hills. We the people, perhaps in search of the fountain of youth, have drained and ditched these glades until only a remnant is left.

Though a tenth in numbers what they once were, there are still plenty of hunters that roam the glades, and all of them carry lethal weapons, those bills that move with unerring speed and silence to harvest the riches of the shallow waters. There are seven species of long-legged, long-necked hunters that are present in south Florida in enormous numbers.

The largest is the ancient stork, in America called the wood stork. A thousand pairs are already nesting right now near Corkscrew, and we saw them perched upon the trees and soaring nearby. They have thick bills curved only at the end, and stand and move deliberately with the stiff, starched pose that gives them their name.

They soar as consummately as their cousins, the vultures, showing off their white bodies and half black wings. In the dry season, they can catch fish simply by dragging their bills through the receding pools. They carry this food to their own young, whom they will abandon if there proves to be too much water and poor fishing.

The white ibis is another long-legged hunter of the marshes and shallows of southern coasts, and the most numerous of all the glade hunters. Flocks of a hundred or more were found roaming through the giant tree trunks of Corkscrew, talking and squabbling with each other. When sometimes spooked by a lurking alligator, they would rise as one with a fluttering rumble to alight in the lower branches. In morning and evening, great flights of white ibis in vees and lines would cut across the dusky sky to and from their roosting sites.

The glossy ibis is all dark, and hundreds of these covered the marsh at Shark Valley. At first we thought only a few glossies were among the tall grasses, and then suddenly several hundred would rise as one and rush in a swarm to another part of the marsh. Both ibis species are somewhat small, but make up for this deficiency by having a long downward curving bill they use to probe the muck for snails and crabs.

We also saw hundreds of egrets in many kinds of water habitats, on the coast, in ponds, rivers and canals, as well as wooded marshes. The great is the largest egret, twice the size and as white as its sprightly cousin, the snowy egret. They, along with the herons, are solitary when stalking, standing still in the shallows and darting their straight powerful bills at an unsuspecting fish.

There are two kinds of herons that are abundant in the glades. One is the little blue heron, whose every feather shines with the same vibrant color. There is a gleaming texture in the blue that is almost extra-terrestrial, a being from another place and time, too exotic for mother earth. The blue of the other common heron, the tricolored, is sedate by contrast, and it has the expected mix of white and brown to soften the overall effect.

There are some great blue and green herons in south Florida too, as well as night herons, but these other two herons far outnumber them. The great blue is the largest of all the herons, and I was looking forward on this trip to seeing the distinct 'form' of the great blue that is found only here. The hotel and resort area of Fort Myers Beach was the surprising place to find this special great blue heron.

A lagoon between the hotels and the outer beach was filled with shorebirds and wading birds, and there was this gleaming giant, the great white heron. Its long breeding plumes dangled down from the back of its head, and its tail plumes dipped into the water. The massive stature of the bird, from the bill to the legs, made the great egret seem puny and dull by comparison. This bird seemed the solitary monarch of all the thousands of waders that still glean the land of glades and slow waters, the fountains of life in south Florida.